refriedgringo

Curse Of The Gypsies

2011-09-04T22:29:00.001-07:00

We have a dog now, this is such an American thing to do; to have a dog in the house, it reminds me of my youth. The dog is a puppy, some sort of a poodle, it is relatively smart except it tends to pace underneath my feet which means that I step on it sometimes. And I feel so bad about that, I pick the puppy up and console it for at least fifteen minutes and apologize. And then I feel like an idiot. It then dawns on me that all the dog has to do to get a little bit of attention is to plant itself strategically underneath my feet and hope for the best.

Then he's in my arms. I think that was his plan all along.

This dog was supposed to be my daughter Anna's. I was outvoted, I see no need for a dog in the house, but since the boy moved out I find myself on an island. My wife and my daughter outvote me often. In the old days I could at least get a tie and buy one of the girls off. Those days are gone. So now, we have a dog, and I find myself under his spell. This is what happens. I am taking care of her dog.

"He attacks my feet," Anna says, "I hit him in the nose and then he barks at me."

"He thinks you're playing with him. See how he doesn't bite my feet? Notice that?"

"Yeah, but why?"

"Because I ignore him. You hit him in the nose. He thinks it's a game."

Anna is still going to hit him in the nose when he bites at her feet and the dog will still bite her feet and not mine. And if we both leave at the same time and return at the same time, the dog will run to me first. Dogs are Gypsies. They don't bite the hand that feeds them and they know how to work you. I gave the Goddamn dog bologna the other night. He knows how to work me. This is what happens.

* * * *

Can't say about suburban San Diego, but in Tijuana you change neighbors like you change socks. When the newest ones moved in next door, we all raised a collective eyebrow. First thing they did was to post a hand-written card advertising that they read tarot and palms. Brujos or brujas, warlocks or witches, perhaps. It was hand-written with black marker on orange paper. An early Halloween.

We still aren't certain how many people live there. I had one hell of a time figuring out their native language, and I am fairly gifted, linguistically speaking. It wasn't hard to overhear them since they enjoyed yelling at each other. At first, I thought they were fighting, but eventually I came to understand that this is simply how they communicate. They yell. Okay. So long as they aren't throwing stuff, I can manage.

"My friend told me to be careful with them because they could be terrorists, they speak Arabic," Anna told me.

"It isn't Arabic. I know just enough Arabic to know it isn't Arabic. I don't know what it is, but they aren't terrorists and it isn't Arabic," I said, trying to reassure her. Not certain it worked.

For the record, I am fluent in English and Spanish. I also understand Italian quite well, surprisingly well. Also understand enough French and Portuguese to be able to translate in a pinch, and while German, Russian, and Polish would be failures on a test, I can actually tell the difference between the three. Same with Arabic and Farsi. Don't ask me why, I have no answer.

So their language then became a bit of an obsession, right?

* * * *

I like the dog best when it curls itself up in a corner of the living room and naps. It does that a lot when I'm the only one here. And the dog has fleas, and it doesn't matter how often you bathe or powder it, there are fleas. Rocio doesn't like that, and so I remind her that she cast the deciding ballot concerning us having a dog. The fleas do not bite me (nor do mosquitoes) and they don't bite Anna, we are apparently immune. But fleas love Rocio. I have no sympathy, she should have thought of that before she voted in favor of the dog.

This is what happens.

The strays here - and there are plenty - carry parvo like so much small luggage, so we can't house-train the puppy quite yet. He's only had one of the three shots he'll need, and we'll also need to get him fixed, I don't want to see him humping some stranger's leg. Going outside is not an option for a good while, right? Until then, he gets free food, free housing, and gets to poop wherever he sees fit. Wanna own a dog?

His name is Simon, at least he got a respectable name. If you've named your dog poofy or snowflake or something similarly ridiculous, then you probably shouldn't be trusted naming children. My father taught me well. The family cat was named Fred, the family dog, Tiger. Respectable names. I'm not certain that most dogs in Mexico are even named. They're simply turned out here, like horses on a ranch. Simon will not be turned out. Simon is the exact reason I didn't want a dog in the first place. There is some sort of voodoo at work, and I am a victim of it.

* * * *

The initial meeting with the Gypsies wasn't so swell, I was in a rotten mood. Sitting in my office, the power went out, and I lost a couple-thousand words, and then it came back. I sighed. Just as the computer booted back up, the power went out again, and I stormed out of my office. Rocio was staring at a blank television screen. Twilight had just turned it over to evening, and I went outside and the Gypsies were there. I marched out around to corner, more Gypsies, this time the men, and they were flipping switches trying to figure out why they had no electricity.

They were flipping my switch on and off, the main breaker to my house which is strategically located next to theirs. I yelled at them in English and in Spanish. Spanish worked. They stopped flipping switches and I stormed back inside, content that I once again had the magic juice, and to hell with them and their problems. Just as I sat in my office, the juice ran out again. Now I was upset.

Rocio's attempt to block me at the door was feeble, at best, as I was now armed with a flashlight and mad as a hornet. Anna had that oh holy hell dad's pissed just get out of the way look on her face, as she grabbed up the puppy. The Gypsy women were already apologizing by the time I took my third step onto the sidewalk. I waved them off. I wanted the patriarch, his fingers were all over it. I turned the corner and he was there. Apologizing.

I hit the switch and shined it into the box, a conclave of meters and breakers for a dozen of us all in one place around the corner. I focused the beam on my breaker. It was turned off.

"Stop touching my breaker," I said in Spanish. The patriarch was waving his hands wildly.

"Sorry," he said in English, with a wild accent making it barely understandable, "I don't know which is mine."

"There," I said. I pointed at the one next to mine. "I don't want you to apologize, just leave my breaker alone, that one is yours and this one is mine."

I stormed back inside. Rocio started to argue with me, and we briefly discussed my lack of patience. Her point was that I didn't have much with the Gypsies. My point was that they needed to invest in a flashlight. That argument will never likely be resolved.

* * * *

I just gave the dog some more lunch meat, so now we're out. He looked like he needed it. Anna went to some art exhibit. The dog sits at my feet, content, scratching at the fleas every so often. When I go into the kitchen to make myself another bloody Mary, he follows me. I'm guessing it's in hope of more lunch meat. I put that on my grocery list. Bologna for Simon. This is what happens.

I felt bad about my first meeting with the Gypsies, so the next day when I ventured out to the little store across the street, I asked one of the Gypsy women in passing if their electricity was okay. She smiled and said it was. When I came back and went inside, they were yelling again. I don't know why they yell at each other. I'm not going to ask.

I found out that their language is a Romani Caló, that most Gypsies no longer speak a pure Romani, that they have incorporated some sort of other language inside of the traditional Romani. In this case it's Spanish. I pick up about every third or fourth word, it's quite fascinating. A recent conversation in that little store with the owners revealed even more.

Apparently, they've been visited more that once by the government of Mexico, and they were threatened with jail time if their kids weren't enrolled in school here. I don't think the Mexican government can jail anyone for not enrolling their children in school, but I find it interesting that the kids don't go. They speak very good Spanish. They seem like normal kids. There isn't anything to tip off the fact that they are kids from a Gypsy family.

Apparently, the Gypsies often try to get stuff for free at that little store. That's what I'm told. Subsequent conversations I've had with the patriarch indicate that he makes his living on a computer. Figures. That orange paper with black letters has been replaced with a professionally printed banner. Tarot Egypcio, palm readings, and so on. Don't much want to know what he uses the computer for.

Rocio just came back from the sobre ruedas, the open-air market that assembles every Sunday up the hill from this place. She brought back a dog carrier. No idea what that means. I warned her to wash it down good with some bleach before she sticks Simon inside. I somehow feel compelled to take care of that freeloading dog.

And the last visit to market brought a comment from the owner of it, he suggested that the Gypsies wouldn't be around for too much longer, that apparently they don't pay the rent regularly. I couldn't say whether that's true or not. I know that no one sells a bleach that will help that situation, if it's true. And it would be a damned shame if it was. It isn't every day you get the curse of a puppy underneath your feet.

Isn't a doubt in my mind the Gypsies had everything to do with it.

Either Side Of The River

2011-03-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

It starts slowly here in Baja. The sky, normally blue with an occasional puff of a cloud, fills with more clouds, and the wind comes up. People bundle up in their coats if they brought one, and continue walking to wherever. It becomes noticeably overcast and people wonder why they didn't witness the change. Everything is gradual up to this point.

Small drops then begin to fall, merely a nuisance at first, but soon there is enough water to mix with the dry dust on the ground, and small muddy patches become exposed. The occasional pedestrian slips and skates along, and the drops become larger and quicker, and anyone with an umbrella employs its use. Water begins to pool in the once-dusty streets and passing cars avoid deeper puddles. There are about as many cars as there are pedestrians here.

Again, without fanfare, the sky has become angry and dark, and quickly the rain begins in earnest. Almost instantly water fills the gutters until they overflow, out onto the main boulevard, and pedestrians crossing any street soak their shoes and even their pants up to their shins. They stay to the inside walking on the sidewalks so that the water spray from passing cars cannot reach them. They hurry along now, pressed by the possibility of something worse yet to come.

When it gets really bad, streets running north and south on either side of the Tijuana River become small and powerful rivers themselves, bringing with them everything from large rocks and small boulders to used tires to all sorts of trash and tree branches. Cars moving east and west along the boulevard are often blocked. Even large vehicles that try and get through the rushing wall of water coming down from the hills above will be swept unceremoniously aside, saved from further disaster by a chain-link fence or a strip-mall parking lot light pole. At their worst, such storms claim lives.

* * * *

When it rains in Baja, I think back many several years ago to a time when I was struggling to learn the language here and when Rocio's father felt comfortable enough with me to take me to a ravine up the hill where some of his work-mates lived. It was Sunday, their only day off, and the ravine was littered with flimsy shacks strewn about with no planning. The idea was to build a shack where one could find or grade a small flat lot. On these small flat lots, whatever material could be found was used to make something resembling a shack, and in the shack there were curtains separating sleeping quarters into two or three sections.

No one was from Tijuana, everyone had come from somewhere else, ostensibly to cross into the United States of America to look for seasonal migrant work, but they decided to stay in Tijuana and work instead; or else, they were simply waiting for the right time to head north. We sat in front of one particular shack and shared Tecates while the wife of one man swept out the inside of their shack, earth floors. Their children were clean and appeared healthy, dressed nicely in slightly worn but very clean clothing. It humbled me greatly.

The recent rains here have been heavy at times, and that always makes me wonder whatever became of those people.

Where shacks once stood, houses are eventually built, and even in the many ravines that hug either side of the Tijuana River, either the government or a developer carves out dirt roads and improves unimproved and ungraded lots. Many of those areas now feature reasonably well-built dwellings with cement block the popular building material of choice. Why cement block? Money.

Since Tijuana began to develop, banks would not lend to anyone wishing to build a wooden structure. Not only does wood burn, but wooden structures can be disassembled and moved should the owners find themselves down on their luck and unable to make the payments. The cement block dwelling is a guarantee to the banks that even should the owner default, there is something tangible for the bank to recover and sell again. And often times, the banks do just that. This is what happens.

* * * *

When I came down to live in Tijuana about twenty years ago, I brought a pregnant wife, two kids, all of our possessions, and two dogs with us. The dogs - which I purchased when they were puppies - were brothers, both of which survived parvo. Neither survived for very long in Mexico. The dominant dog was the first to go, when we lived briefly on the north side of the Tijuana River, he escaped the backyard and was hit by a car. Again, this is what happens.

I buried him about five feet down, it was the hardest I've ever had to dig in my life. We were several hundred feet above the river, yet the soil was all hard clay once you dug six inches down. No amount of water softened it, and this was my first clue about rain in Tijuana. I pulled out perfectly round rocks, rocks that were undoubtedly shaped thousands of years earlier when the Tijuana River was broad and vast. I went through two shovels that day.

In the winter of 1993, before Anna was born, it was an El Niño year and the storms came like waves of blood-hungry soldiers. Luckily, we moved to the South side of the river before Anna was born, before the biggest storm that hit Baja during that cycle. The death toll from that storm will never be known. The remaining dog was never the same after that, I came home from work one day and found him dead in his doghouse. I would like to think that he died of loneliness.

Again, I dug deep, hitting hard clay, and struggled once again to reach five feet down. That taught me two lessons in life, that no matter which side of the river, the ground remains the same; and that while many say that the lack of water in Baja is a big problem, I remain convinced that even a little bit of water here is often times too much. The water on the hillsides of the river take the loose silt to the bottom of the hills, and no water is ever able to soak into the soil. Once at the bottom of the hillsides the silt eventually makes its way into the Tijuana River, and mingles with seawater once it is dumped into the Pacific Ocean.

* * * *

Everyone in Tijuana has a cellular telephone, myself excluded, even the children. When I think about that family that lived up in the ravine in the hills, I imagine that if they remained in Tijuana then they have more suitable housing. Even if they are still in that shack, I will lay odds that everyone there owns a cell phone. Twenty years ago, even for expensive residences near boulevards, there was a waiting period of three months minimum just to get a land line. The communications systems were still analog here back then, maybe up to fifteen years ago or so.

The water problem is slow to change, unlike communications here. The city tries to build proper drainage, but it's an impossible task to fight against nature and the type of ground you have to deal with here. The Tijuana River is now concrete-lined from the Pacific Ocean all of the way back to the Rodriguez Dam, and the drainage has improved in certain areas. But the hard clay and the unpredictable flow and the lay of the land will never change.

I have never owned another dog since the first two died for more than a few days. When we lived up the hill, a small stray pup - a mutt - wandered in front of our house and we took him in. We fed and watered him and he responded nicely. Then he caught parvo. We took him down the hill and paid the veterinarian to put him out of his misery, and paid the vet extra to save me a busted shovel or two. At some point when we build a house south of here and closer to the coast, I might get another dog. Even if I'm unlucky with it, the ground is much more forgiving there. Maybe even, so is the rain.

Dirty Old Town

2011-01-22T01:59:00.001-08:00

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Ewen MacColl did not write Dirty Old Town in 1949 about Ireland, in that while this great big giant love of Irish bands seems to have elevated the tune to the point where people think it’s Irish in origin, fat chance. (Fat chance, of course, being Scottish, right? MacColl’s folks were Scottish, fat chance eh?) The town that MacColl was referencing in that great tune was Salford. Salford was a part of the industrial revolution in England, now Britain. Britain used to make a lot of stuff. So did the United States of America. That all pretty much went away, this is what happens. So, MacColl grew up in Salford. The government thought he was a communist. His father had a hell of a time finding work because the entire country blacklisted him. Bastards. I know how that feels.

I’ve been blacklisted a time or two.

I don’t care what people think about me, I reckon I’ve done some pretty good time on this planet and I don’t need anyone’s approval. I made lots of stuff between then and now. By the time I met Rocio, I didn’t much care about carving out my mark on some big tree. I remember the day that Anna was conceived. Rocio pointed to a spot on the floor of the house we were about to rent there in Rowland Heights. I didn’t argue. Anna won’t read this, but she was made right then and there. Purposefully. We talked it over and decided to have a kid. And we did. Fat chance, eh? True, all true, I promise.

Dirty old town, dirty old town.

* * * *

“God,” I started. “This is the third time I’ve asked you for anything. Just let her be healthy and let her live. I promise I’ll do my best to raise her good. That’s all I can promise.”

Clouds are drifting across the moon
Cats are prowling on their beat
Spring's a girl from the streets at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Tijuana, 1993, that’s where I was, washing my hands and all suited up. As though I could change a thing. That baby was coming out, to hell with anything else. They gave Rocio a shot (and I laughed and she still wants to kill me for that), and here we go. Of course, no men ever entered the arena, and there I was, the exception to the rule, apparently. On my behalf, look, I saw two Cesarean sections, both courtesy of my ex. I could handle a normal childbirth.

I held Rocio’s hand and she nearly broke it. We had a baby girl, in Las Brisas, Tijuana, that place isn’t even there anymore. Everyone looked at us beforehand like we were nuts. Here I was, a Gringo, we could’ve had her over there, on the other side. Rocio probably would’ve agreed to it. I didn’t want to.

Dirty old town, dirty old town.

The years, you know, they just fly by. Anna did most of her schooling here in Mexico. Now she’s navigating the U.S. system and it’s horrible. She gets a B in geometry and an F in physical education? “Sorry Dad, I forgot my gym bag.” And of course, my response? “Cramps. They come in really handy.” I would’ve used that excuse. I really would have. Cramps. Why not?

I Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
I Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

* * * *

So there I was, dressed out, and the doctor was starring up my wife’s gown. He nodded as though everything was going according to plan. I thought he was a clown. I mean, what else was he supposed to do? The nurse was too embarrassed to stay in the room, she left. My wife went into transition and almost broke my hand. I’ve had my hand broken before, so I know of what I speak. I’m amazed she didn’t break it.

I'm gonna make me a big sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
I'll chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

We took Anna home that night. I had to fight with the staff. One day Anna might ask me why she was born in this dirty old town. Well, it’s your dirty old town, Anna. I wanted you to have one. I wanted it to be here. I wanted this dust to be yours, something you could hang on to. You’re going to be eighteen. I want you to have this. I was born in San Diego, but I hang on to Rowland Heights. Baby, you get Tijuana. All of it. I did this on purpose.

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

* * * *

Dirty old town, Anna. I just want you to have this dirty old town. If I can’t give you anything else, then I give you this.

Shell Game

2011-01-18T02:10:00.001-08:00

Over a decade ago, I found myself stumbling around in downtown Tijuana with a cup of coffee in my hand. It was in the early morning, before nine o’clock, before most Tijuanenses were out and about in that area. The wife and me, well, we were having issues so I was renting a cheap but very clean apartment down near the old police station, where I had no kitchen, just a bed and a dresser and a radio and a lot of time on my hands. Those were the days when I made a living playing the ponies. And I did, and I made rent and had plenty left over and certainly enough to get a cup of coffee.

I couldn’t sit still back in those days. This had to be on a Monday or a Tuesday morning, both dark days in terms of betting a track, in that the main tracks were not racing – otherwise, I would have already been at the race book plotting and scheming. So I walked down Avenida Constitución and sipped my coffee and watched the locals meander on their way to whatever. Keep in mind, these were still the salad days of Tijuana. This was before the twin towers fell, before the border became a Goddamn mess, it was a different place then than it is now.

The locals mostly just passed by and no one even looked up. Fish tacos, that cart was so amazing, the smells entered my nose and teased me, but my hangover told me to pass. Worst thing you can do with a hangover like mine was to eat on it. It’s like feeding a dragon, you don’t; let the beast sleep it off. The coffee was enough. The walk was good. And then it happened.

And then, magic tricks appeared and I was the target of a shell game.

* * * *

The sun here will not be denied an entrance. To hell with those places that has no sun! The sun is here. It is wonderful. Vitamin “D” for everyone. Welcome to Baja, pack some sunscreen. Yes, I know, it’s the middle of January. Suit yourself, but trust me, you’ll thank me later. It was eighty-five degrees today. If you get skin cancer, don’t blame me because I warned you in advance.

My days are full, lazy but full. The propane trucks are coming more early every day, and now it isn’t just honking but there’s recorded music, too! There is a jingle that I won’t bother to translate here, but basically the truck is singing a happy tune about enabling you to purchase a tank of propane. I suppose that the idea is twofold: be annoying in an entirely different way than to simply honk the horn, and attempt to make the purchase of a tank of propane gas some magical thing like a visit to Disneyland.

I roll out of bed, make some coffee, and write for a while, what else is there?

In the afternoon, I go shopping. I take my Calimax Club Card, as though it is an enchanted artifact. I buy ingredients to mix together for dinner. Sometimes I buy a bottle of tequila. When I go to pay for my items, they always ask for my magic card, because without it I might as well have entered the store naked. They scan the artifact and hand it back to me and at the end of everything I pay for the items and tip the person bagging my groceries and step back out into the hot sun. During my walk home, I imagine that if there is a God of transaction, then I have certainly done my part to make that God happy.

And then, once home, I peruse the receipt and learn that I saved sixty cents against a fifteen-dollar purchase.

Of course, I get even. I realize that the card is nothing more than a tool for the grocery chain to analyze purchases. People who buy a head of lettuce are likely to purchase two onions. Shoppers carting off a couple of pounds of ground sirloin are likely to add a package of hamburger buns and a bottle of catsup. And so on. And then there’s me. A bag of serranos, a jar of apple sauce, two pints of sour cream, a half-kilo of bacon, a liter of tequila, and a forty-watt light bulb. Good luck with that, Calimax.

That’s my own little shell game, patent pending.

* * * *

So maybe it was twelve or thirteen or fourteen years ago, and there it was, suddenly and unexpectedly, and they went way out of their way to pull me into it. The old man behind the cloth-covered crate fumbled while trying to hide the ball, giving away the location as if he had lost his magic touch. A twenty-dollar bill went down, some Mexican yanked it out of his pocket as though it was the most precious thing he owned, and he slapped it down on that temporary table as though his very life depended on his intuition. And there it was, the ball, right where he pointed. The crowd cheered.

The first thing I was amazed at? The twenty-dollar bill. Nine in the morning, and someone yanks a Jackson out of their pocket? In Tijuana? Sober? And then, of course, the game went on, and the few there were all in on it and obviously kept trying to urge me to donate to their cause. I knew better. After a few more twenty-dollar bills went down, successfully compensated, I told the one that was the most vocal that, unlike them, I didn’t walk out onto the street with the big money like they did. In halting Spanish. And they knew they were the ones that were had.

And they left, all of them, very upset, looking for tourists I imagine. Me? I was delighted. Free entertainment, the kind you couldn’t buy with twenty dollars anywhere. Anytime. That old man was a magician. He made things appear that should have been invisible.

* * * *

And so I read this morning that the tiny and precariously positioned country of Taiwan has fired some test missiles, ostensibly designed as a show of force and a means of defense against China. Apparently, almost a full third of those missiles declined to strike their intended targets, some of which boldly failing in full view of world media. That old man is right back at it. He fumbles that ball, damn it, he just can’t help it, and you know where it’s at and someone is urging you to plunk down a twenty and make a wager. The United States of America is the mark, right? Simple stupid, stupid simple.

I know - I shouldn’t read World News but it’s the same damned story. I could live every one of my last days in Tijuana and never part another newspaper and I wouldn’t be missing a thing. It’s all just a shell game. The minute you don’t play is the minute you start to get smart. Next time you swipe that Club Card, do humanity a favor, buy some dog food, a flash light, and a can of corn. You’ll screw the game sideways and it isn’t like you’re not going to use those items in the long run. After all, the moment you plunk down the money, that old man is going to magically get his shell game back. But then, you knew that, didn’t you?

Tomorrow will again be hot. Do yourself a favor if you venture to Baja, and remember the sunscreen.

The 2012 Problem

2010-12-29T00:27:00.000-08:00

Someone brought up 2012 earlier, so I thought I would take the opportunity to explain what is going on here, since I've had a small amount of time to study the Maya and their culture.

According to many scientists, the world will end on December 21st, 2012. Ancient Mayan computers, called "Big Giant Stone Tablets", were not programmed to continue beyond that date. At the time, programmers used an ancient computer language called "Olmec", inputting code through an ancient interface called a "chisel". The problem was that in those times the Maya were limited to base-18 and base-20, thus creating the systematic problem of "vigesimal roll-over". Scientists have been attempting to rectify the problem by inputting a newer code in base-64, but have so far been unable to master such intricate commands as "two straight lines underneath a squiggly one" and "dude with large head and big bulging eyes".

Hope that clears things up.

Terrorist Alert Threatens Holidays

2010-12-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

TORONTO – Multiple unnamed sources are reporting that a level red terrorist alert will be issued beginning tomorrow. The sources, who wish to remain anonymous due to not having authorization to publicly comment, state that it is believed a fringe terrorist group originating extreme Northern Canada that goes by the name of San Taclas, plans on leaving packages distributed randomly, world wide. No word has been given by authorities close to the situation concerning the expected contents of the packages, although explosives and bio-hazardous chemicals have not been ruled out.

Little is known about the San Taclas. It was a wire-tapping anti-terrorist effort launched during the Bush administration where officials first learned of the group, through telephone conversations between what one source describes as, "Frighteningly young individuals that apparently have the capacity to communicate through a complex global network." The name "taclas" is French in origin, second-person singular past historic of "tacler", one who tackles. French authorities deny knowledge of any link the San Taclas has to France itself, although one spokesperson suggested that perhaps Quebec would become a focus of investigation. Government officials from the Canadian province have yet to issue a formal statement, but a spokesperson from Ontario was quoted as saying, "Quebec is a separate issue."

According to documents made public by the Freedom of Information Act, active operatives of San Taclas include extremely short people with large ears. They are believed to have been recruited for their ability to squeeze in and out of tight spaces and their acute sense of hearing. A leader of the terrorist group, who goes only by the name of Nicholas, is believed to be hiding in the most remote regions of Northern Canada in the company of his wife. Her name is not known. Efforts to find the location have failed, in large part due to the rugged and hostile environment of the region. The only wildlife able to withstand the frigid temperatures are seals, polar bears, and surprisingly, reindeer.

A press conference is expected to be held on December 24th, where authorities are likely to reveal more information concerning the situation.

Romance

2010-12-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

How can you see into my eyes
like open doors?

Leading you down
into my core

Where I’ve become so numb

Without a soul,
my spirit sleeping somewhere cold

Until you find it there
and lead

it

back

home...

* * * *

Mine is a love story. Perhaps. I usually have to think about it, but not about her. I can’t tell you in terms of quantity how many times I came close to leaving this house, nor will I count the times that I did. It isn’t out of embarrassment. She doesn’t read my columns. Neither do my children. Too many words. This is what happens.

Anna was conceived on the living room floor in a house in Rowland Heights, California. This is one of my fondest memories ever. It was over eighteen years ago. Slowly after that Rocio leaked. We all leak. She timed it perfectly. I’m not so certain I could handle it as well now as I did then.

We married a few months later. Right there in Rowland Heights. I would have invited you all if I had known you back then, if we’d have been friends. My parents would’ve appreciated it. The Mexicans certainly represented. Again, this is what happens.

When Rocio leaked first, it was on the front porch of that house in Rowland Heights. It was all I could do not to fall down. Sometimes people go to war and we’re just too wrapped up in our own lives to realize it. I got it, it hit me right upside the head. She had come undone. I couldn’t blame her at all.

* * * *

(Wake me up) wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up) wake me up inside
(Save me) call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up) bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up) before I come undone
(Save me) save me from the nothing I’ve become...

* * * *

"Well, baby, I’m drinking and I’m smoking."

Of course, she doesn’t like the response. First boyfriend was killed by the cops here. The son is named after him, "Juan". Then came her fiancée, he was murdered in cold-blood in Long Beach, California while she was still pregnant with Juan. I don’t utter his name in this house, I respect her that much. Holy shit. So, I found this all out when we were betrothed. And she said to me this: "When I die, I want to take my children with me."

Which, obviously, was a suicide note in the making.

We argued over that one for weeks. Ultimately, she changed her mind. So, back then, when we got married, I can’t for the life of me remember what we danced to. I can only promise you that it wasn’t exactly well planned. Later, I told her that our song, that the song where I always thought of her when I heard it, was "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters. This was, and remains pretty much true. But our real song is this one. On both sides, I promise you.

After all, I leak too.

* * * *

Now
that I know

What I’m without
you can't just

Leave me

Breathe
into me

And make
me real

bring

me

to life...
* * * *

And so, I married her and I reckon we saved each other. After all, I was still beating my skull against the wall from my first marriage. An ex, two kids. I still miss those kids. I still dream about them, they’re still that young and I can still be their father. Last dream was just a few nights ago. It’s the latest of hundreds. Never mind the boy has a daughter I’ve yet to meet and the girl is approaching thirty. They are still four and seven in my pea-brain.

These things beat me up constantly.

But you know, there are so many other things I never talk about with the wife. My writing is one, I’ve learned, she just wants to sleep and I don’t blame her. Her past and my past, those are other things left untold. What we have is now. Right? No idea about the kids. Television, I reckon.

"Really dad, did you write something again?"

I could always lie. "Just more lesbian stories."

They would never read them. Thank God for lesbians.

* * * *

Frozen
inside

Without
your touch

Without

Your love
darling

Only you
are the life

among

the

dead...

(all this time I can't believe I couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me)

I’ve been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything

(without a thought without a voice without a soul
don't let me die here)

There must be something more...

bring

me

to

life…

* * * *

And you know, it doesn’t always take all of this. Sometimes two people look at each other. Something clicks. But I think it’s when two people understand a simple thing together and they never have to even communicate it, I think that’s when it really comes together. You know, figure it all out on your own time. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few hundred words to hide away here.

And do me a favor? Don’t tell my wife that this is our song. But it is. On both sides. She saved my ass, too.

Powis Castle

2010-09-10T21:54:00.001-07:00

It was nineteen hundred and ninety four, when dinosaurs apparently still roamed the planet Earth and my Spanish wasn't all that stellar, and I wandered into the Caliente Race and Sports book at well before eight in the morning. Slaking the appropriate scratch sheets from plastic bins hanging on the wall near the entrance, I then went upstairs and Robert was already there, barely, adjusting his markers and pens and other accessories in that same persnickety way he always did; I was just a slob. Cesar, our waiter, simply brought up the coffee, he didn't even bother to ask us. Gringos and their habits. We always tipped Cesar out very nicely.

"It's raining over there," I said, unpacking a notebook and a record book and spreading the West, Central, and East issues of the Daily Racing Form across my half of the table.

"I know," Robert said. He seemed delighted by it.

The television monitors in front of us flickered to life, tracks at New York and Florida would come first. The coffee, as it usually was in the race book, tasted weak. Both of us had bought our Racing Forms the day prior, and both of us had studied them for hours, well into the evening, me here in Tijuana and Robert from his rented room in downtown San Diego. It could have been any Saturday back then, but it wasn't. It was the first Saturday in May, and in the late afternoon, the 120th running of the Kentucky Derby would take place at Churchill Downs. One of the monitors switched to a shot of that track. It was a swamp.

Robert grinned.

* * * *

Where I worked at the time I first became interested in horse racing - at a then-famous old foundry in South Gate, California - a man who I refer to as my first mentor in handicapping worked as the purchasing agent at that foundry, and he donned other hats as well. His name was John Billings, and everyone called him "Big John", because he was big, really big. Big John taught me about speed and class, two important aspects when trying to pin down a winner in a race. It wasn't long before I was spending Friday evenings with Big John at Los Alamitos, they had this room down a short flight of stairs that led up to track level, and for around three and a half dollars you could get a prime rib dinner. Good times, good times.

Before that, I would go to Santa Anita with a friend, John Folsom, and we shared a love of the track and a love of drinks containing gin. We didn't go often, but we certainly went often enough. Even back then I knew better than to bet every race. I would read the newspapers daily and watch for one specific race and save my money and bet on one horse in that race. It was a strategy that worked very well. I saved three hundred dollars to bet on Desert Wine when he ran against John Henry on dirt. It didn't bother me at all to bet on a horse that went off at five to two odds back then. I collected my winnings and bought more gin drinks. I didn't know any better.

I would never bet a horse like that now. Robert Marotta, my second and perhaps my last mentor, taught me a lot about value. He taught me that there is absolutely no sense in betting a horse that heavily when there were so many races to choose from and so much value to be found. He was right. I found that I could do more damage with a hundred dollar bankroll on any given Saturday than I could do with three hundred dollars bet once every few months on a single horse. I have Robert to thank for that.

I lost track of Big John decades ago. He would be approaching seventy if he's still around. Big John had started as an illustrator on Madison Avenue, and the pressure drove him out of there. How he wound up at that foundry is anyone's guess. While I was preparing documentation packages at the company copy machine, he would tell me stories about the track. "Andy's Winston," he gushed, "was about the crookedest pacer I ever got a tip on."

He taught me how badly fixed the harness races were.

John Folsom moved up north, and one Friday evening after work he decided to drive to Reno. John was a careful driver, in that even before there was a law concerning seat belts, he would make all of his passengers fasten theirs or he would tell them to get out. I found it ironic, coming from someone who shot rapids in a kayak regularly. Another irony was that John Folsom died on that trip to Reno, apparently falling asleep and driving off of a high bridge, hitting a trestle, and never feeling a thing. I remember attending his service, where the family priest talked John up good. I wanted to throw up. John Folsom was an atheist.

"Such services are for the living," my parents reminded me.

Gin never tasted the same after that.

* * * *

By ten that morning, people were coming into the race book, and Robert and me sat chilly, taking trip notes from the New York and Florida races. He knew who I liked in that Derby. I had been talking up Tabasco Cat for weeks. As with every first Saturday in May, there was always one monitor showing the current odds for that race, because even though it was many hours away, there is so much money bet on that single event that people want to see where they stand. We both took a firm stand against the favorite that year, Holy Bull, but Tabasco Cat was a distant yet firm third choice. I reasoned that I'd never get those odds on that colt again, but it was early in my relationship with my mentor and he'd only had a few months to get through my thick skull.

"What's with the rolling around in the sand?" Robert remarked. He was teasing me. Tabasco Cat's trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, had set up a sand pit in the two weeks leading up to the Derby and the colt took to playing in it. Robert disapproved of taking a horse on such short odds, if you can call six-to-one short. I was stuck on the colt, stuck on his breeding, and stuck with him on that muddy track.

"Time for you to spit out your pick," I said.

Robert balked. It was the oddest thing about him, that he was actually quite superstitious. He loathed giving up his race selections, "Kiss of death," he would say. I argued the point with him at great length many times, that whatever we said in Tijuana couldn't possibly affect the outcome of a race anywhere else. Robert was unmoved.

"Actually, I like two horses," Robert finally confessed.

"Powis Castle, he just always tries. And Go For Gin."

I looked at the screen, Powis Castle was twenty-to-one and Go For Gin was half of that. Even in the short time that I had known Robert, I knew him enough to where I wasn't surprised. Go For Gin scared me. He was bred to love the slop, and there was plenty of slop as Churchill Downs began to run their early races, the horses might have well been swimming. I knew for sure that Go For Gin was not the best horse at that track but Nick Zito, his trainer, was scary good with young horses. It wasn't enough to get me off of Tabasco Cat.

"Powis Castle? Seriously?" I said.

"Hey, he has a chance in here. He tries, you can't ask more of a horse than that," Robert said.

We both made wagers on a couple of races at different tracks leading up to the Derby. Robert missed his, I hit one that paid well. But with fourteen horses going to post after Kandaly scratched out, we knew that the real prize of the day would be had a few minutes after two-thirty in the afternoon. Back in those days, horses beyond ten entered were all considered field bets. Even so, to this day, I can't remember a more contentious Derby, odds-wise, than was that one back in nineteen hundred and ninety four.

* * * *

Charles Edward Whittingham was a great thoroughbred horse trainer, born in Chula Vista, California in 1913, and he trained all of his life, only interrupted once with a stint in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. Among the many great racehorses that Charlie trained was Ferdinand, the winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1986. In a string of odd tragedies, after Ferdinand was retired to stud in 1989, he was later sold to a breeder in Japan in 1994. Sometime in 2002, Ferdinand was then sold to slaughter, becomming pet food or perhaps even people food. In that sacrifice, the Ferdinand Fee was developed some years later once the news went out to a horrified public concerning Ferdinand's unfortunate demise. This fee now insures that thoroughbreds are protected from such an ending, as well as can be monitored with the money that supports that cause.

Ferdinand paid a large price to insure a comfortable retirement for others.

In the late nineteen hundred and seventies, a young, brash, and cocky runaway named Rodney Rash showed up at Santa Anita and began as a hot walker for Whittingham. In the decade that followed, Charlie showed great patience with Rodney, who got himself into trouble on numerous occasions, having problems with both drugs and alcohol, wandering aimlessly in a self-destructive manner. Charlie bailed him out of jail on more than one occasion and made amends financially at times when Rash became irrational and busted up someone else's property.

By the late eighties, Rodney Rash had turned his life around. He was now Whittingham's head assistant. In 1991, Rash decided to stake his own claim and trained his own stable. In 1994, Rodney Rash trained Powis Castle all of the way into the 120th running of the Kentucky Derby. With jockey Chris Antley on board, that twenty-to-one shot was quite a story, indeed.

* * * *

It doesn't matter how long you've been handicapping, and it really doesn't matter how much you have down on a horse or two in that race, if you're a player, you'll get butterflies in your stomach when the horses are in the post parade for the running of the Kentucky Derby. Go For Gin looked happy to be there, and Tabasco Cat didn't look as full of himself as he usually was. Powis Castle was an afterthought, just another horse with fifteen minutes until post. Robert showed no emotion at all, a true pro's pro, we didn't talk as they galloped backside while the crowd sang "My Old Kentucky Home".

I had twenty to win on Tabasco Cat and another twelve dollars in exactas to back him up.

The shine from the water was alarming. It was the first time since 1948 that the Derby would be contested on an off-track, and my only thought was that regardless of the outcome, I had already made a profit for the day. Still, even more than the money, in this race there are bragging rights. So what if my colt liked to roll around in a sand pit? What difference would that make if he won?

I remember them loading into the gate, two at a time. All of that water, all of that mud. They turn up the sound in the race book and you hear the gates close behind the loaded horses, "Clank!" And then again, "Clank!" And so on. The gate handlers yelling, jockeys getting settled. And then you hear Tom Durkin say, "They're all in."

Go For Gin wrested the lead away from Ulises early in the backstretch and never looked back. Before that, he ducked into Tabasco Cat at the start, forcing that one into Brocco, but it didn't matter, my horse didn't care for the mud at all. This is what happens. All I could do was to feel good for Robert, who had a nice wager on the winner. Powis Castle? He ran 8th. The favorite, Holy Bull could do no better that 12th.

(Chart for the 120th Kentucky Derby)

* * * *

The aftermath is the entire point sometimes, in that entirely odd circumstances bring out some sort of a question of whether coincidence trumps such circumstances.

Rodney Rash continued to train up until February of 1996. Thinking that he had a simple case of the flu which included headaches and general tiredness, he ignored these symptoms until his condition became dire, and was then transported to a hospital in Los Angeles where he soon died from a rare blood disorder at age 36.

Chris Antley, the jockey that rode Powis Castle, had already won a Kentucky Derby on Strike the Gold in 1991. Later, after temporarily retiring due to weight and drug problems, he rode Charasmatic to victory in that race and repeated it in the Preakness Stakes. Antley died of a drug overdose in 2000 at age 34.

Charles Whittingham passed away at age 86, in 1999. He is enshrined in the San Diego Hall Of Champions, and there is a bust of Whittingham with his dog, Toby, on display in the paddock at Santa Anita Park.

Holy Bull, in spite of that disappointing showing in the Derby, went on to win Horse Of The Year in 1994. He is generally listed among the top 100 racehorses of all time, winning 13 of his 16 races. Holy Bull has been quite successful at stud, siring Derby winner Giacomo among many other winners. He currently stands at Darley in Lexington, Kentucky, for a $10,000 fee.

Tabasco Cat went on to redeem himself by winning both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, finishing his racing career with 8 wins in 18 tries. He was very successful at stud, where his progeny earned over 17 million dollars. Tabasco Cat died in Japan in March of 2004 at the age of thirteen, of a heart attack while covering a mare.

Go For Gin finished 2nd to Tabasco Cat in both the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes and was retired and placed at stud due to an injury a year later. He went on to a very successful career as a stallion with his progeny earning over 22 million dollars to date. He currently stands at Bonita Farm in Maryland for a stud fee of $3,000 dollars.

Powis Castle finished 9th in the Preakness Stakes and had only minor success after that. He wasn't particularly popular at stud, only managing to sire four thoroughbreds and a handful of quarter-horse mixes. He died in a freak accident in a paddock in Texas in 2001, although he outlived his trainer and jockey from the 120th Kentucky Derby.

Notes From A Second-Story Window

2010-09-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

The kids that roam this neighborhood are terrorists. Of course, we were all such terrorists when we were kids, at least to one degree or another. But here - in a place where I don't have a front yard or a driveway or even a backyard beyond a three foot wide space that houses a washer and dryer and propane tanks and a water heater - there is no space to separate the terrorist children from mischief. A few weeks ago I noticed that our small mat in front of the door was gone. Good thing that the little bastards didn't take the door itself.

So, when I looked out of the window the other evening, late and after all of the traffic got tired of pestering an otherwise peaceful night, and I noticed a dog sleeping on something that resembled what was once used to wipe our feet before entering the house, I had to grin. The dog, apparently, was not attached to any owner, as it came and went as the days wore on. I would go to bed in a second story bedroom here and look out of the window as I undressed in the dark and most of the time, across the street, the dog would be asleep on that mat. Even during the morning at times.

Mexico can be a cruel place for domesticated animals, and at the very least it can be an odd place to have to adapt to. I awoke the other morning and lit a cigarette, looked out of the window, and noticed that the dog was no where to be found, but watched a white cat on the neighbor's roof. It walked slowly, appearing to be amused at nothing. Then it suddenly took a crap, right there on the neighbor's roof. The funny part came when the cat tried to bury its poop. No dirt, no rocks.

No way to hide the evidence.

A couple of weeks ago I was preparing to prep dinner, and I looked out of the front door and noticed the dog again, napping on the mat. I went to the refrigerator and found two cooked bacon-wrapped hot dogs that no one would likely eat, so I took them out and opened the front door. I walked slowly across the street, careful not to approach the dog directly, I didn't want to spook it. It noticed me and seemed unafraid. I came up to it and it rolled onto its back. If the dog could've talked, it would have said this:

"I don't want any trouble, I love you whoever you are."

I gave the bacon-wrapped frankfurters to the dog and went back in and cooked dinner. The dog didn't follow me, didn't want anything more. In fact, the dog was nowhere to be found when I went to bed that evening. People ask me why I don't have a dog. It's because the more you give a dog, the more it wants. But that dog, well, that's my dog now. It can go wherever it pleases, and I don't have to house it. We never grew close enough to care about each other. We don't rely on each other. I gave it some hot dogs one time and it can sleep on my old mat. Otherwise, no one is asking for anything.

* * * *

Children are sometimes an entirely different matter, and last Saturday, I was fleeced. So far as life goes, this is inevitable sometimes. One gets stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place. My own daughter turned on me. Imagine that. The kids were over a week and a half ago along with their mates and my sister-in-law and two babies and so on. As dusk went dormant, some of us sat out in front of this place, smoking and drinking, and then I got stuck somewhere in the darkness of that Saturday evening.

"Dad, I have to ask you for a favor," my daughter said.

Oh, hell, here it comes.

"I work tomorrow at six, can you walk me to work?"

Six, as in, the morning six hours after midnight. As in leaving the house at four-thirty, and I thought about how many times in recent days I had gone to bed after that hour. Should I decline, then my wife would go, just to make me feel like a jerk. As though I needed any help.

"We'll see," I said.

And, of course, four-thirty in the morning came very quickly, and her husband gave us a ride to the Otay border. I took Anna, who volunteered for whatever reason, and while my two daughters enjoyed a relatively painless border crossing, of course I get the third degree for not having a passport. By five o'clock, in the early morning darkness, we hiked the flat mesa through what's left of fields, about five miles in all. This, on a day where the buses don't run, all for her minimum wage job at a convenience store.

Dropping off my married daughter, the younger one rewarded herself with a two-dollar donut and I got a small coffee. We hiked the five miles back to the border, refusing a ride with a stranger in a van (what, do I look old or just stupid?), and once back in Mexico I felt safe again. Except, oh hell, everything is different now in Otay. We walked another five miles before I admitted to Anna that, perhaps, the taxis didn't use this road anymore. Eventually, we made our way back home.

That evening when I went to bed, I looked out the window. My dog was sleeping on my mat across the street. Everything was quiet. Somewhere on top of the neighbor's roof, there was an uncovered pile of cat poop. Somewhere in the night, there was a white cat that didn't care a bit about what it couldn't bury. Anna and me didn't care anything about walking anywhere for a couple of days.

* * * *

Anna has started school, this time enrolled in the United States of America for her senior year of high school. I see her on weekends. This last weekend, she brought home an assignment in English: write an essay. The essay was about reading. Fun stuff.

So, I instructed her. Organize your paragraphs; topic, then illustrative, and ultimately conclusive. Sentences should follow the same pattern. Make an outline first, and then write a draft and edit it. And so on.

She handed me what was supposed to be her outline, and it was more of a draft. Complete sentences with many misspelled words. But she did one thing correctly, she wrote as if she were speaking, nothing came off as contrived. I never taught her a damned thing about English.

"Why didn't you make an outline like I asked?"

"Dad, I can't do that. This is what I feel comfortable doing."

I didn't argue. How does one tell a painter how to apply a loaded brush to canvas?

"Fine. Put it away, don't look at it, we'll get back to it tomorrow. Go screw around on the internet or watch some television, don't think about it. Tomorrow, I want you to read it again and correct anything you see that you don't like," I said.

The next day, she had changed nothing, happy with what she wrote. I went through it and corrected her spelling, and we discussed minor points in phrasing, and she rewrote the essay neatly in ink. Monday she turned it in to her teacher, who said he would "get to it" when he could. Anna emailed me with that information. She said that she didn't have an opportunity to talk with him because he was giving a quiz.

"Obviously, they won't allow me to take the quiz," she wrote.

Obviously? While Anna has certainly been inserted in the middle of the school cycle of this year-round school, I am puzzled by their treating of her as though they shouldn't expect much of her. But then, she did relate to me that her counselor told her that she didn't expect much from Anna since she was schooled in Mexico and didn't show much interest in achieving high grades there. I only grinned at that because I know Anna. She's lazy, like her father. Must be a genetic flaw.

* * * *

Tomorrow, I'll be sending an email to her counselor. It will read something like this:

Dear Ms. Counselor,

I am Anna's father. While I have lived almost two decades in Mexico, I was in fact born, raised, and educated in the United States of America. I state this only so that you understand that my concern is not that of someone who might not be knowledgeable of schools in California. At least, I would presume that not much has changed since I lived there.

It has come to my attention that some of Anna's teachers are not requiring her to complete exams because she did not start at the same time period as did other students. This is very nice of them, I appreciate their consideration. However, this is not helping her. It is also not allowing me, as a parent, to understand what she now lacks in the requirements of your school system. I cannot tutor her unless I understand where she would fail. Failure is important, because we have nothing to learn unless we know what we are lacking.

The other morning, I woke up and lit a cigarette and looked out of the second-story window in my room. I watched a white cat take a crap on the neighbor's roof. I chuckled as I noticed the cat attempting to bury its poop, as there was no sand and no dirt. The cat, thinking that it had done all that could have been expected of it, simply walked away. Meanwhile, there is a pile of crap on my neighbor's roof.

Without sand or dirt - in the form of quizzes or other assignments - my daughter is no better off than is that cat, and society is no better off than is my neighbor's roof.

I have a dog. I haven't named it, and it doesn't belong to me, it simply sleeps on a doormat I once had in front of my door. That door mat is across the street now, oddly just below a neighbor's house which probably still has a pile of cat poop on the roof. The dog asks for nothing and takes what anyone is willing to give to it. Sometimes I give the dog frankfurters. It's a very nice dog.

And that dog will never learn anything because suckers like me give it food and walk away.

My daughter is not my dog. Please contact her teachers at your convenience and ask them to treat my daughter as though she had been at your school all along. When she fails, I will be able to teach her something. Do not give her any more hot dogs.

Thank you,

Anna's Father

Economics 101

2010-08-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Q: How many neo-Keynesians does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Print more money.

Of Soil And Blood

2010-07-22T13:06:00.001-07:00

Call me Prometheus. That brilliant, hot, burning orb in the sky was trying to kill me one week ago, but this week there is a marine layer saving me from melting. So, I stole that fire and now cook with it, instead. I buy liters of tequila for three dollars and fifty cents each and dare that eagle to eat my liver, Zeus be damned. Baja wipes clean all imperfections that were perhaps meant for higher purposes and achievement was met with some sort of failure, and someday I will also be unceremoniously erased and purged accordingly.

This is what happens.

There is a tiny little store on Boulevard Diaz Ordaz that sells, among other things, the best avocados in the universe. You could walk by it, blink a couple of times, and never have known that you passed it by, what with the shoe store and internet cafe and taco stand there, so many distractions. And young, beautiful girls in sundresses and sandals, taxis and buses of every size and color, noise, the smells of gorditas on the griddle and the busy bakery nearby bakes six times per day, heaven exists in your nose. The pace is neither frantically intense nor slovenly pedantic, but rather steady and secure and flowing like a large, relaxed river.

The daily circuit I complete often includes that little store with the avocados, but always includes the supermarket across the street from it and then the convenience store back on the south side of Diaz Ordaz. I took Anna with me on Sunday to the fish market first, and there was a nasty crash in the intersection with three automobiles looking as though a bulldozer got aggressive and bullied them into complete submission to the law of physics where a body in motion meets another body in motion and, well, metal isn't always as strong as it looks. No one seemed to be injured, although on our way back from the fish market, an ambulance and a fire truck had just arrived on the scene.

In the supermarket, we spent perhaps ten minutes on procuring supplies, and when we left to cross the intersection, there was no trace of anything from that accident. "How long were we in the store, anyway?" asked Anna.

"Ten minutes. It's like rain, it doesn't take long in Baja to wipe away a mess. Like when some bad guys kill some other bad guys, it just goes away quickly," I said.

All that Anna could do was to nod.

* * * *

It is the same dirt and the same rocks, separated by a big metal fence and an almost infinite amount of misplaced ideology. It wasn't that long ago when people swore allegiance to Kings and Queens, not dirt, not rocks, and certainly not ideology. A few hundred years later, and here we are, aligning ourselves according to jus soli and jus sanguinis; soil and blood. Thanks for that, France and Germany.

So, when a few months ago my sister-in-law and her husband - both Mexican Nationals with visas in their passports that allow them to travel into the United States of America in order to enjoy that country within a certain number of kilometers from the border without further permissions - decided to have their baby over there in Chula Vista, California, I announced that to a few hundred close friends. Some people seem to be sensitive to Mexicans having babies in the United States of America. This surprised me greatly. After all, the dirt and the rocks are no different there than they are here.

"Great, more illegals having babies in our country," came one reply.

"Mexicans are taking advantage of our health care system," wrote someone else.

Of course, Mexico has free health care, but it's difficult to convince some people who see a difference in the rocks and dirt of one place and the rocks and dirt of another place - separated by a short walk - to the contrary. But it's true. Anyone holding a job in Mexico is covered. Anyone not holding a job in Mexico will still be able to find free medical services should the need arise. And anyone who wishes can also pay for private health care at their leisure. Mexico is quite an accommodating country.

Little Daniela was born over there and after a couple of weeks, my sister-in-law, who is a licensed and practicing psychologist here in Baja, along with her husband, brought my niece back into Baja in order to enjoy a wonderful Mexican childhood here. Why bother having the baby in the United States of America? It costs less to have a baby over there than it does to obtain the necessary paperwork so that Daniela might visit the relatives of my sister-in-law's husband in Los Angeles. Imagine that.

All of this over dirt and rocks.

* * * *

The supermarkets, on the weekends, have taken to offering free grilling of whatever meat you purchase from them, and they perform this at the entrance to their stores. This is genius. While I prefer to grill my own meat, thanks anyway, the smell of that carne asada is fabulous. More nose candy, as if we needed any more. It makes me reconsider my menu offerings every time I pass by.

It has been so very seldom in my two decades here that anyone has ever said, "Hey, gringo, go back to your own Goddamn country." I can, in fact, count those number of times on one hand. All occurred in someone else's drunken moment. The cantineras always defended me and shushed the protester quickly. "How can you tolerate that bastard?" someone would always ask.

"Dirt and rocks," I would say, but meaning, of course, soil and blood.

So that when I pass by that supermarket, and the smell of carne asada enters my nose, it enters their noses as well. We share that. We share the dirt and the rocks, too. Except that some can't cross some nebulous fence because apparently the dirt and rocks are worth substantially more north of Mexico. My idea, then, is to set up a bunch of grills right on the border and toss on some of that thinly sliced marinated meat, just like they do at the supermarkets here on the weekends.

That'll shut a lot of people up.

* * * *

My son, Mexican born and raised, ultimately graduated high school in the United States of America. He then joined the American armed forces and enjoyed what must've been a terrific time in Iraq, and after six years came home and knocked up his lovely girlfriend. The American dream. He has made me a grandfather, for the second time. I have yet to meet my grandson, named Azael (no idea about the name), but in perhaps another week they'll be able to bring the boy into Mexico knowing that they have the papers to take him back across when they need to. Both parents are U.S. citizens, by the way, the Army gifted my son with citizenship in exchange for fixing their tanks and watching his Army buddies get their heads blown off.

Some claim that the current rate of exchange is a little over twelve pesos to the dollar. It isn't. It is citizenship in exchange for several dead pals and the vacation of a lifetime, complete with people shooting at you or otherwise trying to kill you with explosives. It is the soles of your boots melting on the turret platform while fixing a broken machine in exchange for a pass to cross over into a country you really don't care to live in. It is crossing the international border into the United States of America and being led away in handcuffs because the jerk checking your military identification decides you're lying in exchange for some other jerk checking your claim of citizenship six years later.

Funny that I received not one message concerning the birth of Azael as I did concerning the birth of Daniela.

I think that Prometheus had the right idea, and simply did not execute properly. I will endeavor to teach this lesson to young Azael, teach him to curse when appropriate, and encourage him to also rebel against authoritarianism at every opportunity. I will tell him stories about his father. I will ensure that this young boy understands that dirt and rocks matter not. If I am lucky, and if he is fortunate, then one less person will see the stupid border as a division of soil and blood, and see it for what it is; a duplicitous rite of passage.

The other option, and perhaps the only other option, is to wait for that rain to quickly wash everything away.

Requeim For A Fellow Cynic

2010-07-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

"A cynic is just a disgruntled idealist." ~ Ian Orteza, 2006

* * * *

I was born in San Diego, California, in the United States of America in nineteen hundred and sixty-one. My father was in the Navy and we lived in a very small apartment just east of Lindburgh Field. With no money for anything more, my parents rented that place because they couldn’t afford anything better. Jet airliners screamed overhead, merely hundreds of feet above our heads. My parents told me that even before I could walk and talk that they would carry me outside and when those loud flying machines would come tearing up the sky above, in for a landing, I would point up to those monsters and stare in wonder and smile. One natural fear we are born with is the fear of loud noises, and apparently I had missed out in getting that memo. It was therefore no surprise to my parents I would wind up somehow involved in aerospace at one point in my life.

And so it goes, I was involved in the shock and awe business when I met Ian Orteza.

I left aerospace at around the same time that Ian left the United Nations. Ian found it ironic that the U.N. would even have offices in Geneva. "When you enter Switzerland, and you present them with your U.N. passport, they look at you and say, ‘Right, show us your real passport.’ And they act like you’ve insulted them," he once told me. Ian also held a Filipino passport. Geneva honored it.

Another irony: Ian worked in war reparations, while I worked in making the hardware creating the necessity for that reparation job. We acknowledged this several times. We figured that if we kept it going that we would simply keep each other in business. Like true cynics, we decided that since people would kill each other anyway, there might as well be the means to an end, and inversely, the end to a means. The dog could wag the tail or the tail could wag the dog. Our reading glasses would simply slide down the end of our noses and we would enter numbers on a spreadsheet that ultimately makes everything balance out for everyone else.

This is what happens.

* * * *

The internet was so shiny and brand new, there wasn’t even a glimpse of a social networking site. Meredith’s place was hand-coded, and she had a threadless forum, and that’s where I met Ian, along with Sammy and Heath and Michael and Gina and Terry and Chris, and a host of people I still know to this very moment. Ian brought in Katriona, too. So, for a good few years, I would get to work and wonder what everyone was up to, and daily we would post something in there, and from those comments we learned much about each other. How we all wound up on Meredith’s site, well, I imagine the universe attracts misfits to a certain point on its own accord.

I considered us all explorers.

After a couple of years, then, it came as no great surprise that some would venture forward in order to expand their knowledge and to experience another place. Sammy and Ian both flew in to San Diego so I went up to meet them there and to bring them back into my world. If I had it to do all over again, perhaps we would have unwound down in Popotla. But we were young and they were single and the nightlife of Tijuana was too good to pass up. We grabbed it, because we had to. It was an ice-cold beer right in front of us. Or perhaps, a mountain to be climbed. And so we did.

"The church of the naked Madonna’s," Ian called it, the premiere strip joint in Tijuana at the time. We had fun there, but we didn’t stay long. We weren’t interested in hookers. The reference, obviously, was toward what we would experience the next day - the big giant Jesus; or as I called it then, the Church of the Big Giant Jesus. We went up there and played around with that statue even before it was mounted on the dome where it now rests. I don’t know where Ian’s photos wound up, but the photographic angles up into the lattice were amazing. He was amazing.

Ian Orteza died last week, in his sleep. This World weighs far less today than it did when he was alive. I didn’t cry the day that Ian died, it took me a couple of days, but then I did finally bawl like a hungry child. I got real mad at God. I still am. So, apparently, God is a cynic, too. You’re in good hands then, Ian. Put in a kind word for me, I reckon I’ll need it.

* * * *

There is a depth to some men that surpasses anyone’s ability to ever reach the bottom, and that was Ian. Somewhere in there, a vast chasm of patient knowledge and lasting wisdom resided, and you could sit with him and wait and prod him and maybe you would get lucky and this soft-spoken man would open up. Rocio got mad at Sammy and me, that if perhaps we would just shut up every once in a while that she could hear Ian. After the first night of drunken foolishness, I took Ian and Sammy up the street and we ate tacos de birria because there isn’t a much better way to quell a hangover. And because, after all, birria tastes wonderful.

"This place is a lot like the Philippines," Ian said, cupping his taco masterfully above the plate.

And of course, we went to Caliente, because there is so much history there, Seabiscuit and others, it was at one time – along with Tanforan – the only track on the West Coast. I have pictures somewhere of Ian and Sammy in the old rusted starting gates, until a security guard tried to take a bribe for me taking those photos. I talked my way out of it, like I’m prone to do. We went to the old cinco y diez bridge and took more photos. Then, the Church of the Big Giant Jesus. And so on.

Ian brought me a gift from Katriona, it was a pocket knife with my name engraved on the side. My gift to her, then, was a machete. It was engraved with images of harvesting agave. Fitting, since I’m sitting here drinking tequila. And so, Ian wrote me, "She sleeps with it," and you know how I felt about that. Maybe there are no other four words that are more erotic than those words are. Ian knew. No man writes those words and doesn’t know what they mean to another man. And no woman sleeps with a sword and doesn’t know what it means to the man the sword came from.

* * * *

Ian’s talents were not limited to writing. He sketched a comic strip for some time, called "Orgasmic Chill". Basically, feet out of the bottom of the bed. That’s all we are as lovers, really. He knew. It was so completely clever. It was so completely human.

Ian climbed mountains. Maybe in more ways than Mother Nature set forth, Ian decided that there were more important things to do than to wait for some nefarious challenge from God. I never wondered for a minute why he climbed, I knew. Just like he never wondered how I wound up in Mexico. It’s my own mountain. To Ian’s mother: Your son was my brother. Maybe not in blood, but certainly in spirit. To Ian’s daughter: I cannot be your father, but I will be your friend, perhaps one day you’ll have a question that only a father could answer.

Ian was not the person who inspired me to write; he was the first person to encourage me. I wrote a piece on Christopher Columbus and Ian loved it. If you like what I write, then thank Ian, otherwise I imagine I wouldn't have bothered. It was, I reckon, my own mountain. And, you know, Ian just told me to do it. Sammy will undoubtedly love this next thing:

"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."

~ Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998

And Ian, Bukowski would be proud of you. You did live your life and you never swallowed anything without tasting it first. I can’t imagine that you ever believed anything without examining it first, that is the way of us cynics, isn’t it? For you, whatever is there once we’re gone, if wings are given out in heaven, I can’t imagine you flying until you’ve had a good chance to evaluate those feathers. And then, once you’re convinced, I can’t imagine that you’ll ever land again. Some people were born to fly. You are certainly one of those people, my brother. I will miss you so very much, and it’s entirely possible I’ll never love another man as much as I loved you. I will happily take what part of you you’ve given to me to my grave, and everything I write from here and there, well, you have always been a part of it. Enjoy your vacation, Ian, I hope to see you again some day.

The Battle of Madison Avenue

2010-05-03T05:29:00.001-07:00

"The King of France went up the hill, with twenty thousand men; the King of France came down the hill, and ne'er went up again." ~ Variation of "Old Tarlton’s Song" (English nursery rhyme from the sixteenth century)

* * * *

Put down the tequila bottle and back away from the guacamole and tortilla strips, America. Before you celebrate Cinco de Mayo, let’s make sure we all reach a consortium with the large corporations that are hoping to sell a lot of their mass produced nachos and margarita mix before going any farther. Hopefully, everyone has learned by now that Cinco de Mayo isn’t Mexican Independence Day, which is on the sixteenth of September. Cinco de Mayo is the day that Mexican troops defeated forces from France in the Battle of Puebla. I’ll bet a lot of people know about that now as well.

But in the days leading up to the holiday, you’re bound to read a lot of incorrect facts and almost nefarious ideas; not only about the battle of Puebla, but concerning exactly how and where this day gained whatever fame it may or may not deserve.

One thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t a holiday celebrated in most of Mexico. With the exception of the city of Puebla, and the dubious shindigs in tourist cantinas, the fifth of May in Mexico isn’t that different from the fourth of May or even the sixth. And regardless of the presidential proclamation (Benito Juarez had run North and far away from the invasion at the time, it sort of fell on deaf ears), it never has quite caught on in Mexico. In fact, it began as an American holiday. Honest.

Beyond that, there are myths that appear as fact, especially on the internet. You’ll read that the battle of Puebla was won by a Mexican force outnumbered two to one. Actually, they were outnumbered about four to three, with an unknown number of uncounted civilians fighting for Mexico. Another unproven position that has gained traction over the years, is that the battle of Puebla is sacred to the U.S. as having somehow stopped France from marching into Georgia and fighting on the side of the Confederate Army, a posit from UCLA professor David E. Hayes-Bautista. While it is quite a romantic notion to link Cinco de Mayo to the American Civil War, Hayes-Bautista obviously has no firm grasp of French history.

The best place to start any good story of invading a country under pretext in the middle of the nineteenth century is in France.

France, 1852 through 1871 – The Rise and Fall of Second French Empire

Napoleon III, after four years as President of the Second French Republic, became Emperor of the French in the Second French Empire. His rule, especially in the first eight years, was authoritarian, and all opposition was censored and silenced at his whim. While speaking of peace, Napoleon enjoyed employing his quite superior French troops to back French interests. The indemnities, compensations, territories, and trade opportunities that resulted were fuel for the industrial revolution in France.

French forces aligned with English forces (along with Turks, Sardinians, Germans, and even Swiss) successfully fought the Crimean War against a Russian alliance. The resulting victory gave France increased authority in Europe. France also took part in the Second Opium War along side British Empire, the result of which commanded trade routes and resulted in a large indemnity for France. The pretext for the Second Opium War was the murder of a missionary.

In Italy, Napoleon had employed French troops to restore Pope Pius IX as ruler of the Papal States, a move that won wide support from European Catholics. Concurrently, Napoleon negotiated with the Italian revolutionaries responsible for seizing the Papal States in hopes of helping to establish an Italian unification, which was very popular with the liberal left. Ultimately, Napoleon succeeded in his true intentions, which was to expel Austria from the Italian peninsula and gain Savoy and Nice from Piedmont in the process. This was to be a pattern in the rule and foreign policy of Napoleon III; attempt to satisfy both right and left with a completely different endgame in mind. Napoleon’s duplicity was never obvious by his intentions beforehand, but is only made transparent by the results.

When Napoleon had caught wind that Mexico’s monarchists approached Maximilian, an archduke from the Royal house of Austria, and they had asked him to become the Emperor of Mexico, Napoleon saw opportunity. Mexico was vulnerable and cash poor, President Benito Juárez having recently suspended the interest payments on foreign debt, and the precariousness of the new constitution of 1857 was laid wide open after the resulting Mexican War of the Reform had brought it, along with Juárez, into power. Maximilian at first resisted, but once France convinced him that they would supply support, he agreed.

Under the terms in the Treaty of London signed in 1861, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom set sail and landed in Veracruz in order to pressure Mexico into paying their debts. Soon after landing, both Spain and the United Kingdom realized that this was a pretext for France to occupy and possibly colonize Mexico, and they left within six months. Was Napoleon and France actually after the colonization of Mexico? Was the invasion of Mexico part of a much larger plan to enter into the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy? Neither scenario, in spite of Napoleon’s "Grand Scheme for the Americas", would have resulted in a satisfying outcome and would have been quite inconsistent with the true strategies that Napoleon employed in foreign policy.

The interventions and invasions by Europe during the middle of the nineteenth century were mostly intended to ensure the exploitation of resources and enable profitable trade. In Mexico, the gold and silver to the north were certainly goals of Napoleon, along with a way to circumvent the successful sea embargo by the Union in order to allow France to trade with the Confederacy by way of Texas. To commit the troops necessary for colonization of Mexico would have been a disaster for France; to invade America to fight on the side of the Confederacy was never seriously considered. France had other issues at hand closer to home. Prussia was now a dominating factor in Europe, and war was looming. Ultimately, France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war would lead to the end of the Second French Empire.

The United States of America and the Western Territories, 1846 through 1867 – Manifest Destiny, the Treaty of Hidalgo, and the American Civil War

In 1846, the United States of America declared war on Mexico. As with most wars, there was pretext, in that Texas had decided it was a republic, and that apparently a Mexican patrol had killed some American troops, in a skirmish referred to as "The Thornton Affair". Over the years, the Thornton Affair has been revised so many times that the truth might never be known. The very idea of taking the Mexican north goes back as far as President Andrew Jackson, who believed that it was necessary to obtain all territory north of the 37th parallel in order to ensure that the British empire would have no success at claiming that land.

The Mexican-American War was fought on several fronts, culminating in an invasion force which landed at Veracruz (about 15 years before French forces landed!), which ironically included future opposing Generals in the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Mexican forces were routed, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in early 1848. The treaty, along with the later Gadsden Purchase (which was so unpopular in Mexico that it led to the banishment of Santa Anna for good), granted the United States of America with the territories of Nuevo Mexico and Alta California.

This land grab, by now, was an important part of hostilities between the Southern and Northern American States. In his memoirs, perhaps President Grant put it best into perspective. "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times." The Southern States were delighted to have the opportunity to add representation to their ongoing battle with the Northern States over State’s rights, slavery, and other issues that eventually led to civil war. The Northern States were wary of it.

California was on a fast track to becoming a State, and the Compromise of 1850 was reached in order to stave off civil war (which only lasted about four years until the Kansas-Nebraska act). Part of this compromise was that California was to be a slave-free State (as Texas was already a slave State), and the rest of the territories could determine their own status by popular vote. While the Mexican authorities had retreated back to Mexico after the Mexican-American war, the native population remained. With the gold rush of 1848 came more settlers in the years that followed.

California’s involvement in the American Civil War was pedestrian. While troops were recruited and sent to fight for the Union, many settlers in California came from the South. They were generally powerless to affect the war; Confederate sympathizers were prevented from organizing and denying them the use of the mail closed down their newspapers. William Gwin, once a congressman from Mississippi, moved to California upon Statehood and was elected as Senator. After the Civil War broke out, he toured the South and returned to California, where he spoke on behalf of the South, going so far as to consider the possibility for a separate Republic centered in California to secede from the Union. On a trip to New York, Gwin was arrested, then released, and eventually fled to France during their occupation of Mexico where, ironically, he approached Napoleon III with an idea about a project to settle American slave-owners in Sonora, Mexico. While Napoleon was favorable, Maximilian rejected the proposal outright, fearing that Gwin would wish to seize the land and start a new Republic.

In the middle of the American Civil War, France, Spain, and Britain signed the Treaty of London in 1861, ostensibly to blockade Mexico and put pressure on her to repay her debts. It was when France invaded that the United States of America formally protested; but in the midst of Civil War, there was no way to provide aid to Mexicans backing a Republic over a Monarchy. In order to ensure non-interference from Britain and France, President Lincoln successfully blockaded Confederate ports, pushed an abolitionist agenda that was socially popular in Europe, and proclaimed the Confederacy as "insurrectionists" rather than belligerents which forced England and then all of Europe to declare neutrality. The only true threat of intervention was at a point when the major European nations were considering offering mediation, which would have had the disastrous result of automatically extending recognition by Europe of the Confederacy.

Meanwhile, word had reached California that French forces had been defeated at Puebla. California, still inhabited by a large percentage of Mexicans, read the news in Spanish in San Francisco’s La Voz de Mejico, or from several other small Spanish presses left intact after the Mexican-American War, celebrating wildly. While the American Civil War was raging far away, the Mexican population in California had something closer to their interests to read, three times per week, if there was any news at all to be read from the French invasion. That holiday – Cinco de Mayo – was born in California, in the years that followed the Battle of Puebla.

Ultimately, when the American Civil War ended, President Andrew Johnson tried and failed to gain support of Congress to supply arms to Juárez in order to hasten the retreat and departure of French forces from Mexico. Instead, Johnson ordered a sea blockade to keep any possible French reinforcements from arriving, and moved some fifty thousand troops to the Texas border. Besides American troops threatening to invade and engage French forces on Mexico’s soil, approximately 300,000 muskets were "misplaced" in an area very "close" to Mexico’s border (or unofficially, guns and ammunition were left neatly placed on Mexico’s side of the border).

The United Mexican States and Territories, 1855 through 1867 – The Ley Juárez, the Mexican War of the Reform, and the French Intervention in Mexico

The Gadsden Purchase was the last straw in the storied career of Dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna. Throughout Mexico’s history, internal struggles between the conservatives who supported a centralized and hierarchical form of government, and liberals who wanted a federal republic, led to constant political struggles, violent opposition, and even all-out civil war. Benito Pablo Juárez García, born poor and raised by an uncle, took a domestic job as a young boy that eventually led him to the opportunity to study law. Eventually, he became a judge and then was governor of the state of Oaxaca from 1847 to 1852. In 1853, he went into exile in protest of Santa Anna’s corruption and abuse of power, but returned to Mexico in 1855 when Santa Anna was forced to resign.

Under General Juan Álvarez, Juárez served as Chief Justice, and liberal reforms were broadly implemented that proved immediately unpopular with the conservatives. Under the Ley Juárez, the power of the Catholic Church and the military were severely restrained, all citizens were declared as equals, and an economic model based on capitalism and free trade was proposed similar to that of the United States of America. Álvarez gave way to Ignacio Comonfort and Juárez became Comonfort’s Vice President. The new Constitution of 1957, which included Juárez’s liberal revolutionary laws, led to the Mexican War of the Reform, and ultimately Comonfort was forced to resign the Presidency and Juárez was jailed briefly before he managed to escape to Quéretaro.

Civil War had broken out and while the Conservatives controlled Mexico City, Juárez was named as President by the Liberals and forced to retreat to Veracruz. General Félix Zuloaga, meanwhile, was installed as President in Mexico City. Fighting continued for almost four years, as the Conservatives had the upper hand at first, but the Liberals ultimately proved to be too much. On January 1st, 1861, Mexico City was finally taken back. Unfortunately for Juárez, the victory was made bitter almost immediately.

Most of the Conservatives regrouped and remained in Mexico, and plotted to install Maximilian as the Emperor of Mexico. Concurrently, the Liberal Government was pressured into giving amnesty to many of the Conservatives. Meanwhile, Juárez was faced with external pressure from Spain, Britain, and France for the large debts owed to them by Mexico. When Juárez could not pay the debt, the three countries sent ships to Veracruz and seized the Veracruz customs house in December of 1861. Shortly thereafter, Spain and Britain left, recognizing this as a pretext of other motives by France.

The French Army was led by General Charles de Lorencez, who was led to believe that the people of Puebla were friendly to the French and that any resistance in Puebla would be quelled by the populace once that French troops arrived. It was this miscalculation, and the overconfidence of the French Army in general that led to the defeat at Puebla. On May 5th, 1862, Lorencez began his attack from the North, and toward the middle of the day. It didn’t go well, and the forces led by Mexican Commander General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín was able to withstand three assaults before forcing the French retreat. The French lost over 450 of its 6,000 soldiers, while Mexico only suffered less than 100 killed from 4,500 soldiers and uncounted fighting civilians.

The battle was not so remarkable in terms of numbers; the French were unfamiliar with the terrain, and the daily afternoon rains in Puebla certainly helped the Mexican forces. But the French were the elite army of the era, and hadn’t lost a battle in over fifty years. Mexico’s victory was short-lived, however. By June, French forces had Zaragoza and his troops bottled up in Veracruz. In the months that followed, French reinforcements arrived, and by October of 1863, Maximilian was crowned as the Emperor of Mexico. Juárez, meanwhile, had retreated to Chihuahua, and his calls for a National Battle of Puebla Day were shouted in the direction of North of the border.

Early on, Napoleon had warned Maximilian that his support was not likely to last. Maximilian was stubborn, he believed that the conservatives who put him in power would continue to win battles against the opposition. One problem was that Maximilian was becoming unpopular with his conservative base for implementing many liberal reforms. He even offered Juárez the post of Prime Minister, which Juárez declined. When a war between France and Prussia became imminent, Napoleon began to pull troops out of Mexico and pleaded with Maximilian to leave the country. Maximilian refused, and ultimately, was betrayed by one of his own Generals when he tried to escape, once the Republicans had cornered him in Queretero.

The Celebration of Cinco de Mayo, 1863 through 2010 – Culture and Heritage vs. Madison Avenue, the New Invading Force

The very first organized celebration of The Battle of Puebla couldn’t have taken place on May 5, 1862, but accounts of celebrations in California since then are widely documented. As the population grew in California, so did the celebrations. The old Plaza del Pueblo de Los Angeles is the largest of organized Cinco de Mayo celebrations, and many cities and towns up and down California have had continuous parties each year on the fifth of May. While it’s easy to understand how it happened, and perhaps even why it happened, the way it seems to have taken the entire country and converted many people into tequila-drinking, guacamole-eating revelers one day out of every year can only be summed up when taking into account that Madison Avenue is to America now, what the invading French were to Mexico then.

The battle of Puebla is remarkable in some ways and unremarkable in others. The Mexican Army wasn’t so outnumbered by the French, no matter what you read on the internet, and while the defeat by the French was certainly great news for Mexicans living in California who were probably dismayed reading about a Confederate Army gaining victories in battles in the American Civil War, it didn’t hold back the French for very long at all. It also seems quite an incredible reach to believe that the battle of Puebla had any effect or even any relationship to the American Civil War. As President Grant pointed out, the American Civil War probably had more of a relationship to the Mexican-American war than to any other conflict.

So, celebrate Cinco de Mayo if you must, so long as you understand what you’re celebrating. And real Mexicans drink their tequila without limes and salt, traditional margaritas are not made in a blender with crushed ice, and no self-respecting Mexican would dip a tortilla strip in guacamole unless the guacamole was hand-made using fresh avocados. And know that the people in Mexico, respectfully and admirably and sometimes even lovingly, think that us Americans are nuts. But in Mexico, any reason for a party is a good reason.

Spare Me

2010-04-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

Facebook, that social networking wunderkind, taunts me when I open the browser, telling me that I can continue to live in Mexico and earn a degree online. Great. I’m sure that’s going to help in this economy. Certainly it increases one’s chances of landing that dream job.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Dodd, but we’ve already filled that position."

"But you don’t understand! I have a degree in English Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Santee!"

Scott actually recommended one time that I go back and get my teaching credentials. Fat chance. True, the publishing world is on its ass at the moment, but I would rather load tractor-trailers all day than to instruct teenagers that would rather be smoking dope and contemplating their first sexual experience. It has fail written all over it. I’ll take my chances in some factory somewhere until writers are once again a hot commodity.

San Diego has never been an easy place to score a good job. When I grew up in Los Angeles, I literally left a job in the morning and had a better one in the afternoon. Not here. People with Doctorates don’t seem to mind assembling urine bags in order to enjoy this climate. They say things like, "Back in Helena, I ran an entire department of researchers..."

Spare me. You’re welding a plastic tube to a urine bag now. I’m not impressed.

* * * *

The earthquake that occurred Sunday reminded me of my time living in Los Angeles. I went through some large tremors there, even right on the epicenter of a couple of quakes. This one that just happened in Mexico was more alarming, not simply because of its size, but more because of its duration. When it hit, I sat in my office for a full thirty seconds before I bothered to get up and go out into the living room. My in-laws were on the couch, Rocio on the other couch, and Anna at the computer, so I grabbed Anna and stuck her in a doorway. The earthquake kept on rolling.

"Is it over yet?" she would ask a few times.

When it finally stopped, nothing was broken. Just like when I lived in Los Angeles, life kept on going. We ate dinner and I spent the night giving information to news agencies, a back scratched and one good turn and so on. Having been through Sylmar’s disaster, in the epicenter of the Whittier Narrows quake, a mile from the middle of the Upland jolt and through the big Landers trembler, I had considered myself a veteran. It didn’t work that way. The Goddamned Washington Post even scooped a lot of my information.

A voice in one ear told me, "Spare me. You’re hammering out hack material out of your home office in Tijuana now. I’m not impressed."

At eleven the next morning I shut off the computer and went to bed.

* * * *

The publishing world has been on its ass for quite some time, in case no one has been paying attention. Newspapers are folding, giving unpaid furloughs or laying writers off, or else generally downsizing to the point that they are no longer relevant. The San Diego Union-Tribune is no longer relevant. It wasn’t a very good paper five years ago, but now it’s a joke. For seventy-five cents, you get maybe thirty or thirty-five pages. The good journalists are gone, filled with part-timers from the local university who give you the time and location of some event in the first sentence.

The book publishing industry might be even worse off. Electronic publishing is creating a combative process in which publishers fight with the manufacturers of electronic readers to figure who’s going to make the most profit. Writers are lost in this process. Readers, unless they enjoy books about vampires or unicorns or some other damned thing that has nothing to do with good writing, are wasting their money on products that are bound to deliver material that only promises to be made into a movie one day that will be like every other movie. Meanwhile, my stuff will have to sit until everything gets sorted out. It certainly doesn’t look good at the moment.

Good writers, some that I believe even a decade ago could have landed a three-book deal, are relegated to writing articles about pruning roses or window caulking or freight distribution in New Zealand, or whatever will pay to keep them barely surviving in some run-down apartment in a bad section of town. It isn’t that they can’t write, it’s that the entire process is broken and good writing fails far too often because the people grasping for control of the publishing business only know how to read a profit and loss statement.

This is what happens.

* * * *

I have done a lot of things in my life to earn a dollar or two, most of them legally. I’ve loaded trucks, run entire manufacturing plants, built war machinery for the military, even ran a grill right here in Tijuana for a while. Welding a plastic tube onto a urine bag isn’t my idea of an enjoyable living, but I’ve done it before and I can do it again. One time not too long ago I even worked a week at minimum wage moving the Geology Department at San Diego State University from one side of the campus to the other. I reckon I’m as proud of that as I am of anything else I’ve done.

Eventually, I might be able to hack out a living freelancing as a writer until the fruit of the publishing world is once again ripe to publish a novel that isn’t about child magicians or werewolves or time travelers. Until then, as soon as this economy picks up just a little more, someone will hire a man almost fifty years old to load a truck or enter data into a spreadsheet or whatever else is available. And I’ll do that for a while, and I’ll likely get promoted and promoted again until I reach a point after a few years where I can’t deny that the only thing I really want to do is to write, and nothing else – no matter the money or the lack of it – will fill that void.

And then, considering that ultimately these things tend to work themselves out, the publishing world will right itself. Newspapers may be relevant or may be replaced entirely by something else, but real journalists will return to fill the void of whatever happens. And book publishing will finally figure out that the best road to success is to leave the question of what is or isn’t good literature in the hands of the editors, and the question of distribution and price in the hands of publishing executives. And then, I’ll be able to be that voice in someone’s ear. I will tell them about the time that I worked a week at minimum wage moving the Geology Department at San Diego State University from one side of the campus to the other.

And then I’ll likely say, "Spare me. You’ve wasted ten years of both of our lives only to figure out now what’s relevant. I’m not impressed."

How Celery Affects Gravity

2010-03-08T00:02:00.000-08:00

This is actually quite funny once you understand that whoever is responsible for it had a healthy sense of humor. I don’t know who the girl is, or the photographer, or the circumstances of how, exactly, it came into existence. I really don’t even understand the Supergirl outfit here, maybe someone can explain that to me. But I know why it was done. And if you’ve ever been exposed some of the artwork of one Art Frahm, you would already be laughing and need no explanation. But even if you’re familiar with Art Frahm’s failure to grasp the relationship of what is normally the inability of the force of gravity to make underwear fall - all by itself - to the ankles of young ladies, the celery might have thrown you. It needs to be there, trust me. Or better yet, trust the wonderful James Lileks, his observations are much more clever and amusing concerning Frahm’s work than mine could ever be.

Read through this Lileks piece, written many several years ago, and it will all become apparent. Click through the images and enjoy yourselves.

Hosts And Legions

2010-03-06T06:19:00.001-08:00

"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."

- Robert A. Heinlein

* * * *

It was a poet I met in college who introduced me to the notion that we are sort of like speedboats on a calm lake, leaving friends and acquaintances behind in time, like our movement through history creates a violent wake that eventually washes up somewhere on a distant shore. Those are my words, not his. Michael Churchman was more elegant, instead referring to those from his past as a division between hosts and legions. To be honest, at least half of that poetry class was blazing on LSD at two o’clock in the sunny Los Angeles afternoon. Michael’s hosts and legions could have been induced by a busy and colorful acid trip for all that I know. But still, it’s relevant and true and noble to see right through the mirror rather than to simply observe our own reflections.

Michael Churchman did just that, as all good poets do, and he briefly made me want to be a poet for that very reason.

The problem with my poetry was this: it was quite awful. My poetry was dark and angry because I was dark and angry. I came to realize that my poetry was bad one afternoon when that poetry professor asked me to stay behind when class ended. I did. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? I’m very worried about you.”

I was stunned. Like many of the people in that class, I saw it as three easy credits. Unlike many of the people in that class, I wasn’t experiencing an acid trip while participating. Maybe she knew that, in which case I had no excuse to write pages and pages of seething and contentious drivel. It frightened me that a college professor would think it necessary to become concerned with my well being, and I assured her that I was fine. And I didn’t write another poem for more than a decade.

* * * *

Thus began my version of Churchman’s dividing of the hosts and legions, in that freshman year of college which was also my senior year of high school. I both hated and loathed high school, and although I had achieved the prerequisite amount of work to get out of there at the end of my junior year, the school district wouldn’t allow it. The only activity I enjoyed in high school was band, and so I took band classes in the morning and then went to college in the afternoon. Other than music, I can sum up everything I ever learned in high school in two words: survival and endurance. I don’t remember ever having gone back to that school after I had the diploma in my hand.

Meanwhile, life goes on. You knock up your girlfriend and marry her, despite the fact that you both hate each other. You drop out of college, have another kid, concentrate on having a real career, and fool yourself into believing that the rock band you had to part ways with wouldn’t have worked out anyway. You tell yourself that you have no regrets, even after the divorce. This is what happens.

Within all of this, I did have a couple of friends in high school that, for reasons of their own, decided to join the United States Navy. Good for them. One served on a boat and the other on a ship. Hosts and legions. Although I was born in San Diego, I learned the city through them, limited to strip joints and a coffee shop near Rosecrans and Nimitz. I can’t say that it was helpful in the long run. But I reckon that it was fun. Over the years, they faded away, too. Again, this is what happens.

And over the years that still followed, I married again and quickly moved to Mexico, and had a daughter, and thrived. The internet was born. I looked for Michael Churchman once that search engines were invented, but to this day I have had no luck. There are a lot of people named Michael Churchman. None of these people are the Michael Churchman that I am looking for. To this day, Michael Churchman’s whereabouts remain a mystery to me, probably by design.

* * * *

Social networking began shortly after the internet became widely available, and I made a lot of electronic friends in a short amount of time. Because it was a new frontier and with all new frontiers come unknown dangers, we all mostly remained somewhat anonymous, choosing to use nicknames. My nickname was obvious, it was instantly gringo, from which refriedgringo was born on a website I owned a very long time ago. Others adopted other nicknames, and away we sailed upon unknown seas. We were cautious while optimistic and a bunch of trailblazing fools. I think we are still all a bunch of cautiously optimistic trailblazing fools.

At first, social networking was based on luck and trust, in that we are curious by nature and reaching out in order to find whatever we might have in common and to either celebrate it or exploit it. I think that Meredith’s website came first, that we all got together there, us weirdo people, posting on a threadless forum like so many worms avoiding the fisherman’s hook. I met Sammy there, and Ian, and Terry, and a host (and possibly a legion) of others. Those were the salad days. Holy hell, we were great. I felt like Babe Ruth in there, that I could step up to the plate and point and then hit one out. I think we all did.

And I met Chris there, or at least, I met his on-line personality, we’ve never met in person, but I consider him to be a very close friend. I sent him beer once, after reading an excellent story from his college days, and to this day I can’t not think of him when I get a haircut because of a very awesome short he wrote about haircuts. He’s a writer that doesn’t write much. I did meet his friend Wooby in person though (Wooby is possibly the greatest nick ever, by the way), we took in a couple of Padres games (one against the Red Sox!), and we drank a lot together and I loved it. I met Sammy and Terry and Ian and eventually Meredith and Heath when they were together. I’m better off for knowing them all.

So, when LiveJournal started up, most of us joined and I wrote. And a lot of people surprised me, and emailed me and commented that they enjoyed what I wrote. And I love to write. Ten years later, I wrote a novel. I haven’t sold it yet. The market for novels isn’t very good at the moment, so I’m waiting. I’m almost fifty years old and only now do I discover what I want to be when I grow up! Oh, and more bad news: The median income of a writer is six thousand dollars per year. Six thousand fucking dollars. On the other hand, for a hundred grand a year you can make bombs. I did that too, for while. Kaboom. Hosts and legions.

* * * *

So, I finally break down and get a Facebook account, thanks a lot, El, I blame you. But really, I knew I had to at some point anyway, and I wanted so much to connect with Anna. A note about having kids: When you really connect with one, it’s the most awesome thing in the world. Anna remarked this afternoon that I would probably love her even if she wasn’t my daughter. I’ve spent twelve hours thinking about that one. And hell yes, she’s right. And I’m going to continue to grind her in FarmVille while wondering if, God forbid, I wasn’t her father, would she love me anyway? That question goes both ways, babydoll. And happy 17th birthday, I love you very much.

Back to Facebook, I didn’t join right away, because I hated high school. That shouldn’t be a secret to anyone that knows me. But I reckon that I was afraid of reliving that nightmare. For every good teacher, there were three bad ones. But, of course, I was no picnic either. I stole Mr. Miller’s cigarettes out of his desk when he left us to take a quiz in his empty classroom. I fell asleep in Mr. Hull’s class (hell, everyone did). I fantasized about Miss Hibler while she wrote proofs on the chalkboard in geometry class (again, we all did, I’m sure). And I spent a lot of time with Mr. Revis in detention, where I learned to roll joints using pencil shavings, while he watched and gave pointers.

And through hating high school, I guess it was easy to forget about the good things. Jeff, to this day I can’t eat an egg sandwich without thinking about the times we did that at lunch, the yokes running off of the toasted bread. Doug, I thought you were going to rat me out when you caught me smoking after the parade, until you asked me for a light. Kevin, I played football with you, you played on the line and I remember thinking about how I’d have played on any team you were on, you were focused and determined. Todd, we were such dorks, we played ball together and both called Sammy Andrade’s grand slam, remember? Hey, John, remember getting about half drunk in Mr. Gullet’s RV while playing for a bunch of Avon people?

I sat on Marilyn’s lawn one afternoon, and her father called out for her and she answered, "Sir?" I thought that was the strangest thing ever until I became a father. And Margot, I sat with you on your driveway and you proudly informed me (at an unholy early age) that you wanted braces. You paint wonderfully. I can’t imagine doing portraits in watercolor, it’s hard enough to do them in oils. Matt, remember when you got that long cord and played guitar in the middle of the street at my parent’s house, and then my dad came home? Debby, you were so awesome, tall and beautiful, we never spoke much but you’re certainly a great part of those memories. Same for you Monica, but I am so impressed, you haven’t changed at all, still gorgeous and you married a guy that looks like Tom Cruise!

It’s frightening. So much of my life has gone by. And those high school chums seem to all ask the same question: How did you wind up in Mexico? Well. Jeff lives near Shasta, Doug in Las Vegas, and so on. I could write a book about my experiences here. I probably will. I came here because I fell in love. I am Mexico. She is me. We live where we love and we love where we live. And we leave behind where we came from. Hosts and legions.

* * * *

So, new friends and old ones on Facebook, feel free to mingle. Ask Jeff about the time we went skinny-dipping in his parent’s pool at a large party. Ask Margot what a young dork I was, and I never got braces, either. Matt will tell you what it was like to jam with me. Chris can relate ten years of internet awesomeness, and all things Red Sox. Sammy will go on about horse racing and Bukowski, things we both love, and the time he hit a nice show bet on Derby day. And Darren – can’t leave out Darren – will tell you about the time I pulled his ass out of a Tijuana cop car, saving us both a night in jail.

Mainly, I reckon that I feel the need to thank my high school chums for sticking around after all of these years. I am very lucky to have had such great people in my life, and luckier still to have you around now. I’m very proud of you all. I’m proud of who you are, and give you credit for making me what I am. I’m honestly very grateful to you all, and I should have joined this Facebook thing sooner and let you all know.

I looked for Michael Churchman’s poem here this morning, I wanted to share it, it would be appropriate. I know I have it somewhere. But the box I brought down didn’t contain anything from my college days. Instead, I found a composition book. It contains writing from before the internet was invented, and some technical stuff. This is part of what I wrote, maybe a decade ago:

"This corrects erroneous dimensions from the engineering drawing concerning the length of the details of the fitting, the tube, and the end. Due to the growth of joined components during the inertia welding process, adjustments are required to the details so that the final assembly will meet dimensional requirements. This change appears to have been made in order to correct mechanical dimensioning in the form of Cartesian coordinates and vector direction utilizing profile tolerancing."

And so on. But you know, I can’t for the life of me imagine that I ever wrote that. But I did. Of course, I wrote a lot of crappy poetry in college, too. I can’t go back and change anything. Hosts and legions. Michael Churchman was right. Maybe I’ll find that poem around here one of these days.

One More Furlong

2010-02-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

It was always about being on the right horse in the right race when everyone else was jumping all over the favorite or the second choice in a large field where anyone that didn’t know any better would swear that anything could happen. And anything could have happened, certainly so, but often enough the patient discipline paid off in so many ways. The race book near Calle Siete next to the jai alai building unlocked the doors at eight in the morning and Robert and me would open it, notebooks full of notes and books full of information that no one else seemed to care about. The place was empty, save for Robert and me and the waiters and a bartender with little to do until ten in the morning when they could begin to sell booze. We all waited for one thing or another.

Upstairs, there is a balcony-like overhang and one particular table that is by far the best place to spend the day in that race book, with some wooden counters and chairs off to the left facing a bank of smaller monitors, and another overhang to the right facing other monitors displaying mostly other sports like football and baseball. In the middle our table waited if we were early, and we faced the six large monitors devoted to horse racing. Cesar was our waiter, he would deliver our coffee without even asking, a weak but hot small plastic carafe with a paper lid. At ten in the morning, the New York track would begin racing, either at Aqueduct or Belmont or in the deep summer at Saratoga. Also at that time there was a Florida track, either Gulfstream or Calder or Hialeah before they closed it down. I had a good flat-bet profit at Gulfstream and Calder, with only marginal success at the New York circuit.

"Those New York bettors are smart," Robert would often say, as he had handicapped a maiden race with a seven-to-one shot bet down to three-to-one. "They know. They’re not going to let an overlay₍₁₎ go off at a price." And Robert would not bet, taking notes instead. We both took a lot of notes, cataloging horses that outran their odds, hoping for a play on them the next time they ran. We waited some more. By then, some of the locals began to show up, two-dollar quinella₍₂₎ bettors mostly, and they would bet anything and everything, even the dog races. If the track didn’t offer quinella wagering, then the race book would make it a mutual bet₍₃₎, and the locals didn’t care; it was all about numbers for them, all about dumb blind luck.

* * * *

I find it amazing to consider and to examine that I’ve lived here in Baja for so long that there is plenty that I now miss from so many years gone by. I miss Robert, my second and last mentor in thoroughbred horse racing, and I miss the weekends spent in that race book. I miss the Perico back when it still had that gaudy black and white ceramic tile everywhere, and I miss my friend Charlie who died over two years ago from a brain aneurysm. I miss one-dollar caguamas₍₄₎ from the gay bar in the diagonal corridor between Revolución and Constitución, and the Canadian old man that ran the place and was stunned that I had no idea it was a gay bar until he told me. I miss the pretty, large-breasted cantinera that used to work days in the Dandy del Sur, because not only was she tacos para los ojos₍₅₎, she was the sweetest bartender ever.

But I reckon that I miss Robert and horse racing most of all. Early Saturday and Sunday morning while Rocio slept, I would shower and dress and gather my gear. I felt like a warrior preparing for battle. At seven in the morning I would take a cab down the hill and another to downtown, going over my notes from the night before. Those warrior days are behind me now and there are other, less glorious but equally difficult challenges now. Paying the electric bill, for example, is something I never had to do until the other day.

Of course I took Anna. My eyes aren’t what they once were, and precisely where and how we were to accomplish paying the electric bill were not familiar to me. Anna has been there. Anna led the way. After a walk of about a mile, we arrived at the facility, what appeared to be a substation with both drive-through and walk-up accommodations for those who need to pay their bill on time. According to Rocio, you can pay over the internet now, if you pay more than three days before the bill is due. Or, any number of convenience stores and even the supermarkets can let you pay there, so long as it isn’t less than three days before the bill is due. For the rest of us – Mexicans and this certain gringo put some tasks off until the last minute – you go to the source.

The walk-up booths weren’t crowded, although the drive-through had a line that would make Burger King₍₆₎ jealous. Anna had to punch the account into the machine, my eyes couldn’t find it. We had converted some dollars into pesos before arriving because the machines don’t take dollars. The appropriate slot sucked up the peso notes like a baby attacking spoonfuls of creamed bananas. A receipt was spit out of another slot, and we were done. Somehow it didn’t have the same thrill as cashing a winning ticket at the race book. Nothing will, I reckon.

* * * *

Robert and me would sit there and occasionally discuss this race or that one, so many years ago, probably sounding like nonsense to anyone within earshot. After the New York tracks started, the Midwest tracks would gear up and go. Then, the West coast, where we were both in our exact element. In the early afternoon, we would be talking ourselves into and out of betting certain races.

"This maiden₍₇₎ race, there’s a Mt. Livermore₍₈₎ with a great works₍₉₎ pattern, he’s fifteen to one."

"The favorite₍₁₀₎ looks too tough."

"Maybe. But fifteen to one. Big overlay."

"I’m waiting for the seventh at Keenland, a twelve to one shot Danzig₍₁₁₎ filly₍₁₂₎, first time on turf₍₁₃₎."

"Yeah, but she’s never been past seven furlongs₍₁₄₎, what makes you think she can go a mile and an eighth?"

And so on. The Mexicans would look at us as if we spoke neither English nor Spanish, but some other language, that we lived in some other world. But they did approach us sometimes, either me or Robert, and they would ask us which horse we liked. They saw that we cashed tickets. Mostly, we told them that we were passing the race, but if we did approach the window, we would tell them. And the results were almost always the same.

"Who do you like in the fifth?"

"The four."

"But he’s twenty to one!"

"Exactly."

And the race would go off and the four would win. And they would pass by, dejected. Trusting the betting public more than our hard work at handicapping, they couldn’t just bet the number four horse to win, they had to bet it in a quinella with the favorite, and the favorite would run out of the money₍₁₅₎. For them, it was live by the quinella and apparently die by it as well. After all, the favorite wins less than a third of the time. And often they would say this: "If he only had one more furlong!"

That could be anyone’s mantra for almost anything: If I only had one more furlong.

Robert and me would continue into the evening, and I especially enjoyed the summertime when the New Jersey tracks would run at night. Garden State Park and Atlantic City, neither of which run thoroughbreds anymore, would begin at about five in our afternoon and even though most of the races were not good for betting, we would find one occasionally. And when we did, they sure paid off.

Occasionally, there would be a race at one of those New Jersey tracks, a maiden race only for New Jersey bred horses. Looking at the past races of these horses, not one of them would have finished any race they’d ever ran less than twenty lengths behind the winner. On paper, it looked as if none of the horses had a chance. But one horse had to win. The betting public would most often go with the horse that had come the closest, but that strategy didn’t always pay off. One evening, such a race presented itself, except that the race was to be run on the turf, and several of the horses had yet to ever try the surface. This was my specialty. At least, I had a good idea based on breeding which horses were most likely to do well on turf.

I had been waiting for the race all day, and I tried to talk Robert into it but he wasn’t interested in betting the race. I narrowed it down to two horses, and as luck would have it, one was twenty to one and the other was fifty to one. I bet both horses, six dollars to win on each one. We watched the race unfold and the result was anti-climactic, the fifty to one horse won by several lengths and I was silently elated with a three hundred dollar profit. Then Robert pointed to the screen in front of us, drawing my attention to the full order of finish and the pay-outs. My winning horse paid one hundred and seven to win. But, the second place horse was the twenty to one shot that I had also bet. For four extra dollars I could have boxed them in an exacta₍₁₆₎. The exacta paid over ten thousand dollars.

This is what happens.

* * * *

Normally, on a day where the combined tracks would offer perhaps eighty total races, Robert and me might have had between five and eight races of interest, where if the odds held and everything looked right, we would wager. Mostly everyone else wanted action in every race, they were stabbing at the game, trying to get lucky. We had our bad days too. Sometimes we could go a couple of weeks without a winner. Other days it seemed like we couldn’t miss. But overall, we made money. We kept track of everything, every wager, every result, and we knew where we stood.

But there were days that were stellar, too, days that made up for that exacta box I didn’t bet at Garden State Park. There are three lots of land overlooking the Pacific Ocean, paid for in full, waiting for some future date when Mexico decides to run electricity up there. Soon, I hope. I’ll build a big house on that land. And while I did have some money saved up to buy a stake in Mexico, I have to thank horse racing for a leg-up on finally getting there.

One fall, many years ago, I had taken notes on a certain filly and I was waiting on her to run again; I saw something in her that I didn’t think many others did. That day finally came on Breeder’s Cup Day₍₁₇₎. The filly, which went off at odds of over thirty to one, didn’t win, she came up a nose short. But the trifecta paid thousands of dollars. I let Rocio cash the ticket a few days later since the land would be in her name. I can’t say that I only miss cashing those tickets, even though I do – but I sure miss Robert₍₁₈₎ and I sure miss being a warrior.

If I only had one more furlong.

___________________________

Footnotes:

(1) An overlay in betting is a wager or proposition that the bettor considers to be undervalued. For example, if the bettor believes that a horse should be 3-1 to win a certain race (that in winning the horse should return $3 for every dollar wagered), and the horse is actually 5-1 or 6-1 or more, then the horse is considered by the bettor to be an overlay.

(2) A quinella wager pays off successfully when the wager includes the first and second place finishers in any order.

(3) Track wagers are placed into track parimutual pools for the specific type of bet, and after the take-out (a large percentage for the State and a small percentage for the track), the wagers are paid out in accordance with the odds at the close of wagering. A mutual quinella, or house quinella is sometimes offered in sports books where the track does not offer parimutual quinella wagering. The house quinella is calculated by taking the pay-out for the winning horse multiplied by half the pay-out for the second place horse, then multiplying that number by half of the amount wagered.

(4) Caguamas are one-liter bottles of beer.

(5) Tacos para los ojos is tacos for the eyes. In other words, tacos are considered wonderful and yummy meal-wise, so tacos for the eyes would be akin the French saying, sucre d'oeil, or sweets for the eyes.

(6) They actually have Burger King here. And McDonald’s. And Carl’s Jr. And Kentucky Fried Chicken. Someone should pass a law.

(7) Maidens are horses that have yet to win their first race.

(8) Mt. Livermore was a prolific sire (father) whose progeny had an unusual tendency toward winning their first race.

(9) Works are work-outs, published with dates and times and distances. The patterns of the workouts (spacing between works and distances) are often more important than the times of the works.

(10) The favorite is the morning-line horse with the best odds, which normally holds true up to the beginning of the race.

(11) Danzig was a sire with progeny known for both speed and a liking for turf (q.v.).

(12) Horses are horses much as dogs are dogs, but when breaking down horses into age and gender, the following nomenclature applies to race horses: Weanling – A horse of either gender less than one year old. Yearling – A horse of either gender between one and two years old. Colt – A male horse between two and four years old. Filly – A female horse between two and four years old. Gelding – A male horse that has been gelded. Mare – A female horse five years or older. Horse – A male horse (not gelded) five years or older. Ridgling – A male horse with only one testicle distended (males are born with testicles distended, then they contract up into the pelvic cavity within a few months, and then drop again, except that only when only one drops the horse is called a ridgling; ridglings sometimes race, but are more often used as teasers to see if a mare is in heat, as ridglings are almost always sterile). It is interesting to note that all horses in the Northern Hemisphere share the same birthdate of January 1st, regardless of the actually date after January 1st that they were born. In the Southern Hemisphere, that date is June 1st. The gestation period of a mare is eleven months.

(13) Turf is grass. Racing surfaces include dirt, grass or turf, and synthetic surfaces (there are various types of synthetic surfaces, mostly on the West Coast, including Cushion, Pro-Ride, Polytrack, and Tapeta).

(14) One furlong equals 1/8 mile.

(15) Running out of the money is to finish out of the top three. Except in superfecta wagering (q.v.), it means that the horse does not figure into any pay-out.

(16) Straight bets, costing a minimum of two dollars, are win, place (2nd) and show (3rd). Other wagers, sometimes referred to as exotic bets, include quinella, exacta (1st and 2nd place in order), trifecta (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in order), and superfecta (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place in order). Boxing any exotic wager is the act of paying more money to ensure that the horses could possibly run in any order, or, in a certain combination.

(17) Breeder’s Cup is now a two-day event where the best horses in the world at specialized distances, surfaces, and age groups, run races to determine the best at their specialty. It is a heavily wagered event.

(18) Many years ago, Robert moved to Las Vegas. Last I heard, he was somewhere between there and here.

Body, Heal Thyself

2010-01-27T22:49:00.001-08:00

Most machinery cannot fix itself when something breaks, like a car or a toaster or a trash compactor or a computer or even a bicycle. Such machines are designed and built to operate under certain power requirements such as electricity or combustion created by fuel and fire or even human movement. The best that some of these machines can do is to diagnose themselves, such as through warning lights or even messages on monitors that alert anyone that cares about a potential problem or imminent failure. Often, there is no warning for such events, nor is there a mode of diagnosis. Most machines are, at some point, entirely dependent on human beings in some capacity.

The human body is also a machine, but unlike other types of machines, it often has the capacity to fix itself. The main warning device employed by the machine that is the human body, is pain. Pain signifies that there is a problem. When one smashes one’s thumb with the inaccurate strike of a hammer, for example, pain dictates that the thumb has been injured and such pain often sends a message to the memory banks of the carbon-based, body-controlling computer that we call a brain. The brain then instructs the arm not to swing a hammer so close to the thumb. If we’re lucky, the arm complies.

The injured thumb almost always heals, by itself, unless you happen to own a very large hammer. Take even a small hammer to your computer keyboard and you’re probably going to have to buy a new one. It certainly isn’t going to fix itself. The luckiest you’ll get is if, by chance, you can repair it yourself. Or else, you’ll have to take it to someone who can. But it won’t fix itself, regardless. Sometimes, the human body is, in fact, self-repairing.

* * * *

When I hobbled into the Perico a couple of weeks ago, cane-dependant, Scott was there and asked me about the leg. I told him that it pretty much constantly hurt and that perhaps the battery of tests ordered by the doctor would reveal why. I told him that I awoke one morning and there it was, pain. I had no reason for it nor any explanation, only vague notions of what it could be. Then Scott asked me about the most painful thing, physically, that I had ever endured.

"Pneumothorax," I told him, not needing to think about it. When I was perhaps twenty or twenty-one, one morning while filing away test data I had the most intense pain, in my chest, that I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t know what it was – a heart attack? I could barely breath. Somehow I transported myself down the street to the company clinic where they x-rayed my chest, and I stayed down on my back on a bed while they developed the film. Within a half-hour, the pain was completely gone, as quickly as it came. I offered no explanation nor was I given one.

It wasn’t until later that I realized that the attendants at that clinic were not very good at reading x-rays.

The second occurrence was much milder and didn’t go away for a couple of days. I didn’t bother going to the doctor until many months later, when it happened again while I suffered from a nasty cold. I went to my regular physician because I suspected it could be pleurisy. Again my regular physician ordered a x-ray, which I brought back for him to read. He came out of the reading room and told me I needed an ambulance. I actually laughed.

I drove myself to the hospital and met a doctor of internal medicine, a short man with curly hair from the East Coast and a very relaxed and witty sense of humor. In the emergency room I explained what I had been through over the last year and he diagnosed me with spontaneous pneumothorax. "It’s rare, but it happens sometimes with tall thin guys. This is your second documented occurrence. On the third documented occurrence we have no choice; we have to operate. It’s painful. We cut and spread your ribcage and take out your lung and irritate the lining, which makes the scar tissue necessary to keep it from collapsing again."

It certainly didn’t sound promising. He continued, "But what we’ve found is that with every occurrence, your lung collapses less and less, because scar tissue is made with each collapse, and as you’ve noticed, each collapse is less and less profound. There’s a good chance, presuming that you can deal with the pain, that we won’t have to operate. If it collapses any more than it is right now, you need to get in here. If it doesn’t, you won’t have this issue in a couple of years."

That doctor was right. That part of this machine of mine took care of itself.

* * * *

I related the second-most intense pain I ever experienced to Scott over yet another beer that afternoon in the Perico. It was when I shattered my heel bone while playing baseball. But again, it was a success story involving a human machine. And again, it was a damned good doctor who allowed that to happen.

It took eighteen hours from when it happened until I was actually at a specialist in the United States of America, x-rays in hand. The x-ray technician, upon viewing my film, had asked my why I wasn’t crying. I didn’t know how to answer him. All I could think about was how much worse it was to have a collapsed lung. The foot specialist ordered an ultrasound, which I took the next day. I showed up back at his office with the results.

"Well, let me tell you, in the old days there would be no question," said the young man – perhaps a decade younger than myself – telling me this as he read my images. "The old procedure under any circumstances would be to open up the foot and scrape out all of the bone fragments and mold them together with a special epoxy to make another heel bone. Then we would fuse it back up there where your old one was. In your case, you didn’t blow it out to one side or another; but rather, the fragments are still fairly symmetrical. I’m inclined to put you in a cast and allow the bone fragments to fuse on their own. We’ve found this to be successful in cases like yours."

"Will I walk normally?"

"Yes. You won’t be able to run marathons and no more baseball, but the only effect you’ll notice after a few years is arthritis, and you’ll probably have a few wayward bone fragments working their way out of your foot."

It took six months to get to the point where all I needed was a cane, and then a few weeks after that, I was fine. I lack some mobility, and experience slight arthritis, but that doctor was also right about that part of my machine. Basically, it healed itself in the cast. Stanford University can be proud of him. I am proud of Stanford University.

* * * *

When I awoke with that pain in my leg, and it didn’t go away after a few weeks, and there was no good reason for having it that I could think of, I went to a doctor. I tried to take their tests, but fate did not cooperate. I figured I would take those tests this week, now that I know what I’m up against. Then something else happened.

I awoke the other morning, and like any morning I put both feet on the ground and reached for my robe. Then I noticed something. The pain was gone. I went downstairs and made a cup of coffee and waited for it to return, but it didn’t. And it hasn’t. It’s as if nothing happened at all. I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.

Understanding that I risk the wrath of friends and family members, the tests will remain on hold for a while. Those papers have no expiration date. Besides, what’s a Doppler ultrasound going to find now? Blood tests? Urinalysis? Chest x-ray? Nothing more than the fact that, apparently and inexplicably, my machine has fixed itself. That, and a slight iron deficiency. And a warning that if I don’t quit smoking I run the risk of cancer and heart disease and several other dangerous and harmful effects on my machine.

I walked to the local market noting the chill here in Baja that seems to have settled in for a while. I bought two packages of unfiltered cigarettes so that just in case I get that chest x-ray taken at some point, they’ll have a reason to lecture me. Even the store clerk noticed me walking without a cane. Weeks ago when I first appeared with the cane he had asked me if I had fallen. It made me feel old.

"Feeling better?" he said to me in Spanish.

"Like new," I said. "The human body is a remarkable machine."

I walked back home slowly and completely free of pain, careful to avoid the uneven concrete lest I fall and need that damned cane again.

Stuck In The Mud

2010-01-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

The rain and wind and hail fiercely competed with the thunder and lightning for an order of brutal display, and there would be no winner. I awoke many times Thursday night and into Friday morning, succumbing to the sounds of one barrage after another of nature’s calling cards. When it stopped, after a few minutes, a jet airliner would sneak out of Tijuana’s airport and make that sharp turn southwest over the house. Minutes later, another storm cell would threaten and then close the gap, dumping its deluge in the wake of people flying to somewhere that storm cells couldn’t reach them.

I imagined a dragon snapping at a sparrow.

When I awoke for the last time on Friday morning, Rocio had left for work leaving a slow and steady rain behind. I came downstairs and showered while yet another storm cell dumped even more rain to accompany me through the crack in the bathroom window. I was to be poked and prodded today, storms or no storms. I did not have the luxury of a commercial jet waiting on a runway for safe clearance to take off. I would be making this trip regardless of whether the dragon slept or raged.

Dressed and loaded with papers, a medical card, and twenty-six dollars, I guided my cane through the mud and water out to the main boulevard. It was eleven o’clock. The green and white taxis took turns loading and unloading passengers near the old Chinese restaurant next to a bank of pay phones. The rain had stopped. I climbed in and the driver took off, his cab riding on the wet asphalt and eluding the new potholes brought on by temporary torrents seeking the lowest ground that water could find.

* * * *

In nineteen hundred and ninety-three, when all hell broke loose in Tijuana, when they opened the gates of the Rodriguez Dam, the water came barreling down the river and washed out all of the roads except for the two bridges, one near Cinco Y Diez and the other in Centro. Concurrently, mud and boulders the size of small cars came oozing and spilling and tumbling down the hillsides to the south of the river, also bringing the thousands of old worn tires that many had used to keep their yards from washing down the hill. It was three feet deep on the bridge near Cinco Y Diez, effectively cutting the eastern end of the city in half. There was never a bigger mess here.

The number of people who died in that series of storms has never been officially reconciled.

Over the course of the next decade, the entire Tijuana River was transformed into concrete. Bridges were built, several of them, and no more roads would run through the river, but rather over it. Drainage was improved. Asphalt streets that were prone to flooding were replaced with concrete. Tijuana’s east-west freeway was completed, using space on both sides of the Tijuana River, from Centro all of the way out passed the Dam. Another six-lane boulevard was paved, running parallel to the main boulevard, Diaz Ordaz. Bridges were built carrying the north-south traffic harmlessly over both of the east-west boulevards. All of these improvements have had a profound effect on the eastern portion of Tijuana.

When it rains, there are still problems here. Pedestrians are going to get wet, with the simple matter of crossing a street meaning wading through a foot or more of water. We are willing to live with it. This latest series of storms have brought fatalities as well, with a family swept away while attempting to cross swift water in their car, and a young girl drowning while two of her siblings are still missing in a more rural area of Tijuana. Such occurrences are tragic. The loss of any life is tragic. The ability to count such tragic losses is an improvement of what once was either an inability to do so or an unwillingness to account for the loss of life.

* * * *

The Allen W. Lloyd building originally housed a life insurance company, with other offices leased by dentists and doctors and other professionals, and served as a landmark on the border at the San Ysidro port of entry into the United States of America. Over a decade ago I wrote a fictional short story I called Jesus Stone, in which that building had been renamed and the life insurance had been supplanted by medical insurance because more money could be made selling the latter than the former. That part of the story is no longer fictional. The rest of the story remains speculative: The Jesus Stone that brought the friend of the protagonist a lot of money along with a lot of other problems and ultimately his own fatality, caused the protagonist to then gift the money blindly and recover the stone and ultimately throw it off of a long pier, ostensibly back to whatever primordial beginnings from whence it came. May the rest of that story always remain speculative and entirely untrue.

The green and white cab rolled along, eluding any rain and carefully negotiating bodies of standing water. The potholes along the way were new and deep and tricky. The one passenger in front of me that had accompanied us for most of the ride to Centro remarked in disgust about the local government’s inability to fix these problems. We chatted about it. I reminded him how much better it is now than it was over a decade ago, and he agreed. He was a rarity, a born-and-raised Tijuanense. We wished each other luck and I got out on Calle Madero, I decided to walk to what once was the Allen W. Lloyd building.

My cane didn’t help much, other than to draw stares from some of the pedestrians. The storms didn’t appear to have had the dramatic effect on Downtown Tijuana as such storms once had. As I crossed the pedestrian bridge toward the border, I noticed the Tijuana River, much higher than the normal trickle, moving swiftly underneath me. There was a time that the river would have almost risen to the brim, and now it is so controlled as to steadily release water into the Pacific Ocean as though this sort of thing happens often. That a city receiving a few inches of rain annually, with little in the way of original infrastructure to handle anything more, could negotiate several inches within a matter of hours is certainly a testimony to vast improvement.

I approached the steps noting the beautiful new construction and lovely glass doors and, once inside, a security officer eagerly helped direct visitors to their appropriate destinations. On the second floor, I approached the receptionist who took my information and paperwork and medical card and asked me if I had eaten any breakfast. No, as a matter of coincidence. She smiled and handed me a plastic cup with a screw-on top and told me to go "pee-pee". I found the men’s restroom and filled it halfway, proud that I could comply. Once back in the office area, my name was called and the sample taken and tagged, and another nurse now attending to me asked if I had had anything to drink this morning.

"No alcohol," I responded, proud of my damned sobriety.

"Only water, right?"

"Coffee," I said. "And a small cup of Fresca."

"Oh, no! You can only have water. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back."

"But the doctor never said anything about not…"

"You can’t have any sugar in your system at all for at least twelve hours prior to the blood and urine test," she said. She handed me back my paperwork and I told her that I would return for the tests next week. Then I asked about the other tests, the Doppler ultrasound in particular.

"It’s on the other side of the building, you’ll have to go there and ask them about that."

I left that side of the building, stepping outside where it was now sprinkling. The doctor never said anything about breakfast of coffee or soda or anything other than no alcohol for forty-eight hours. I reached the other side of the building; more steps and more glass doors. Once inside, I found that I could take some chest x-rays that had been ordered, but that the Doppler ultrasound would have to be done somewhere in the United States of America. Call this certain doctor in Tijuana and he would schedule my appointment. Where was this place in the United States of America? Only the doctor would tell me, once I called him.

My body was nothing more than a machine stuck in the Tijuana mud.

The modern interior, indoor fountains, and beautiful furnishings betrayed the system in Baja. That old expression about painting lipstick on a pig (but it’s still a pig) came immediately to mind. Everything would have to be done yet again next week. I left, and the rain followed me. I would take a bus downtown and have a beer. The skies opened up on the way to the bus and I stood huddled underneath the eave of a building along with several others, waiting until the cell passed, until the hard drops turned into something more manageable. The bus then shielded us from whatever fell after that.

* * * *

"Remember what it used to be like?" I asked Jody as we sipped a beer in the freezing cold Nuevo Perico.

"Yes. Of course, first thing in the morning, the mud is still there until they shovel it up and take it away."

"That will never change. It’s the same out where I live. The mud will always be there," I said.

I bought him another beer. The Perico is the coldest bar in Tijuana. This works well in the summer but not so well in January. Friday afternoon there were not enough jackets to keep anyone warm. I stood for a while.

"How’s the leg?"

"Actually, it hurts less now. Or maybe I’m getting used to the pain. Or else I’m tired of worrying about it. It doesn’t bother me much to use this cane," I said.

Jody finished his beer and left, and I wasn’t too far behind. The Dandy has heat, worth the extra fifty cents a bottle, and my cane seemed to find all of the right spots on the sidewalk all of the way down Calle Sexta. Even that six-toed cat they let have the run of the place was content to curl up and keep warm on a nearby chair. I sipped my beer and read the paper and wondered why sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same.

The Last Sunny Day For A While

2010-01-19T09:33:00.001-08:00

I can’t remember the last time I actually ventured out the front door before Saturday. I would watch the sun cast shadows across the cobblestone through the front window, briefly, before the pain would begin again. Then I would have to find a chair. Sitting is better than standing and lying down is better than is any other option. I can’t stay in bed all day and the couch is out of the question because the television is intolerable. Sitting is the compromise, then. Writing and reading articles on the internet are preferred activities to distract me from the dull throbbing pain in my right leg.

It started well over a month ago with a couple of day’s worth of chest pain, high up and not seemingly related to the heart or the thorax. I figured I was smoking a bit too much, and I cut back on the non-filtered delicados I have come to enjoy here in Baja. After two days, the chest pain subsided only to be immediately replaced by a right leg that felt as though I had so completely overextended it as to cause me to reach for a cane once used for another injury more than a decade earlier. This is what happens.

Three weeks after that, I told Rocio to make an appointment with the doctor, that something was wrong.

Rocio is the warrior I once was, crossing the border before sunrise every day to report to work and then coming back home in the dark. I did that for fifteen years. Like many employers in the United States of America so close to the border with Mexico, the health insurance offers the employee a choice of coverage in Mexico. Rocio took this option because she is more comfortable with the doctors here. I am bound by that option now whether I like it or not.

* * * *

My first experience with a doctor in Mexico was actually with an obstetrician. Six months into what has now become a permanent sojourn into Baja, my daughter was born in a small clinic in Las Brisas, not more than a few miles from here. In about a month, that daughter will be seventeen years old. It seems ridiculous how much time has passed since that afternoon. It doesn’t seem so long ago.

The tiny clinic, not unlike other tiny clinics in Baja, had a small reception area with a few old chairs and it also served as a waiting area. The receptionist also worked as a nurse in case the clinic became too crowded for one nurse to handle. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t dirty; it was merely adequate, right down to the lighting. It was a simpler and much more rustic version of any doctor’s office in the United States of America.

Once we chose the clinic, I recall paying half of the six hundred dollars that the entire procedure would cost. This would include monthly visits, but not tests and the ultrasound. We didn’t want to have my daughter born in Mexico merely because it was inexpensive, but it worked out wonderfully well that way. We wanted to have Anna born in Mexico because she is Mexican, so that she would feel rooted in the culture we chose to bring her up in. One day, green card in hand, she may have a decision to make concerning where she wants to live – and she can make that decision freely while keeping in mind the flavor of freedom she has grown accustomed to here in Mexico.

My experiences in childbirth from my first marriage were different; both children were delivered by Caesarian section. I lied about having attended the class for the first one, and sat next to my ex-wife who was awake during the procedure. I delightfully remember her guts laying exposed beside her torso, a memory that serves me well when any of dozens of awful recollections from that marriage might creep up from time to time. The second Caesarian section was filled with technical and personnel problems from the beginning – the assisting doctor was a half-hour late, they lost suction right after the second incision, and so on. Afterward, both doctors commended me for maintaining my composure and keeping my ex-wife calm. My only thought was this: What else was I there for?

In that clinic in Baja, as I gowned and scrubbed up next to the doctor, I remember wondering how many deliveries he ever made by Caesarian section.

A half-hour prior to that evening in February of 1993 I was in a supermarket near the clinic and it was raining harder than I have ever seen. Water was coming through the light fixtures, as if the roof served no purpose at all. Back in the clinic, as I finished scrubbing, I could still hear the water pounding the roof and I worried as much about getting my wife and my new daughter home as I did about anything else. We entered the birthing room and the nurse took sight of me and blushed. I didn’t speak much Spanish but I did understand the doctor telling her that it was common and often expected that Americans be with their wives during the birth. The nurse would have none of it, she left while Rocio crushed my hand during transition, and only re-entered after Anna was born, quickly taking my daughter into another room to clean her up and take her vitals.

The rain never let up, and a few hours later with a healthy baby and a healthy wife, I was ready to get them out of there and take them home, up the hill and away from the flooding. The doctor would not even remotely entertain the notion, that it was customary for the mother and infant to remain at the clinic for twenty-four hours. We argued. One point that came up? I still owed the clinic one hundred dollars, which I was not scheduled to pay for two weeks. We argued some more. Finally, a younger doctor just beginning his shift intervened on my behalf, and we avoided the worse flooding in Tijuana in over fifty years, safe and up the hill, watching the catastrophe unfold over the next few days on the local news television programming.

* * * *

My second experience with a doctor in Mexico was more benign - it was a simple matter of having a common cold. I was in the doghouse of the owner where I worked for reasons that now escape me, and when I called in, my boss recommended I get a note from a doctor or there would be hell to pay. That office was also rudimentary, featuring a ceramic tile floor and sparse furnishings on the second story of a small cinderblock building next to a restaurant and a hardware store. The doctor barely examined me, and fifteen dollars later I had a prescription for antibiotics and a note in Spanish excusing me from work until I felt better.

It was recommended that I fill my prescription right downstairs, because apparently the doctor also owned the pharmacy underneath his practice.

I took that note to work the next day and nothing was said. While Rocio and Anna visit the doctor here in Baja regularly, the last time I had been to a doctor in Mexico was perhaps fifteen years ago. I didn’t look forward to last Saturday. I was sure that I would find the same dusty plastic plants, old, worn, and dirty chairs left over from some newly remodeled business office from twenty years ago, and diplomas hanging on the wall touting achievements from places I’d never heard of.

* * * *

I showered and dressed not thinking twice about my dirty old tennis shoes and dusty cap, grabbed my cane, and Anna accompanied me because she knew where the doctor’s office was. We left early at Anna’s urging because apparently there would be many forms to fill out. With Anna handling the money, we took a route cab to Zona Rio and then a metered taxi to an office right across the street from Tijuana’s General Hospital. The office was immaculate. The chairs – and there were plenty of chairs – were practically new. The entire office, including the large contoured counter, was as modern as was anything, anywhere. Anna presented them with my insurance card (I didn’t even know I had an insurance card), and I signed a small digital screen. There was no paperwork to fill out.

Rocio came directly from work and met Anna and me as we waited briefly and then a nurse called me into a room and took my vitals. My blood pressure? "Good, very good," she said, rattling off numbers that made no sense to me. I returned to my seat in the lobby and Rocio asked me my weight. I couldn’t tell her, since it was taken in kilograms and I paid no attention. I was then instructed to wait in exam room three, and took Rocio with me in case I needed a finer translation than I was capable of relating.

The hallways were spotless, and the small exam rooms were immaculate and fully stocked. In a minute, the doctor arrived and I explained what was wrong. There was ten minutes of questions, and he listened attentively. We chatted briefly about things unrelated. He noticed my black cap, which sported the fleur-de-lis embroidered in gold with silver and black trim.

"Saints?" the doctor inquired.

"They’re playing right now," I said in Spanish.

He then recounted a recent trip to New Orleans, a trip that he very much enjoyed. That doctor put me more at ease about everything than any doctor I’ve ever visited, save for one specialist I had when I shattered my heel bone over a decade ago, a young Stanford graduate that I credit very much for my ability to still walk normally. At least, before this latest thing, whatever it was. I was made to de-pants and wear a silly paper gown, and the doctor immediately came back in and examined my leg, comparing the injured one to the non-injured one.

"The good news is that there is no obvious signs of a stroke," the doctor said. I was relieved.

He ordered a lot of tests, including a Doppler ultrasound, whatever that is. "These tests will find any blockage in your circulatory system, if such blockage exists," he said. "Go Monday. No drinking or smoking forty-eight hours prior to the testing."

Rocio cringed. She knows me all too well.

* * * *

We sat at the bus stop outside of the doctor’s office and I lit a cigarette. It was two-thirty, which was the exact time of my appointment. I was finished with that doctor and I knew the next one would be a specialist of some sort. At some point. I had no designs on getting those tests done on Monday. Rocio knew it. I exhaled smoke onto a beam of sunlight reflecting off of the windows of the hospital across the street. Eventually, we piled onto the bus to downtown Tijuana.

"I haven’t had a drink in over a month," I told Rocio. "I’m going downtown and watch the Saints game and the game after that. I’m going to have a few beers and talk to the friends I haven’t seen in several weeks. Then I’m going to get some tacos de chile rellenos and bring them home. This is the last sunny day for a while, and I’m going to enjoy it."

Rocio slipped me twenty dollars.

By the time I managed to navigate Centro de Tijuana on a cane, avoiding the cracks and holes in the old sidewalks, I walked into the Perico tired but happy. Scott and Jody were both there and the Saints were in full control of their game. The world was right again, at least for that afternoon and into that evening. The beer tasted friendly and helpful, like good medicine. The pain in my leg didn’t matter for a while.

The Doppler ultrasound will still be there, even on a rainy day such as this.

Little Things

2009-12-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

Say that in your spare time, whatever spare time you get, you decide that it's time to start hammering out that novel or two you've had in your head for several years. You begin to write it, tearing out at breakneck speed, tossing some of it as you go, fixing some of it in the process. At some point it hits you: Am I doing this right? Am I good enough to sell a novel?

And then something really jars you - you realize that you don't know the answers to either question. So, you begin to balance writing your novel with searching for the answers to the questions. In searching, you learn that you really don't understand the publishing world at all. You decide to investigate.

Sure, you've sold shorts, and you worked for a couple of years a long time ago writing for a newspaper, but those are completely different processes with entirely different sets of dynamics. So, you search the internet and find that many published novelists and agents and editors of publishing houses are more than happy to share information with you. As you learn, what you read does not always excite you. There is a business side to this entire process that you hadn't considered. Some of the agents are very snarky, almost condescending. Many of the authors are very high-handed.

But after a year or so, you begin to understand more. Your writing improves because of it. But mostly, for better or worse, the publishing world and how it works becomes more apparent. And along the way, you interact with published novelists, editors, and agents. You begin to notice that you check many of their weblogs daily. You find yourself participating, exchanging ideas, and offering and receiving advice and counseling.

While you have come to understand that writing a publishable novel is not easy, and that the process of getting a novel published is damned depressing sometimes, little things happen that gives you encouragement. Writing a nice story in your weblog, a story that prompts comments of praise can make you feel pretty good sometimes - after all, once you get that novel published they are likely going to be your readers. Selling a story is always nice, especially when you get fan mail.

Still, it is up and down, there are highs and lows. I mean, one day you're in a heated argument with John Scalzi concerning what writers should be paid, and the next day you're honored by an editor at a publishing house. Little things? Perhaps. I didn't win, but I didn't expect to be a finalist, either. Many of the writers that submitted are published novelists.

Am I doing this right? Am I good enough to sell a novel? I don't know yet, but these little things are encouraging.

Anatomy Of A Blown Fuse

2009-12-16T16:56:00.000-08:00

"Be careful," I said, except that all of our conversations take place in Spanish. Ernesto was attempting to remove the breaker that probably hadn’t been replaced since the house was built. Decades, I imagine.

Ernesto laughed. "Don’t worry. Are you afraid of electricity?"

"Only when there’s current involved."

Electricity is still a magical and often downright dangerous idea if you ask me. A couple of months ago, the neighborhood experienced an outage that lasted for a good half-hour. This sometimes happens in Baja, and likely happens anywhere in the world. Perhaps a transformer blows somewhere or maybe there is an overload of some type or perhaps there is a line down. It’s completely out of our hands. We endure it, and once power is restored we reset the clocks and continue as if nothing had happened.

In the past few weeks, we began to experience a lot more outages than usual. For a minute sometimes or perhaps five minutes other times, the electricity would cease to run the lights and other machinery in the house accustomed to sucking that invisible juice we sometimes take for granted. I blamed it on anything from the wind to some nebulous occurrence at the local Baja Power Company. The electricity always came back. I had no reason not to trust my suspicions.

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday, the power went out again and I stepped away from the computer and took that as a quirky sign of opportunity knocking to call my parents, the telephone still worked. The power was off for almost an hour, then came back for a few minutes and then went out again. Fifteen minutes later, electricity was restored. I remember telling my dad, "Hey, it’s Mexico, what are you going to do? We live with it."

Last Sunday, I was supposed to cook the usual large dinner, people were coming over. Rocio’s parents were very early, they enjoy playing card games with Anna sometimes. The power had gone out again when they arrived, so I took Anna and we set off to the market to buy ingredients. As we passed a neighbor who was outside and working on his motorcycle - as is customary in Mexico - we exchanged greetings and I mentioned something about the electricity being out.

"My electricity is fine," he said.

I looked at Anna and we headed back to the house, we had a problem.

* * * *

Sometimes life is a wonderful thing, filled with much promise and beauty and hope and amazing people and fantastic events and incredible sights and sounds and smells and tastes and so on. Other times, life is full of suck. The problem is that each day we wake up and get dressed and live life and we never know what we’re going to get out of it. Sometimes life serves up lots of cotton candy goodness, other times you receive nothing more than a side order of lemony misfortune.

The easiest thing to do is to say that everything happens for a reason; the hardest thing is to actually believe it.

During that long conversation with my father a couple of weeks ago when the power was out, We had the chance to talk about a lot - it was wonderful and he seems fine. The pneumonia is gone but there’s some sort of a heart valve issue. There will be a specialist. I reckon we’ll see what happens. The only thing I know for sure is that my phone bill will be enormous.

Whenever I get the chance to talk with my father I usually feel an overwhelming urge to catch up on the status of the extended family. I am the outcast, living on the other side of the big metal fence. I hear little news of any happenings. Sometimes cousins or aunts or uncles divorce or marry or have children or die and I might not hear about it for several years. The connection, then, is not so stable – a lot like prolonged outages.

The culpability is my own, for not asking more questions more often.

* * * *

I feed my parents information when important things happen here, usually by electronic mail. My letters are mostly short and to the point, I’ve never been much of a letter writer. Like my parents, I usually wait for an opportunity during a telephone call to break news about my extended family here. I did that during the conversation with my father, mentioning that my sister-in-law was expecting her and her husband’s first. She is several months along now, and while we had a scare last month that required a hospital visit she now appears to be fine.

It will not be an easy pregnancy, we all knew that from the start, but so far it is coming along well.

When my then twenty-year-old daughter arrived at home one evening many months ago and announced that she was pregnant, well, that was quite different. She was living in my house, and I had never met her boyfriend. I emailed my parents that evening and broke that news. Something that I had preached to all of my kids from a very early age was about pregnancy and condoms and being as foolproof-cautious as possible. Many times I embarrassed my wife a little by being so open and frank about it. Apparently, one of the kids didn’t listen.

I met her boyfriend the next evening, a fine young man, and told them both to marry, to give the child a chance at having a family, and they agreed that it was the most rational course because, after all, they were in love.

Two months later, she miscarried. Again, I emailed my parents, and it was my mother that responded with something about God’s will. I wouldn’t know about God’s will. The only conclusion that I had a chance at successfully reaching was that everything happens for a reason. Just don’t ask me if I believe that because even with the barrel of a gun at my forehead I couldn’t honestly answer.

One month after that, as though it were any other normal day, that daughter came downstairs and announced that she was going to visit her boyfriend. It was what she did every day since she had miscarried, farted around at home and then went to see her boyfriend. My sixteen-year-old then came home from school, went upstairs, came right back down and informed me that her sister’s belongings were gone. Even though she had just turned twenty-one, it upset her maternal grandparents greatly.

This prompted another email to my parents, and it was my father who joked about it being nothing more than one down and two to go.

* * * *

Last Sunday, I went out to the large bank of electrical meters controlling the block of houses we belong to – in this infonavit, like many others, the houses are not separated, and found our meter. Everyone else’s meters were moving. I found the single breaker controlling our electricity and poked it with a stick. I felt like a caveman. With pliers, handles coated with insulated rubber, I moved the switch up and down and then up. Rocio came out and informed me that the lights flickered and then went out.

On a Sunday afternoon with less than an hour of light remaining, I decided that the switch must be broken; I needed help at two levels.

I’ve wired heavy and high-voltage machinery, houses and build-outs, and understand electricity as well as anyone not formally trained to do so. But I have done this in the United States of America, not in Mexico. Everything is different here. On the other side of the big metal fence, 220 volts are usually run into house up there and then split into two poles of 110 volts. In Mexico, only one line of 110 volts enters the meter. And even if I dared to tackle whatever electrical voodoo was behind the breaker, where would I find a replacement at four in the afternoon on a Sunday?

That was when I called Ernesto, who came down the hill within about fifteen minutes. Between his crude tools and my own, he was into the box and pulling out the breaker within minutes – unafraid, knowing how it was wired and laughing at my notion of what safe electricity might be. He removed the top part of the breaker and unscrewed the clamp that held three wires, the only three wires that supplied electricity to the entire house. He handed me the breaker.

* * * *

My son arrived back home from his second and last tour in Iraq during his sister’s pregnancy, miscarriage, and departure from home. His response was measured; he neither approved what his sister had gotten herself into, nor defended her. His sister and her boyfriend are here almost every evening now, incidentally. It took a few weeks, but these things eventually smooth over.

Not even a month after his sister moved in with her boyfriend, my son moved out to live in a large house across town with friends and cousins. Apparently, the place is enormous, several bedrooms, three bathrooms, it is practically a mansion. He’s twenty-four years old now, his departure is no surprise what with having a girlfriend of many years and probably seeking privacy. He comes over almost every Sunday while I cook a large meal.

Obviously, my parents were told about that as well, but refrained from saying the obvious: Two down, one to go. This should leave just Rocio and Anna and me, but there is almost always someone else here in the afternoons and evenings, and especially over the weekends. And when Anna’s brother and sister show up, they relate news to us and us to them, much in the same way as I relate and gather such news when I call my parents. It is now an interrupted connection, one that lacks complete continuity.

This often brings surprises, leading to a blown fuse not unlike that of the breaker, and there is a lesson to be learned in all of this somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can come to terms with it.

It was Anna’s sister that showed up with her boyfriend the other evening, informing us that they have set wedding dates. The plural is intentional. Here in Mexico, the government does not recognize a church marriage as being official, and the church does not recognize a government marriage as occurring before the eyes of God. Two marriages must be performed here for all who wish a traditional church marriage and that the marriage be recognized by the government.

How about that for the separation of Church and State? How about that for a disconnected circuit?

* * * *

"Any idea where we can buy another breaker?" I asked Ernesto, but he already had his cell phone out and was dialing. I looked out into the Baja sky and guessed that we had a half-hour of daylight left. Meanwhile, my son and an electrician friend of his showed up as back-up. We didn’t need him, Ernesto was connected. He drove me up the hill.

"Remember the friend of mine that owns a hardware store, where you bought lumber for that ladder you built when you lived in Infonavit Latinos?" Ernesto asked.

"That was almost ten years ago," I said.

And as we chatted and drove up the hill I recalled that meeting. We brought a six pack of Tecate and I drank one waiting for Ernesto to talk with him inside of the house while I was out back in the small lumber yard, looking over used lumber. It was closed. A table saw mesmerized me. The table saw wasn’t hooked up electrically. Connected to the where the motor of the saw should have been was a drive shaft that was connected to a transmission connected to an old Ford straight-six engine. I had wished for a camera, it was one of the most magnificent contraptions I had ever seen.

Ernesto and the proprietor came out and we shared a beer. I asked about the saw, and he told me that he kept blowing out electric motors on the saw. Finally he remembered that he had a working engine and a transmission and decided to give it a try. He demonstrated it, cutting through a railroad tie and it was impressive. No, it was amazing.

"It’s a lot quicker when I put a good blade in it. But this wood often has too many nails," he told me that day.

Sunday late afternoon Ernesto pulled up and the proprietor was awaiting us, ten years later. I went inside of his electrical shop, a wonderful mess of components that only he knew the order of. We chatted briefly. He pointed at my now-gray beard and we laughed.

"No son los años, son los kilometros de viaje," I tell him, not my age, but the kilometers of travel.

He laughs, pulling out the correct breaker, and I pay him the required four dollars plus a two-dollar tip, and I bid him farewell, maybe for ten more years. With ten minutes of daylight left, we race back down the hill. Having seen it pulled, I could install it, but I want to pay Ernesto for his time and I refused to reconsider his protests to the contrary. Just as dusk applies that last fatal chokehold of the afternoon to the sun, we have electricity again and it is finished.

* * * *

One thing I have learned in life is this: It is never finished. It was too late to cook and now there were over a dozen hungry people entertaining themselves in various ways, so Rocio ordered some pizza and then sent her newly engaged daughter and her future son-in-law out to get some roasted chicken. Meanwhile, my son had returned with his girlfriend of many years. Within a few minutes, he told me the six words I have come to hear all too often as of late.

"Dad, there’s something I have to tell you."

He didn’t even have to tell me because the moment he opened his mouth I knew. But he did have to tell me because, after all, he’s my son and he’s always faced his problems head on. Even when he knew I would blow my fuse. He had knocked up his girlfriend, who embarrassingly sat next to him while he told me. After having preached birth control to him since his first day of high school, he felt he owed me the respect of telling me before anyone else could tell me. What he said next, innocently and without forethought, brought just enough humor into it to make the evening turn out okay.

"I don’t understand how it happened."

"Do you need me to explain it to you, son?"

The laughter and synchronized arrival of the pizza and chicken along with the beer we drank drowned out any misgivings over everything, at least at the moment. But there are some wrinkles to be ironed out. He wants to marry her but she won’t because he didn’t ask her before she was pregnant. Silly girl. Marry the bastard, you were okay sleeping with him before he asked you to marry him. But, they will do what they will do. I will be a grandfather again, regardless.

The other problem? She lives in and wants to remain in the United States of America. My son, now a U.S. citizen after serving six years in the armed forces, wants to live in Mexico. I don’t blame him. I reckon I don’t blame her, either. But that precarious connection, much like the fried breaker underneath my electrical meter, will have to be replaced at some point if they are going to last.

As for me, I have my own problems. Money is more than tight. I have a sister-in-law that’s going to have a baby and a daughter that is planning two weddings. And perhaps the most difficult thing is how to establish a connection with my parents and tell them about this without it sounding like I’m running a brothel down here. If I blow my fuse, do me a favor and get a hold of Ernesto, I’m sure that he’ll know what to do.

Moving Along

2009-11-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

The house is empty again, just Rocio and Anna and me. It’s nice. Rocio’s brother, one she had never before met, flew into town on Friday with his wife and two children. Monday was the departure day. It was perfect. Most days are perfect days in Baja, but Monday was more perfect than most. I realize this implies that perfection is measured rather than achieved. South of the border, perhaps this is true.

"So, how do you like our weather here in Baja?" I asked Julio right before he climbed into a ride to the airport back to Mexico City.

He looked up, looked around. It was eighty degrees. The wind was warm and nice and it caressed his skin as he looked back at me. "Amazing," he said, in Spanish of course. They took him to the airport and they are back in Mexico City, in the Distrito Federal, Mexico’s version of the District of Columbia. Julio is a bodyguard there. He is the most unlikely bodyguard I have ever met.

Julio’s wife, Alma, is reserved and somewhat demure, unlike her husband who is sometimes brash and provocative. Their children, a girl of eleven and a boy of thirteen were very well behaved but incredibly curious kids. Twice I had to shoo them from my office. Several times they would wander into the kitchen while I cooked, watching me perform the simplest of tasks and prepping food, asking me what I was doing at every step until I poked my head into the living room and shot Rocio a glance that was meant for her to come and fetch them away.

Their visit went well but was not without several glitches.

* * * *

When you marry a Mexican, you marry their entire family, lock, stock and barrel. This was no allusion to me when I married Rocio, I knew what I was getting into and I embraced it – and I’m not at all sorry for making that decision. American families are often splintered, in that other than the immediate brother or sister and parents and grandparents, one can go decades between meeting cousins and aunts and uncles and so on. In Mexico, this is normally not the case. Some of Rocio’s family is the exception rather than the rule, I seem to find out very new connections every few years or so.

With Rocio, it was initially her two kids, her parents, and her sister who was nine when we met. That sister is now a psychologist. Juan, my son because I raised him and I’m proud to call him my son, is now a veteran of the United States Army. Sharon, my daughter for the same reason, is set to marry and living with her boyfriend Jose. Rocio’s parents are retired now. Rocio and me have a sixteen-year-old named Anna. This is what time does - it moves things along.

Rocio has a brother named Ricardo, considered a bit of a black sheep, and I have known him for many years. I gave him money for a house, which he still lives in, because otherwise who knows where he would be now. He comes over sometimes, now that his kids are grown and gone. He sells ice cream and seems much happier than before, when he worked in factories and as a plumber and did whatever else he did for coinage years ago. Rocio has had many issues with Ricardo over the years.

While it might seem out of the question that Rocio would have issues with her brother Julio, since they had never met, there was one conversation that would take place between them – in private – that would open a family wound almost forty years old. This is what happens.

* * * *

On Friday, Rocio had come home from work early as I stood in the kitchen prepping hamburgers, which was what Rocio wanted me to cook on the first night. Juan was off attending his next-to-last Army Reserve weekend assignment and would return on Sunday. Rocio’s sister and mother, and Sharon and her boyfriend had taken separate cars to the airport to pick up the guests and their luggage. Rocio was nervous, picking at Anna, annoying me, while trying to sit still on the couch.

The first car rolled up containing the children, and ten minutes later in walked Julio and Alma. He wasn’t what I expected in size and stature, I thought that it was odd for a bodyguard to be seemingly physically inferior to my own frame and found myself thinking that even approaching fifty years old I could probably take him on. After the obligatory hugs, handshakes, and introductions, Julio broke out a bottle of tequila. I will confess that it is the smoothest tequila I’ve ever had.

There were over a dozen in the living room, ostensibly catching up, but Julio was insisting on being the center of attention. When he wasn’t, he would wander into the kitchen and annoy me, insisting that I raise my tequila in a toast. Rocio would then rescue me, but it slowed dinner. Julio had a difficult time wrapping his head around the fact that I was cooking dinner while Rocio relaxed and chatted. It would get worse before it got better.

After the hamburgers and fries, we killed the tequila and continued with beer until everyone finally got tired. Rocio’s parents and Sharon and Jose left, Julio and Alma and the kids went to sleep, and so did everyone else. It was after midnight. Except that I then awoke before three in the morning and stared at the ceiling. I got up and dressed and came downstairs. I came into my office and fired up the computer, learning through my mother’s email that my father was in the hospital.

* * * *

At five in the morning I looked at the kitchen. It was a mess. I knew that our guests were running on an internal clock that was two hours ahead of us. I washed the dishes. Julio came downstairs at a quarter after six and I made him some coffee while he scolded me for doing dishes. Who else was going to do them? They would want breakfast soon.

I excused myself and went to the store, and when I returned, Julio and Alma were dressed.

"We’re going for a walk," Julio said, and they left.

Meanwhile Rocio came down and I shrugged. "They don’t even know Tijuana," I told her. "They’ll get lost." Rocio laughed a little bit. Apparently, she wasn’t getting along with Julio as well as she expected.

The second time they passed by our house, I noticed them and had Rocio go track them down while I diced potatoes. They entered, having found our local panadería and the wonderful breads and rolls therein, and having purchased some chocolate tablets at another store to make atóle. My kitchen would be hijacked for almost an hour. I went back into my office and answered my mother’s email.

Apparently, my father was admitted for a case of pneumonia. He tested negative for flu, so they had him on antibiotics. In the course of the treatment, they discovered his heart rate racing to above one hundred and fifty beats per minute, and rushed in cardio equipment. They didn’t find the cause of the accelerated heart beat, but brought it down to near normal levels with drugs.

Back in the kitchen at last, I fried up some bacon in one pan and the diced potatoes in oil in another pan. I kept them warm in the oven while poaching twenty eggs and steaming a couple pounds of small, peeled and de-veined shrimp. At the end I made a Mornay sauce with cheddar and Monterey jack cheese, and finely diced some cilantro while Anna made toast with butter. The presentation was simple; two poached eggs and a few shrimp on the toast with a ladle of Mornay sauce on top, sprinkled with a touch of the chopped cilantro, bacon and potatoes to one side.

By this time, the house was full again, and when Julio finished his breakfast he came into the kitchen and asked if I was a chef. I laughed. I admitted that I was self-taught. I’m not sure that Julio believed that.

Now full and quite appreciative, everyone went up the hill to Rocio’s parents’ house for a few hours, which allowed Rocio and me to nap. When I woke up, Rocio was doing dishes so I grabbed Anna and we went to the store. Saturday night would be what I consider my signature dish, stuffed chicken breasts with chipótle glaze. Very little rest for the weary.

* * * *

Back at home, I wrapped potatoes in foil and stuck them into the oven and Rocio was there.

"So, what’s your first impressions?"

"Not very good," Rocio growled. "He’s always the center of attention. He’s loud and sometimes insulting. While you’re in the kitchen cooking, he’s scolding me in front of everyone for not cooking, accusing our house of being upside down."

"He’s a chilango, what did you expect? He isn’t any different than any other chilango I’ve ever met," I said.

By the time they came back, I had already cooked the chorizo and ground beef mixture with finely diced onions and minced garlic and had drained the grease. Anna was finished grating the cheeses. I was making butterfly-cut pockets in the raw chicken breasts. Julio was too curious to remain in the living room with what had now become about twenty people, including Rocio’s other brother, Ricardo and his wife. Julio watched me stuff a chicken breast with two tablespoons of the chorizo mixture. Next came two slices of cream cheese. Then came a teaspoon each of grated Monterey Jack and sharp cheddar.

It took between three and four thin slices of raw smoked bacon to completely wrap each breast. Liquefying in a blender, a small can of chipótle chiles in adobo with a small can of red chile sauce, and adding a little garlic and onion and salt made the chipótle glaze. With the stuffed chicken breasts in a foil-lined pan, the glaze is spread over the top using a brush or a pastry spatula. Everything is baked for one hour at three hundred and seventy five degrees. It gave me plenty of time to prepare the second batch.

"Cut this batch in half, most people can’t eat a whole one anyway, they’re too rich," I told Rocio.

"I know," she agreed.

"If anyone wants seconds, they’ll have to wait a while, there wasn’t any room in the over for two batches at once, I didn’t expect quite this many people until tomorrow."

They ate the stuffed chicken breasts and baked potatoes and corn, except that Julio demanded warmed tortillas from Rocio. Rocio offered buttered bread, which is more typical, but Julio would have none of it. I could see Rocio coming undone. She served him tortillas, mumbling under her breath. The second batch finally came out, but mostly everyone was stuffed by then.

After dinner, Rocio and Julio stepped outside to have a lengthy conversation. I wouldn’t find out about it until Monday. When they came back in, everyone drank beer and wine and seemed to try and get along the best they could. I had promised Julio to take him with me in the morning when I went downtown to the Tijuana fish markets, that we would stop by and grab a good coffee and then open the Perico at ten in the morning. Then we would visit the Dandy del Sur, and he could take those memories with him back to Mexico City.

I told him that nine in the morning was a good time to leave, and he insisted on seven o’clock. Rocio’s father had enough. He didn’t say anything, he simply asked Sharon’s boyfriend Jose to take him and his wife home. I looked at Rocio and shrugged. They would be back tomorrow and everyone else was spending the night. I went to sleep at midnight and awoke at six thirty on Sunday morning.

* * * *

I paced the floor that morning, drank two cups of coffee and waited. Julio did not come downstairs. Finally, at a quarter ‘till nine, I went upstairs and woke up Rocio.

"Your brother isn’t up yet, and it’s almost nine o’clock. I’m ready to leave without him."

Rocio struggled to open her eyes. "You want me to wake him up?"

"That’s up to you. I’m leaving at nine-fifteen, regardless," I said.

I came back downstairs and opened a beer, thinking about two hours that I could’ve been sleeping. Rocio came down in her robe.

"He’s showering now," she said.

"Nine fifteen, I’m leaving, regardless."

The plan was that I would come back with Julio and the fish and shrimp at around twelve thirty, and then Rocio would take them to Playas so they could see the Pacific Ocean this far north, and they would visit Elizabeth and her husband. I read my email while I waited, my father’s pneumonia seemed to be getting better but the drugs were making him hallucinate at times. There would be more time in the hospital. If I inherited two things from my father it was some sort of ability to cook and an extreme dislike of hospitals.

When Julio and me left and found a route cab, he was quiet. I pointed out all kinds of landmarks and changes in all of my years in Tijuana. Where Rocio worked when we met, roads and bridges that didn’t exist, anything and everything that occurred to me. It was a change in Julio that I never predicted.

We got a coffee in Centro a quarter before ten and walked around, I pointed out different places and went on about how there was virtually no tourism anymore, in a town that was built on it. Most of the closed shops wouldn’t open. We walked over to the Perico and waited. It was ten o’clock, and as another older gringo had approached, waiting with us, I peered in through the locked screen door.

"Todavia no está la cantinera," came the voice, sweeping up last night’s festivities.

The older gringo asked me what she said and I told her that apparently, the bartender hadn’t shown up for work yet. We both laughed at the idea that it would require some otherwise unknown skill to pour a draught beer. I tried to include Julio in the conversation by translating, but he was quiet. The cantinera then showed up and we all went inside with a couple of louder types and drank a beer.

After the Perico, where Julio probably didn’t say any more than five words, I took him down to the Dandy del Sur where it is usually more quiet. But apparently the Dandy had remained open all night and about a dozen remained from the night before. This didn’t faze Julio. We watched some American football and drank two beers and a scotch each. I couldn’t believe how quiet he was.

At noon, I paid the tab and we went down to the fresh fish market and I bought four kilos of angelfish and a kilo each of jumbo and large shrimp. We took the route along Boulevard Diaz Órdaz and again I pointed out landmarks, the missing bullring, the bridge over cinco y diez, and so on. By the time we came home, Rocio and Alma were finishing up with the dishes. Julio went upstairs to change clothing and Alma followed him, and Rocio then asked me how it went.

"You wouldn’t believe it," I said. "Julio was so quiet, I don’t even think he uttered a dozen words. He was like a completely different person."

* * * *

The great thing about Baja fish tacos is that nine pounds of fish will serve a lot of people. The cream sauce should be made first, with a two-to-one ration of mayonnaise to sour cream, a splash of white vinegar, and stir well. Add milk in order to thin it to the point where it drips off of the spoon and refrigerate it. Your favorite red sauce can either be purchased or made by cooking dry chiles de arbol and California, combined with some cooked red jalapeños, a little salt and some garlic.

Batter is simple. Three cups of flour and two tablespoons of baking powder are combined with a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of crushed oregano, and a teaspoon each of black pepper and cayenne pepper. Add a good hard squirt of mustard and a beer and beat it into a batter adding two more cans of beer until smooth and drippy. The fish should be cut into pieces about one and a half inches by four inches and battered and deep-fried until golden brown.

Complimented by finely sliced cabbage and chopped cilantro and perhaps some avocado slices, the cream sauce and the red sauce go on last. By the time they came back from Playas, everything was prepped, including the jumbo shrimp which I would cook in a style called mojo de ajo, which is simply in olive oil and unsalted butter with garlic. I was warned that Julio and his family did not particularly like fish (but they enjoyed shrimp, go figure), but I assured them that there was nothing fishy about fish tacos done this way. Twenty-four people showed up that evening, including Juan and his girlfriend and several of their friends.

By the time everything was over, I was exhausted. The shrimp was gone quickly, and even though there was a lot of fish left over, we went through almost two kilos, four and a half pounds of tortillas. A huge bowl of cream sauce was devoured, along with almost two heads of cabbage and a dozen avocados. Apparently, not liking fish doesn’t apply to Baja fish tacos. I stepped outside to have a beer or two with the men, and then I went to bed and slept better than I’ve slept in years.

When I awoke in the morning I nudged Rocio awake.

"Time for you to take care of them. Have Juan take everyone out to get tacos de birria."

They went while I drank coffee and got further news about my father. The pneumonia was better, the heartbeat still baffled the hospital staff. The drugs still affected his sense of reality sometimes, he was in and out of it. My father does not do well in hospitals.

When they returned, they took off again for one last excursion with Rocio, to go shopping. The flight left at five o’clock, which meant they had to be there at four, and had to leave at three. Everyone gathered right before three on Monday afternoon. There were hugs for those of us staying behind, and most loaded into two cars and took off to the airport. I had survived it nicely, but waited for Rocio to get home to find out what had happened.

* * * *

Apparently, Julio had tried to convince Rocio that the aunt that had raised him was right about everything. Rocio pointed out to Julio that he was only four years old at the time that everything had happened. They argued. Rocio finally told him that she wasn’t about to forgive and forget. She told Julio that they were brother and sister, no matter what, but that the side of the family that raised him was his alone. Apparently, they found some common ground in that they agreed to disagree and keep that one branch of the family tree intact, regardless.

Also apparently, when Julio was a very young man, his mother – Rocio’s mother – had made a trip to Mexico City and asked to see him. He was rude, finally meeting with her and then excusing himself, saying that he didn’t have time. This is his own mother, I can’t imagine. When he had gone up the hill on Saturday, he took his mother aside and apologized. He made it right with her.

Last night, everyone was finally gone, and I turned to Rocio and asked her about all of it. She told me all about what happened.

"Did you bury it, did you finally bury Rio Balsas?"

She thought for a few moments. "I am learning. Little by little," she said.

Rocio took off her glasses and looked at me. She didn’t know what else to say.

"Good night, baby," I told her.

"Good night," she said. "I know it’s over. I’ll get through it."

This is what happens. This is what time does – it moves things along. Like a river, like what happened at Rio Balsas. These things are always moving along.

Ghost Story

2009-10-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

It’s becoming funny sometimes, as if I really live in Los Angeles or New York or some other city in the United States of America, that people – internet friends that often forget where I live - will invariably ask me what I’m doing for Halloween. Here in Mexico, Halloween is not a relevant holiday. Obviously, what with being so close to the border, there are some children who get taken out in costume and go door to door and beg for candy, but not many. And they are, these children, mostly very young, toddlers sometimes, and their parents often take them to some of the local businesses more than knocking on the doors of neighbors. But here, all of it is the exception rather than the rule.

Yesterday I heard some whacko radio talk show host going on and on about how some Tijuana children are brought over to the United States of America by their parents on Halloween night to do some trick-or-treating, and how awful that is. “They know that here in the U.S. we give out candy bars and good stuff, and down there they only get little things,” he said at one point. I laughed. I wanted to call him up and offer that, perhaps, Mexican families also go up there during Thanksgiving because the turkeys up there are much larger and taste better than the small and scrawny ones from Mexico.

Of course, there is no Thanksgiving holiday in Mexico, and Mexico does not have a Halloween.

Halloween has its roots, obviously, in pagan festivals, perhaps dating to Roman times and certainly celebrated by the ancient Celtics. It is widely considered to have its meaning tied to some sort of an end-of-summer celebration, in that the time of the year where lightness turns to darkness, those on the other side of life have an opportunity to pass through onto the living plane of existence. People were able to welcome their past relatives during that time, while bad spirits were warded off by the wearing of masks. In a nutshell, that and bonfires and cattle slaughtered for winter storage and other activities made up the festival now celebrated as Halloween.

Sometime in the ninth century, the Catholic Church attempted to hijack it, moving All Saints’ Day from May 13th to November 1st, but it didn’t catch on enough to change much of anything. It changed of its own accord. Bonfires became a nuisance, someone invented refrigeration, and when Houdini died on Halloween in 1926 and never managed to come back as promised, everyone pretty much gave up on the notion that our dead relatives could possibly manage a visit. At least, that’s the way it has changed in Europe and in the United States of America and so on.

* * * *

In Mexico, beginning the evening at midnight, Día de los Inocentes or Day of the Innocents begins, followed by Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead on Monday. These celebrations and festivals date back to perhaps 3,000 years ago, observed by the Aztecs and other indigenous civilizations in Mexico. During the Aztec reign, it was celebrated for an entire month! In modern times, these two days are celebrated somewhat differently, depending on region here, but the core elements include candles, breads, fruits, candies, flowers, and skulls. Many people visit the gravesites of their ancestors and leave flowers and decorate the sites in various ways.

Get this: The Aztecs believed that, during the month of August, it’s less complicated for the souls of their ancestors to visit them in life! Where have we heard that before? Oh, and wait, it gets better: Why use masks for the celebration when you can use skulls?! Skulls were often symbolized in Aztec lore to represent birth and rebirth. Having a few skulls around the house was not at all uncommon back then. Fascinating stuff.

Day of the Innocents generally celebrates the spirits of dead children, which has obvious significance for those who have lost a child or a sibling. Day of the Dead is all about those who passed in adulthood. The rituals are the same. My first Day of the Dead was confusing to me, I had never heard of it. While looking oddly at a shrine constructed on Rocio’s mother’s kitchen table, Rocio patiently explained it to me. I ignorantly considered it nice of the Mexicans to borrow from my traditional culture and put their own spin on it. I was like the guy on the radio yesterday who offered the point about Mexicans from the border cities taking their kids across because the candy is better over there.

* * * *

Earlier today, I read an article from a Christian web site that claimed Halloween to be the Devil’s holiday. The author recommended that Christians shouldn’t celebrate it. I felt pretty bad about that at first, but when I thought about it later, I then saw it as some sort of a testament to the fact that some people are truly frightened by that which they do not understand. I reckon that some people are quite horrified at the very idea of speaking with the soul of an ancestor. Not me. For example, I would love to speak with my grandmother again some day.

Sometimes people ask me if I believe in a God and maybe a Jesus, or an afterlife, or whatever. Many of my friends are devout atheists, while others are devout Christians or Mormons or Muslims or Jews. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with any of it, actually. But they ask me, nevertheless, because they want me to align myself perhaps, or maybe they are just curious. My answer is this: I have absolutely no idea. Sometimes, they might express displeasure at that answer. The atheists think it ridiculous to even consider the notion of a creator, and the others seem to pity me for not having any faith.

And then my response to them is even more inflammatory: Not only do I not know, neither do you.

The amazing thing, though, the thing that transcends atheism or religion, is obvious to me. It should be quite obvious to the radio talk show host and to the author of the article advising Christians against Halloween. The very notion that two completely different civilizations happened upon the very same idea and celebrated with almost the same ceremonies is enough to convince me that something is going on. I mean, that’s the real ghost story, isn’t it? You’re telling me that three thousand years ago, the Celts and the Aztecs simultaneously arrived at the same basic ceremony never having heard of one other?

Scary stuff, indeed.

Ballad Of Rio Balsas

2009-10-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

This is the time of the year where Baja shadows begin to crawl noticeably northward, and there are some days that people wear jackets. The dogs in the street aren’t panting anymore, and the ice cream vendors aren’t doing so well as they were a week ago. Yesterday was Columbus Day, and my mother’s birthday. Sunday was my wife’s birthday. We had a large party with pozole and chocolate cake.

Pozole is a soup-like dish made differently in all parts of Mexico. The main ingredient is hominy, or nixtamalized corn kernels. Other ingredients include some sort of meat like pork or chicken, and chiles and onions and other spices. The ancient Mexicans believed that the Gods created humans using cornmeal dough. I have read far more preposterous religious postulates over the years than the simple idea that perhaps our creator made us out of masa. Why not corn flour and water?

Rocio is twenty-nine. She has been twenty-nine for several years now, and I expect her to remain twenty-nine for many more years to come. My mother did not raise a fool. All women are twenty-nine until they tell you they aren’t. If you don’t believe this, then you are on your own where women are concerned, and don’t complain when it doesn’t go well. You did it to yourself.

* * * *

Rio Balsas, a small puebla in the Mexican State of Guerrero near Coyuca de Catalán, and about five miles from the border with Michoacán State, is still there, but approximately half of what once was is now under water. Rocio grew up in that place, with her grandmother, on a small ranchito with no electricity. They had a well, and some chickens, and some goats. There were uncles and aunts and cousins living nearby, and cornfields they all harvested year-round that were reachable by horseback or on foot using a mule to pack the corn. So far as the water from that well, Rocio swears it is the best water she ever tasted.

Rocio was born in Mexico City and quickly taken to Rio Balsas to live with her grandmother. The taker was an aunt, who wound up taking almost all of Rocio’s mother’s children and placing them with various relatives. The aunt then encouraged Rocio’s mother to seek out her fortune in the United States of America. This is how life used to be back then. A lot of good Mexicans were encouraged by their families to go north and make money harvesting crops or cleaning houses or cooking.

Meanwhile Rocio, who never knew her real father, grew up and went to school and came home and tended the ranchito in Rio Balsas with her grandmother. She was never permitted to go to the river, which was a mere hundred yards away. Her grandmother never let her accompany other relatives to go and bring back the corn. There were two times as a young child she was permitted to join relatives for trips to another town in order to attend a carnival that came every year. She never made it either time.

Listen to this: Scorpions prevented Rocio from going on the trip to the carnival both times! What are the odds of that happening? The first time, Rocio’s grandmother told her the night before that she could go if she rose early and did her chores. While reaching into the feed bag to feed the chickens, a scorpion stung her hand. She recovered. The next year, with the same deal in place, Rocio awoke and got out of bed and promptly stepped on another scorpion! I’ve never known anyone who was ever stung by a scorpion once, much less twice.

"There had to be a reason that it happened," Rocio once told me. "There are no accidents. There was a reason that I wasn’t supposed to go to that carnival. I think that my real father would have been there, and that would have brought trouble."

* * * *

The inland of Guerrero State is a lush, green, beautiful region of Mexico where crops can be grown year-round, rivers are abundant, and there is a rainy season. Baja is not so lush, not so green, and not wet by anyone’s standards. Mexico City is another thing entirely, a flat swampland built a mile high, it is practically a country unto itself. Rocio has a brother she has never met, a light-skinned chilango, raised in much more affluent circumstances than was Rocio. Rocio has blamed her aunt, for all of these years, in all such matters while I have pointed out to her on several occasions that her mother is probably more culpable. Rocio does not really listen, and I don’t blame her for ignoring me. I didn’t grow up in Rio Balsas, after all.

This brother of Rocio has recently contacted her, and now they are communicating by email and by telephone. He is coming up here next month. Mexicans never travel alone, so he is bringing three with him. We have one extra room and a sofa bed in the living room. I will make it a point to cook some gringo food for them while they are here. Perhaps Rocio’s mother will whip up another pot of pozole. Pozole is another good Mexican soul food, even in Mexico City, even in Tijuana, and even in Rio Balsas.

I’m not sure what will come of this meeting up; it can’t be a reunion since they’ve never met. Rocio’s pent-up anger directed at her aunt will have to stay in check since her brother holds his aunt in high esteem. I hope they find some common ground. I hope that both of them have great childhood memories to share. Most of all, I hope that this experience for Rocio is a way to release all of that anger. That anger was best left in Rio Balsas.

* * * *

It wasn’t until Rocio was twelve years of age, back in Rio Balsas, that her grandmother – staying at Rocio’s uncle’s house and in very poor medical condition – finally permitted Rocio to accompany her cousins to the cornfields to bring back the corn. Rocio set out, on foot with them, a donkey in tow. It was quite a walk simply to arrive in and pass through town to get to the fields, and as they passed the church, the bells rang. Rocio stopped.

“When the church bells rang, there were different meanings, and we all knew what they were. When the bells ring for morning mass, they ring a certain way. When the bells ring for a Catholic festival, they ring another way. For a wedding, there was a distinct way that the bells sounded. And when I heard the church bells passing through town, I knew that my grandmother had passed. I walked back to my uncle’s house in tears,” she said.

After the funeral, she stayed with her aunt, and apparently was not well treated. To this day, Rocio’s inability to eat onions comes from having them forced on her when she stayed with that aunt. When word finally reached Rocio’s mother, Rocio was eventually brought to Tijuana. Rocio’s mother had never crossed into the United States, and to this day has never stepped foot outside of Mexico. She met a man who, like herself, was sent north in order to cross over but instead found a way to make a living in Baja.

Rocio grew up in Tijuana from age thirteen, avoiding its pitfalls and gimmicks, with a different notion of another part of Mexico. I talked to her about Rio Balsas on her birthday. I talked to her about her grandmother, the scorpions, her aunt, and the brother she had never met. I asked her if she misses her life in Guerrero.

"Rio Balsas is my past," she said. "I’ll never forget it. But once I arrived in Tijuana, I knew that this was my future. Everything that has happened, has happened for a reason."

I reckon that in a few weeks, we’ll see if that brother of hers - the brother she’s never met - has taken that same philosophy from Mexico City that Rocio took from Rio Balsas. It wouldn’t be as rare as someone twice-stung by scorpions, but it would make for one hell of a ballad.

Chickenhead

2009-09-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

The room, devoid of anything except for a laptop computer, a very nice throw rug, and some paintings of still life in mild and soothing pastels, was otherwise ordinary in every way. My assistant, a Chinese gentleman who struggled slightly with a chicken, was otherwise much more enlightened than I was - that much was obvious. There was tea, and the chicken did not disturb our small cups, the chicken had other issues.

“You must do this,” my assistant told me. “This is the only way that what you write will be complete and your intentions understood.”

At first, he had attempted to convince the chicken to simply sit right on top of my head, but the chicken’s sense of balance and my tendency toward leaning in to view the monitor on the computer produced unsuccessful results. My nameless assistant then crafted a large hat, one that Dr. Seuss would have been proud of. He gently stuffed the chicken into a black sack with a drawstring, and then stuffed the sacked chicken into the hat and placed it upon my head.

“Now, write,” he urged.

And I did.

The hat, top-heavy and oddly centered was surprisingly comfortable, and the chicken seemed to be equally as interested in staying on my head as I was in completing whatever I was writing. My assistant sat at the ready, poised to catch and hold the chicken-in-the-hat, should it have fallen off due to my jerking around and looking in unexpectedly to squint at the monitor. I typed away. It worked. I have no idea what I wrote, but apparently it was well received.

* * * *

When I awoke, after getting through a short period of an understandably panicked inability to comprehend any of what that dream was all about, I came downstairs. Coffee, email, and the awareness that while Juan’s car was parked outside it balanced perfectly with the fact that, other than myself, the house was empty. Juan had taken the day off and rented a moving van, one day after his birthday. Anna was in school. I contemplated going over the border, but decided against it, I try and limit my travels in order to promote a greener earth and more importantly, in order to enjoy and bask in my own laziness.

It also occurred to me that I could, at any time, walk a block down the street and purchase a chicken.

I’m going to guess that many countries, or at least many parts of many countries sell live chickens. Baja sells live chickens. And, perhaps if I were a tad more ambitious, I could wander here until I found a Chinese man, willing to assist me, someone wise and capable and with some universal understanding of live chickens that I lack. Maybe he would have access to a black sack with a drawstring and could easily fashion a ridiculous looking hat. Perhaps this is the key to everything.

Juan came home, Anna behind him, and they packed another load and all went off to check out the new digs. I have been nudged to go at some point, and I will, but for now I am left to ponder this house with only the three of us. It is suddenly too big. We are now overpaying, relatively speaking, for space we no longer need. Yet, I’m not ready to move again.

We don’t need the extra room, nor the second telephone line, nor many other things. I am the one that stops the progress of Anna and Rocio, who try as hard as they can to dumb things down for me. Hell, I didn’t even cook dinner, what with all of the leftovers in the fridge. What else would one expect from a man that dreams of having chickens on top of his head?

* * * *

Rocio came home, and after a brief conversation I took off to the store. “Why did he have to take all of his stuff?” she asked me. It echoed with every step I took. The moon, currently sawed in half, followed me mindlessly overhead. It gets dark earlier now. I passed a guy with a guitar talking to a guy without one. They both moved kindly to one side so I could pass.

“Buenos noches.”

“Buenos noches.”

We are polite to each other here.

I returned, a twelve-pack richer, along with some hamburger buns, two packages of cigarettes, and a fifth of tequila. Twenty-four dollars and change. Juan and Anna have returned. For now. I know that Anna will leave this place at some point. It scares me.

Soon, Rocio and me will be alone. With each other. It will mark a timely event, one in which we have finished our obligations, in that the rug rats have graduated life and hopefully many of its lessons. It won’t prove anything at all. I will mark it, observe it with whatever dignity I have left. But, I promise to keep some sort of humility when that day comes.

“Good bye, dad,” Anna will say.

“It’s okay, darling,” I will tell her. “And from now on, you can just call me chickenhead.”

Independence Day

2009-09-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday was to be an excursion with a purpose, although I immediately began to question my own good judgement before I arrived at my first stop, and I considered the years and years of avoidance that conceived this particular expedition. Last Monday was all business at first, to cross the border and bank and complete postal errands and so on, followed up by unsuccessful attempts at locating friends in and around Centro de Tijuana, and it was generally not rewarding. At every cantina I sipped at a beer only to have the cantinera remark, in Spanish of course, that this person or that were in the other day inquiring about me. None showed up on Monday. This is what happens.

When I came home Monday evening, I found an email from Daniel that he would join my pilgrimage the next day and that we should meet up in that sacred temple called Dandy del Sur, and then came Tuesday. I rode in the back of the route cab, a van devoid of proper shock absorbers, so that anytime we traveled the least bit rapidly I found myself putting the book I was reading in my lap and continuing the book at stoplights. Meanwhile, no matter how rough the terrain, the woman next to me successfully applied make-up to her face as though she were standing in her own restroom. Some people are more talented at travel than others.

By the time I exited the cab and began my walk to the Dandy, I was cranky for no apparent reason. The sun, very warm but not hot, cast slight shadows on Calle Madero, and the breeze seemed to fan an almost electric buzz that could be felt as one wandered down the busy street. Once inside of the cantina, I found my favorite barstool and Alex, the only English speaking cantinera I currently know in Tijuana, served me an amber.

“Jody was here yesterday, he asked about you.”

“So I’m told. He’s never around when I’m here,” I said.

“And last week, what’s his name, the other one…”

“Scott,” I offered.

“Yeah, Scott. He was here asking about you,” she said.

“Figures.” I wasn’t looking for Scott because he owed me some cash; it was general curiosity. Not that I couldn’t use the money, it was that that he could use it more - and mostly that I worried about him. I didn’t want to email him, make him uncomfortable, and I figured he wouldn’t get a paycheck until October. But now I knew he was in good shape, good enough to still be around. With Jody it was always hit and miss, he could be anywhere on any given day. My proclivities, conversely, are aimed toward remaining in one place for a while.

I remained in the Dandy del Sur and drank for a while.

* * * *

When one of your children leaves the nest, the impact is felt differently by each member of the remaining family. The middle girl, Sharon, decided one day that living with her boyfriend was in her best interest. Sharon is twenty-one years old, so obviously, it’s her call. She didn’t announce it. She was very afraid of what her grandparents would think about such a scandalous maneuver.

“Dad, I’m going to see Jose,” Sharon said a few weeks ago, and it was normal for her to yell this to me through my office door in the afternoon. It was only after Anna came home from school and went upstairs to change that I was informed Sharon had packed half of her belongings and taken them with her. Anna’s reaction was mixed. Of course, this meant that Anna would be getting her own room again, not having to share, but she seemed to be inwardly concerned about what scandal the sudden move of her sister might bring. After all, her sister had just moved out and then in with the boyfriend.

By the time Rocio arrived home from work, picked up and delivered here by Juan, she already knew. I was curious about their reactions. Juan, predictably, had very little to say about it. Home from getting shot at and bombed and watching people with which he served die or get injured in a country he had never before dreamt of stepping foot in, his response was vacant, without concern or contempt.

“Yeah, yeah,” was all he had to say.

Rocio yawned. “She’d better behave better there than over here or he’ll throw her out on her ass.”

I continued to prepare dinner. I knew that Rocio’s parents were coming down the hill, but I mostly never have any notion of precisely how many are coming for dinner. This is the occupational hazard, so to speak, of cooking in Mexico. People show up. Répondez s'il vous plaît? It never happens. I came out and confronted the four already present and accounted for, Juan, Juan’s very silent girlfriend Bibi, Anna, and Rocio.

“How many are coming tonight?”

All looked at each other until Juan started counting.

“Twelve,” he told me.

I arched an eyebrow at him.

“The five of us, my grandparents, and three of my friends,” he said.

“That’s ten,” I reminded him.

Rocio chimed in, “Sharon and her boyfriend are coming over. She called Juan and wanted to talk to me at ten o’clock.”

“You’ll be asleep by then,” I reminded her. “Besides, she doesn’t dictate when she talks to you now, you dictate it.”

“I had Juan tell her,” Rocio said. “She’ll be here between eight and nine.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out forty dollars and handed it to Juan. “Tomorrow, I want you to run to the hardware store and buy a new set of front locks,” I said. Everyone looked at me, as though I needed to explain.

“If you live here, you live by my rules. That’s your passport and your visa. If you decide to declare independence and leave, then I revoke your visa. Your new visa is the telephone, you call and ask to come over like anyone else.”

There was silence and no reaction, nothing but a slight edginess hung almost ornamentally, anticipating some closure.

“Hey, look. This house is my country, my country and my rules,” I concluded. I went back into the kitchen and continued cooking.

* * * *

In 1810, Mexico was still referred to as New Spain, even though the French had, by then, managed to occupy Spain and subsequently decided that by default it should also govern what is now Mexico and what was then a Spanish possession - albeit sacked of its gold and silver. Napoleon, that short genius-bastard of military maneuvers, unrequited love, and unwise political leanings, installed his brother Joseph as the new king of Spain, deposing Spain’s Ferdinand VII. While Napoleon was busy deposing and installing in Europe, a priest named Miguel Hidalgo and a few close friends were conspiring to bring Ferdinand over to New Spain and install him as emperor. The idea was to have him cut ties with Spain and implement a system that did not exploit the indigenous people of Mexico. They targeted December as a good time to execute the plan.

Unfortunately, they were ratted out, and most considered going underground to avoid being captured and tried for treason. Hidalgo had other ideas. After having six or seven dozen inmates sprung from the local jail, on the morning of September the sixteenth he rang the church bells and the people gathered in the small town of Dolores in Guanajuato. This is part of what he told them: “Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines!”

The gachupines were the Spaniards, born in Spain, who arrived in New Spain and claimed land away from the indigenous. Within a couple of years, they caught and tried Hidalgo for treason and executed him and his friends. Others took over the cause, also tried and executed, until almost eleven years after the initial grito de Delores, Mexico had finally won its independence. It took another hundred years to arrive at a revolution, and finally, to the point that Mexico enjoys currently. The gritos have evolved over the years to include paying respects to not only Hidalgo, but to Zapata and Villa and Carranza and Juarez and Madero and so on.

Sometimes, I reckon, independence isn’t achieved as planned, but rather happens as a consequence of launching a tirade that culminates in getting the job done in spite of auspicious beginnings. None of the celebrations proceeding such events tend to dwell on the facts; they tend to accentuate the results. Independence is independence, in any case. Our circumstance exceeds its history. Stellar!

Mexico wanted to install a Spanish King, but instead settled for democracy!

* * * *

So, Sharon did stop by that night, after dinner but before Rocio went to bed. I was called out of the kitchen and I talked to Sharon, wisdom or advice that went unheard. I told her that she should marry rather than simply move in with Jose. I told her that such a contract was emotional insurance more than anything. She didn’t want to hear it. I left her and Rocio to battle it out.

Sharon left abruptly, I was outside with Juan and his friends drinking a beer and enjoying the evening breeze. I went back inside to find Rocio packing it in for the night.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She blames me,” Rocio laughed. “Apparently, she’s leaving because of me.”

“It’s an excuse,” I said. “She didn’t have the balls to simply leave, it has to be someone’s fault. She’s twenty-one now, she’s responsible for her own actions. Even when she thinks that she isn’t.”

“I know. I’m going to bed,” Rocio said.

And so, this was Independence Day for Sharon. She has been back one time since, sitting aloof in the stairway, observing what she was once a part of. When she left that evening, Rocio smiled at me. Sharon was certainly the problem child. The problem now lives somewhere else.

“I can leave my purse downstairs now,” Rocio said.

“And I don’t have to cram my money in my robe when I get up,” I added.

We would have danced in the living room, except that there was a somber note over the heads of the rest of the family. Sharon had stolen hundreds of dollars from my pants pockets, even some from Juan when he was on leave here. Anna has certainly had her issues with her sister. But we were required to keep our heads hung low, at least for a while. And so we have.

We behave as expected, after all.

* * * *

Daniel never showed that night, the fifteenth of September, so I left the Dandy and wandered down Sixth street and ate very bad Chinese food. This was, I reckoned, my way of bearing a cross, in that stale egg rolls and sub-par chow mein (without a hint of fried noodles) is my way of flogging myself. After that, I wandered back down the street and fired up my camera. I caught a taxi. “Por el Palacio,” I told the driver.

He looked back at me. “¿Sabes cuanto gente va estár allá?”

Yes, I know how many people are there. Thousands. Just take me and drop me as close as you can. I can walk. I like to walk. We’ll get through this. Fifty pesos.

And he dropped me smack in the middle of everything, it was easy. I wandered, camera ready, a sack of beer in tow, watched closely by law enforcement, but never approached. The six pack was for later, at home, but they could have kicked me out for carrying it in there. No one approached me. Music blared through giant speakers.

I tried to get a perch up on the bridge, but they kept kicking us off of it. I stumbled around in the designated area, waiting for something to happen. I wandered out onto the grass, watching a young mother play with her kid. The bridge was filling up again, so I went back up there, and they stopped trying to remove us. The place below filled up quickly. It was packed.

I thought about Sharon, watching the gritos from such a distance that I couldn’t hear them. People around me made up their own gritos, and other people joined in. That is how independence is, then. You make it up as you go. Nothing ever goes as planned, after all. You improvise.

I got home and Rocio actually awoke and came downstairs.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“I didn’t enjoy it, too many people,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s why I don’t go anymore. It’s different when it’s small, but it gets out of hand in a place like this.”

She went back to bed and Juan came home and told me that he was moving out.

“With some friends. We found a nice place in Aguas Calientes, seven hundred per month. I pay two hundred, but I have a big room.”

So now, Juan is declaring independence, too.

“You’re going to break your mother’s heart, you know,” I told him.

“Dad, I’ll be over here every Sunday for dinner,” he said.

Rocio asked me this evening if we should rent a smaller place now.

“Not yet,” I said. “These kids could be right back here in a few weeks. I don’t think that independence becomes permanent for a good while. It took eleven years in Mexico. It might take longer for these kids.”

After a while, I wandered up to bed and smiled as Rocio started snoring. Independence is a funny thing. As a kid, you crave it, as a teenager and a young adult, you practice it, and then once you hit thirty or so, you realize that it’s either overrated or misrepresented. Maybe that’s why Hidalgo’s original plan involved Ferdinand VII. Maybe that’s why I have a funny feeling that my kids will be back home again sometime soon.

Maybe independence is more a state of mind than a state of being.

Hurricane El

2009-08-30T23:47:00.001-07:00

When the heat finally stays, with no air at all but just a hot nothing that resembles breath as though millions of blown-up balloons have been undone all at once and you are seemingly forced to inhale the staleness of it, you often reach the conclusion that Baja is broken. It happens in August or September, every year, when the breeze refuses to break the heat, and it can last a week. You wonder if maybe there is a meteorological wrench of some type in a weatherman’s toolbox, that somehow someone forgot to tighten a bolt here or there. You stand at the door and stare out at Baja and the sense of helplessness sinks in.

The sky, once blue or maybe cloudy, is a gray and brown on cyan as watercolors poorly mixed and muddied. A man pushes an ice cream cart, bell ringing with every bump, and he is quick and the cart is light or maybe even dry. Dogs don’t bark and children don’t play, people aren’t walking and even cars are only occasional. No one can change it. We wait and we pace and wonder about it. We wonder why it is so hot we can’t even sweat.

Then the sun finally sets, but the heat stays inside of these cinderblock walls. People begin to wander outside. The dogs awaken and frolic, but it is still hot. The relief is perceived, not real. Tomorrow will be the same, and so will the day after that. At least the Santa Ana winds bring movement, but this still and dry purgatory – however temporary – brings more of the same. And then things happen, unexplained, as though the good weather had to settle down for anything else extraordinary.

* * * *

It comes from nowhere - from a history I barely remember and passed through a time in my life that took far too long to finally forget, my past and the journey from there to here, like the cosmos, is filled with black holes and supernovas and everything in-between. I killed many brain cells along the way, spent many drunken nights erasing my first marriage from memory and other memories took some friendly fire from those battles with the demons inside. I have been at peace for quite some time now. I have tried not to look too far back because it is a lot like looking into the sun.

"You need to get a facebook," El wrote.

I don’t know how El found me. I woke up the other morning and checked my email and there she was. In High School she was a saucy little tease with a big chest and deep brown eyes. She was fun. I remember her at my house one afternoon, I think it was my birthday. We were going to have a party, perhaps. I was seventeen. My father threw a bible at her. It missed. The details aren’t there, apparently hit by flak several years ago. I think it had something to do with her inability to make onion dip, but I can’t be sure.

"El," I wrote back, "I won’t be getting a facebook any time soon. It’s nice that you found me, but there are others that I would just as soon not hear from. Yes, you may pass along my email address to Doug and Jeff, but no one else. Not Freddy, I would rather not discuss why I prefer no contact with him. Thank you in advance for respecting my privacy."

She wrote back again, something about people caring about me. I laughed. After thirty years or so, I question it. I think that people are curious about me. I would be curious about someone like me. I generally wish people well, but after thirty years it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around caring. It would lead me to wonder that where, twenty or twenty-five years ago, someone was at if they cared. And, that simply isn’t fair to anyone.

* * * *

There are dominoes being slapped around on the kitchen table at the moment, apparently the Wii isn’t so interesting anymore. Guitar Hero can only be so entertaining. Besides, Anna ruined it for me when she invented the perfect band name: Facebook Jesus. I resigned. I’ll never do better than that.

Guitar Hero is a game where you use plastic instruments wired (or, rather, wirelessly wired) to the game console and you play along with the songs. Juan had to have it, he bought it within a week of being here. Anna took to the drums and Juan likes the guitar while I played the bass. Facebook Jesus cleared the board. Now the drum set and the plastic guitars and microphone (oh, yes, there’s even a microphone) clutter the living room and gather dust.

Now they are playing dominoes which costs hundreds of dollars less (we’re talking peanuts versus caviar) and, apparently, has the same appeal. I spend my spare change on books and computer equipment and alcohol and cigarettes. I reckon there are dangers in all such expenditures. I haven’t played dominoes in a long time. I played with my grandmother when she was alive. I would give anything to spend the afternoon playing dominoes with my grandmother again.

* * * *

El sent me her facebook link and gave me her password and invited me to log in so I could see everyone. She’s such a trusting soul. Lucky for El, I’m trustworthy. I logged in to her account. Apparently my high school friends have all found Jesus. I mentioned this to Anna and she laughed. And, obviously, became instantly inspired. I exchanged emails with Doug, who is apparently awaiting a liver transplant. He found his faith again. That, and Alcoholics Anonymous. Good for him. I hope he finds a liver soon.

And Jeff. Jeff was the last person I would have guessed would have found religion to be something he needed or wanted. But he did. And he has it, some sort of faith. So do I. I believe in good scotch. So far as God goes, I have no idea what She’s up to, but I wish Her good luck. I’m certain She’ll let me know if She needs my help.

Apparently, even Freddy found Jesus. Freddy broke one of only a handful of rules that you don’t break in a friendship. But it was a doozy. I won’t mention it. I wish him the best of luck in spite of the fact I really don’t want to communicate with him. As I say, I’ve spent years beating my own memories out of my head, I don’t want some of them anymore.

And now, Todd. Todd and me went to school together, played on the same Little League team together, and then I get an email from him. He married his high school sweetheart, and they are still married. He took over his father’s business, making machines that package things. It’s funny to think that I could work at his factory. I bet he makes machines that apply closures to bottles, among other types of machines. I never mentioned that I would possibly know that. I only brought up that I have a bracelet that was his as a child and that I can’t even remember how I wound up with it.

An aside: Such a small wrist!

I’ll mail it to him, next time I go over to the United States of America. My last memory of Todd was his attempt to cram a 351 Cleveland engine into a Ford Maverick in high school. It didn’t fit. He made it fit. Sometimes we make things fit.

* * * *

There is a hurricane in the Pacific making its way slowly up toward Baja, and I am willing it to arrive faster. They have named the hurricane Jimena, because all storms must be named and personalized, because history demands some sort of a personal attachment to such events. I think of Jimena in two respects; both as what could be relief (deadly, perhaps, but relief none-the-less) and remembrance (storms blow in as does our past, over and over again). Jimena defines my life, right here and right now, and this heat stops her influence at the moment.

The dominoes have stopped, the sound of ivory-like tiles are no longer slapped onto the kitchen table. Everyone has gone for some midnight tacos. I want a hurricane, and I want it now. This can never be said enough: Sometimes we make things fit. This is what happens.

Destiny's Rainbow

2009-08-08T16:36:00.001-07:00

Mexicans are nomadic, regardless of what some books on the subject might point out, and they travel often and mostly whimsically as if there were spirits or muses that guided them to go somewhere else. A few weeks ago Rocio’s mother decided that she needed or wanted to go to Guerrero, a State in southern Mexico. A week ago she left on a bus, on a three-day trip to whatever pot of gold lies at the end of destiny’s rainbow. What she took with her: A small suitcase, a thousand pesos, and a return ticket. Apparently, she travels light.

There is no itinerary regarding her return, it is estimated to be a month but I reckon that she’ll return when she gets tired of Guerrero. Two weeks ago she had no money for this journey but I was told after she left that she had saved for the excursion. I know better than that. Rocio and her other daughter Elizabeth paid for it. That bus pulled up in Iguala three days later. She called because the nearest phone to where she is staying is apparently very far away. She hasn’t called since.

We’ll be seeing more of Rocio’s father in the next few weeks. He was here the night after his wife left on her journey south, watching soccer and whatever else came on television. I cooked five pounds of fresh fish and a pound of shrimp in a garlic and butter and olive oil base, along with broccoli and cheese and a layered baked potato casserole and some fried rice. He took a lot of it home with him, it all microwaves quite well. I’m glad to be of service.

Apparently, the other end of destiny’s rainbow is right here, in my kitchen.

* * * *

Racism seems to be on everyone’s menu lately, the dish of the moment. On Sunday morning, I came out of my office and Rocio was on the telephone with some aunt, a distant and bitter memory for her, from Guerrero. Rocio has very beautiful brown skin, which is sometimes frowned upon in certain circles here. All you have to do is to look at the Mexican soap operas or even the music videos here – nearly everyone is light-skinned. It’s a surprising and frightening reality, even in Mexico.

But really, I don’t imagine that it’s any different here than in the United States of America. Many people would love to deny it, but unfortunately it’s true. My son, Juan, has very dark skin. Several years ago he was handcuffed and taken back by an officer of the Homeland Security Department of the United States of America while attempting to cross the border. He presented his military identification, which was a requirement at the time, and was forced to present his orders. I went nuts! I was with him that morning and they had to restrain me before escorting me outside to wait.

As many years ago that it occurred, I’m still not over it.

Juan came home last night. After two tours in Iraq, he brought some of the medals and ribbons home with him. They are shiny and wonderful. The least that the armed forces of the United States of America could do for my Mexican son, after serving two tours in Iraq and watching people die, is to give him some shiny and wonderful memories.

“How many medals did they award you over there?” I asked him last night.

"Honestly, dad, I don’t know. I’ll have to look it up at some point," he said.

I can tell you that he received three commendation medals, four overseas service medals, and two medals for combating terrorism. There are lots more. Whenever he wears his dress uniform, he’ll probably need five racks at least for the ribbons alone. And, he refused promotions.

"I told them to give it to someone else, someone that was staying in," he said.

And so, Juan’s grandmother has meanwhile gone to Guerrero to visit some relatives that tend to judge people based on the color of their skin. They don’t know I’m a gringo – at least they didn’t, but they certainly do now. I’m sure that Rocio’s mother told them all about me. This lady’s dark-skinned niece, who was treated unfairly when she was made to stay with her aunt after her grandmother passed away, married a gringo. Imagine that.

* * * *

Chiles rellenos are probably my favorite Mexican dish, especially when served with rice and beans. Incredibly enough, with all of the authentic Mexican food I have learned how to cook here, I’ve never tried to tackle chiles rellenos. Today is the day. Traditionally, when Juan has come home on leave he gets to call the first large meal. Rocio has been arguing with me all day about how I’m going to cook them. This is what happens.

About Rocio’s mother, Juan’s grandmother, I can only hope that Descartes was right when he said, "Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries." I am hoping that the attitudes of that portion of the extended family are as outdated as an entire century. Last night, we opened up old family albums and wondered what we were like so long ago. Maybe we thought the color of our skin or the color of anyone else’s skin mattered somehow. I believe that we have lost that archaic and irrelevant attitude, even if we never felt that way at all.

I hope it is true, because all of Juan’s medals depend on it.

In those old photographs is a damaged black and white of Rocio and me on our first date. It was a nightclub, open-air and terraced smartly with a Latin jazz band serenading us while we sipped margaritas. The breeze was so good that night, and the band laced a perfect evening, my first night in Tijuana. We barely spoke to each other. We didn’t have to. We held hands that evening, and the next time we dated, and on the third date we finally kissed.

It never occurred to me then to look up, to search for destiny’s rainbow. Maybe we don’t really see it, perhaps it only presents itself when we’ve found the end of it, whichever end. If Descartes were here right now, he would probably point out that anywhere one starts or stops isn’t nearly as important as the path taken. I will point this out similarly to Rocio tonight, assuming that the chiles rellenos turn out good, in that it isn’t how I cook them, it’s how they taste when they’re served.

Life probably has much less to do with destination than with flavor. Mine tastes pretty damned good today.

The Wizard Of Popotla

2009-07-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

The lights in the city shine at night. Who knows how they get turned on? Switches are clicked, that’s all that matters. It has to be some sort of magic. There is a lot behind the flipping of the switches, but we ignore it. We would rather just see the lights. We want fireworks because we are selfish. We should all be selfish; otherwise there would be no fireworks. Otherwise, there would be no lights in the city.

Behind all of this, people dream. I dream. I remember one evening in Las Vegas when I tried on Liberace’s jacket. He was dead by then. He died of a disease that is largely attributed to homosexual activity. I think this is unfair. He was one hell of a piano player. So was I. The difference between us was this: His dreams came true. The similarities were this: We dreamed.

"We hear that you play the piano," he said, someone who was once a dry-cleaner to the stars. I nodded.

"Try this on."

It probably weighed fifty pounds. It was armor. I can’t imagine how Wladziu Valentino Liberace ever lifted those arms and played with such a heavy coat. I lifted my arms and pretended, and it would never have happened. I didn’t know how to flip the switch, especially with that heavy jacket. Liberace was one strong son of a bitch.

* * * *

They came home in the afternoon, sunburned, tired, the men just in time for a soccer game on television and the women and girls just in time for a nap. Having traveled in a wide circle, almost to Tecate and then around to past Rosarito, stopping off in Popotla, they were gone for quite a few hours. People are starting to slowly build there, on that mesa right over the Pacific Ocean south of Rosarito Beach. We own three lots, when put together, that form an ample amount of land on which a large house can be built, along with another smaller one or maybe a couple of apartments. Sometimes Rocio likes to visit there and I reckon she dreams that I should be building something.

"Has the electricity arrived there yet?"

"No," she says.

My reluctance is her frustration. The land has been paid off for years now, but without electricity it’s pointless to start any project. I can make do without running water because gravity is such a wonderful thing – a cistern strategically placed high up on the roof could feed everything just fine. Adding a pump would enable me to use one of those newfangled tank-less water heaters. I can build before running water is installed, but without electricity I would be lost.

What could I do without my power-tools?

The heat here, inland, many miles east of downtown Tijuana, is suffocating in parts of this dwelling. Upstairs is an oven, mostly, except for Anna’s room with the window open if there’s a breeze. Even downstairs gets hot, except for my office. The kitchen, when I cook, is unbearable for most. Anna and me are mostly immune while everyone else seems to suffer in it.

Rocio wants Popotla because it is cooler. The ocean breeze is constant. The view is amazing. And whatever I build would be hers, free and clear, irrevocably and entirely. But I need electricity, darling – please be patient. I certainly don’t blame her for being selfish. She wants lights; she wants me to light up the city.

* * * *

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison have nothing on me. It isn’t that I want to understand very much about electricity. I don’t. I want it to be some magical power, and I want it to be controlled by wizards with wands. Something has to remain sacred, after all, now that humanity and the universe have pretty much been explained by science. At the very least, television reception and electricity should remain magical. For the love of all of humanity, please give us that.

When I do build in Popotla, I’ll wire my own house. I’ll pretend that I’m wearing Liberace’s jacket, and deal with it. All of those sequins and all of that weight, and all of that flair I’ll need to finish the task are somehow connected. It’s just wires, after all, and switches that someone else throws on or off. That and flair.

No. It’s magic. I’ll get a wand. I’ll get a title. The wizard of Popotla. And then it will happen.

Palin's Parlay

2009-07-03T16:28:00.001-07:00

In Mexico, that while there is many more common aspects of politics shared with their northern neighbors than anything else, there are some differences. My favorite difference is the term limits set on elected officials. The President of Mexico serves a term of six years and cannot be reelected. The same goes for State Governors, they serve for six years and they’re out. Congress, including the Senate, serve for three years – they may be reelected but not to consecutive terms.

Another difference I admire about Mexican politics versus the United States of America is that anyone who holds office and wishes to run for another office, must resign the office they hold before doing so. They may appoint one of their deputies to serve in their stead, so that ostensibly the people that voted them into office will still be represented by someone who will continue to represent their interests similarly. This happened in the last election for Governor of Baja California, in that Jorge "Hank" Rhon was Mayor of Tijuana when he decided to run for Governor. Rhon had to resign his and appointed Kurt Honold to serve out the term.

Running for another office in Mexico becomes a gamble in cases where the candidate already holds an office. Maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe there should be something more to lose than an election for anyone running for a higher office. Hank Rhon, at least for a while, will have to be content to enjoy his gambling establishments and his wealth. He has since focused his efforts on building a soccer stadium in Tijuana and attempting to get enough talent on the local second-division team in order to join the premier division in Mexican soccer.

I imagine that keeps him busy enough.

* * * *

An aside about Honold: He worked for Rhon, effectively managing Rhon’s Caliente Race and Sports Books. I spoke with Mr. Honold once over the telephone. My late friend Charlie had some sort of dispute concerning a wager. Charlie was fond of betting baseball parlays – selecting several teams to win on any given day, and if all of the teams won, then there would be quite a payoff. A ten-dollar wager on six teams could bring in between three hundred and six hundred dollars. There was one catch – all of the teams wagered on had to win.

On one particular morning, Charlie went into the sports book and bet his daily parlay. That evening, in his Tijuana apartment with his radio pressed to his ear, Charlie fell asleep believing that he had won. In the morning, he went to cash his ticket only to be told that one of the teams he bet had lost. It seems that Charlie had bet the wrong half of a double-header. Charlie insisted that he had told the clerk at the time of the bet that he wanted the early game. I wasn’t there during the argument, but suffice it to say that Charlie was probably the most stubborn man I ever knew.

On weekdays after work, I would come back to Tijuana and drink away a day’s worth of stress before going home. Charlie would join me at exactly five-thirty. He told me his story about the parlay, visibly upset. I felt bad for him, what with his poor eyesight he couldn’t have noticed the difference on the small print on the ticket. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a business card, and handed it to me.

"I need you to do me a favor," he said.

"If I can."

"The guy at the sports book gave this card to me and told me to call him. My Spanish isn’t so good, and you speak it. Tell him what happened. I know what I told the guy when I bought the ticket, and he gave me the wrong game."

I had another beer with Charlie and put the card away, went home, and the next morning at work I chose a slow time to pick up the telephone and dial the number.

* * * *

I read that the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is going to resign in a couple of weeks. The insatiable pundits are pounding out weblog entries, this is their food, their bread of existence. Many seem to believe that she’ll be running for president in a few years. Others think that it’s because her popularity is dropping. She claims that it’s for the good of the State of Alaska.

She says that she is spending far too much time defending herself to effectively run the government.

Of course, if she had lived in Mexico under similar circumstances, she would have had to resign when she ran on the ticket with McCain last year. Because of this – because she spent so much more time campaigning than running the State of Alaska last year, I am inclined to believe that her reasons for resigning are, perhaps, not primary in nature. Some pundits claim that resigning with only two and a half years of her term completed is political suicide. I wouldn’t know. I will point out that the current President of the United States of America didn’t have a lot of experience either, but that he didn’t resign his office while campaigning.

I reckon it’s a crapshoot either way. I also reckon that if Palin has loftier political ambitions, then she is gambling. She is doing what Charlie used to do, trying to get a huge payoff by making an improbable wager. Whether or not it will work out is anyone’s guess.

* * * *

"Kurt Honold, por favor," I said in my best Spanish. Much to my surprise, I was put right through.

"Kurt Honold," the voice said.

"Señor Honold, me llamo Davíd, soy hablando de…"

"Excuse me, do you speak English?" he asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Feel free to continue in English if you like, although your Spanish is very good," he said. His English was haltingly immaculate, with just a hint of an accent. It was certainly better than my Spanish.

"Thank you. I live in Tijuana, so does my friend Charlie. The other day, Charlie bet a parlay…"

I told him the story as he listened very attentively.

"I see. Well, we can’t pay him because the ticket isn’t a winner. I understand that his eyesight is bad, but we can’t cash a ticket if it doesn’t win," he said.

"I understand. But he feels that he’s been wronged. He bets at least ten dollars every day in the sports book. And he’s a good man, an honest man. Church every Sunday and attends mass on all obligatory Catholic celebrations. Perhaps there’s a compromise?"

"We normally don’t do this, but I would be willing to give him his wager back with an apology from the clerk. But just this once."

"I think that would be acceptable to Charlie. And, trust me, you won’t miss the ten dollars, he knows as much about baseball as I do about jai alai. You’ll be keeping a good customer happy," I said.

We thanked each other, and that afternoon I broke the news to Charlie. He frowned a little, but he understood. It was a chance at getting his dignity back. Not that he lost it, but that the perception of having been wronged can sometimes be simply righted by a conciliatory gesture.

The next day, Charlie was happy again. He had his ten dollars back, an apology in his hip pocket, and a brand new parlay. He pulled out a letter-sized piece of paper, eight and a half inches by eleven, and showed it to me. It was his new parlay, a photocopy of it, blown up so that even Mr. Magoo could read it. From that day forward, Charlie never had another issue at the sports book.

Should Mr. Honold ever have future aspirations for public office, should he use this same wisdom and willingness to compromise, he might make a good Senator or Governor someday.

* * * *

All I know about politicians is that they are good liars. Being a good gambler is something entirely different. Say what you will about Palin, irrespective of her political ideologies, but she did manage to get herself elected as Governor of Alaska and was chosen to run on a losing ticket for the presidency. How good of a gambler she is has yet to be determined.

Me, I’d give her the wager back. Maybe she would make a good Senator.

The Fix

2009-06-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

I confess that I do not understand politics, nor do I want to understand politics. I only know that candidates are lying liars that lie and that all of them are dirty in some way or they would never have pursued a career of lying. I subscribe to Plato’s ideal society where the leader is reluctantly chosen and serves out of duty as if it were a jail sentence, a penance to honor one’s society by becoming society’s slave. This will never happen. Human nature is not nearly as noble a thing as we wish it to be, and greed and power will continue to corrupt the human race for a long time.

Within two years of my arrival in Baja, Luis Donaldo Colosio was shot and killed in Tijuana. He would have been the next President of Mexico, as back then there really wasn’t a question of who would win the next election, rather than who the outgoing President would choose to win the next election. It was a much scarier time for Mexico back then than is anything happening now; I remember driving into Tijuana after work that evening and wondering why no one was out. Then I found out. Colosio was assassinated and people were truly frightened.

Ernesto Zedillo was then picked to replace Colosio, and the rest is history, so to speak. It turned out to be the best thing ever. Zedillo, among other great achievements, permitted the ruling party to lose the next election and change politics in Mexico, to make it fair, and to make it respectable. Obviously, there are always going to be problems with politicians anywhere in the world. They lie, and they steal. They are corrupt and easily corrupted. But at least Zedillo refused to handpick his successor, leaving the process of nomination to Mexico’s version of an Electoral College.

Often times, from tragedy comes triumph.

* * * *

Iran held an election recently, where the incumbent was declared the winner. Some people in Iran began to demonstrate and to even riot, claiming that the election was rigged. This happens all over the world. It happened in Mexico during the last presidential election, and it happened to a smaller extent in the United States of America when George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore. One can come to expect such public displays of outrage when their candidate loses. Mostly, it turns out to be sour grapes, but every once in a while evidence of fraud proves to be indisputable.

When I saw this graph I practically choked.

I don’t understand much about politics, but I do understand statistics and probability. In engineering, there is always a variable in any process, a normal randomness. Without such randomness, the process (in manufacturing, mostly, but really in all aspects of natural occurrence) is considered to be unreliable. Any engineer or economist or mathematician will look at the above graph and gasp. It isn’t to say the incumbent didn’t, or wouldn’t have won, but it is practical proof that the election results in Iran are false.

There is no probable way save for unbelievable luck, such as throwing two dice twenty times in a row and rolling snake-eyes with each roll, that this result-over-time graph could plot such a straight line. Unless, of course, the results were intentionally manipulated. Grab your dice and draw your own conclusions.

(Graph courtesy of Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic)

Social Network

2009-05-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

"A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency."

- Miguel de Cervantes

* * * *
The taxi, a comfortable van painted distinctively green and white to identify the route it would take, rolled slowly westward toward downtown. As has always been the case with taxis colectivo, people are picked up randomly along the route until the taxi is full, dropped off at the nearest safe point requested, and refilled and dropped off this way until the end of the route. Unlike metered taxis, the route cabs charge a flat rate. The twelve miles I would be traveling would cost me ten pesos, under a dollar. This is a very economical way to get around, and much faster than taking a bus.

I would enjoy this convenience much more was it not for the invention and popularity of the cellular telephone.

Change is inevitable, even in Tijuana. The vans are a recent development, replacing the hundreds of station wagon taxis taken out of service a few years ago because apparently they were an eyesore for the mayor in office at the time. Metered private taxis came into being a few years before; previously one obtained the services of a private taxi by haggling a deal with the driver beforehand. The convenience store chains where the majority of cell phone owners purchase their minutes are also recent in their volume and as unavoidable in Tijuana as fast food franchises from the other side of the big metal fence.

These differences have changed the way that Tijuana feels and has had some small impact, at least, on the culture. There are still small neighborhood markets everywhere, still small independently owned diners and restaurants, still sedans working as route cabs, and one can still haggle with the driver of a route cab to get a direct trip to somewhere. The cellular telephone, however, has had the most effect; it has sharply changed some aspects of the culture of Tijuana.

* * * *
Rocio's mother gets around. This I mean at face value and in not implying any significance other than that when someone calls my house looking for her because they can't find her at her own house, I remind them that the lady loves to wander her neighborhood. She is friends with everyone, Doña Mago, where Mago is short for Margarita, her given name; nicknames are much more common in Mexico than on the other side of the big metal fence. Her husband is a hard-working man named Elias, but the immediate family calls him El Borracho, meaning "the drunk", and in shorting it to Acho, it remains his nickname to this day.

Elias no longer drinks, but when he did, it was a spectacle – I've never seen anyone who could get so drunk and not pass out.

Mexicans are incredibly social - much more so than are Americans, and Mago is a part of an amazing social network; most Mexicans are a part of an amazing social network. Twenty years ago, it was rare that anyone had a telephone. Telephone ownership was expensive and waiting lists were clogged with people who had enough money and were lucky enough to live near a telephone line; these people were content to wait six months or more for installation. In those days, as now, Mago would go calling on friends throughout the day and they would gossip in hushed tones. Wonderful rumors were born from those whispers, passed on from person to person in the course of a week or a month.

One time Mago told me in Spanish, "Have you heard? The world is going to end next Thursday."

I laughed. I asked her where she got such a notion, and she informed me proudly that everyone was saying that it would happen. That was many hundreds of Thursdays ago. Obviously, there was no truth to that particular rumor. These rumors were passed on privately, person-to-person. To do so publicly and to be overheard would brand one as being scandalous.

One time, when my Spanish was getting good enough to have the ability to construct and speak an intelligible sentence, Elias took me down to a poorer section, within walking distance, and introduced me to some of his work-mates. This was an extraordinary honor for me, a gringo invited into the social network. The men do not gossip. They drink beer outside of the house, talking about work or sports, or else each other. I remember the wife of Elias' friend sweeping the dirt floor inside of their home – which amounted to nothing more than a shack with no apparent front door – and his two beautiful young daughters helping their mother. Poverty is only relative. They had each other. They had their social networks. They had chickens and eggs and made tortillas by hand.

There is no doubt in my mind that fifteen years later, those girls are now proud owners of cellular telephones, even if they still live in that same shack.

* * * *
From the back of the green and white taxi on my way downtown, I tried not to overhear when the cell phones rang. Everyone had one, from the obviously poor to the apparently affluent; except for myself, I find a cell phone to be an inconvenient leash. In line crossing the border, I was surrounded by one-sided conversations right up to the point where cell phones must be turned off. All of these conversations of one-sided scandal!

After crossing, which included an incident where the border security people took one young man out of line and interviewed him and then made him wear a surgical mask and sit quietly at a revision table, I quickly finished my business and re-entered Mexico. I decided to stop at the Nuevo Perico and have a beer or two and get in touch with my own social network, waiting for Scott or maybe Jody or someone else I knew to come along. Even in the bar, cell phones were going off regularly, the only time the conversation was taken outside was when the jukebox blared. Javier came in, and we watched the spectacle together.

"I don't have any use for one of those things," he said after another one went off.

"I couldn't agree more. It's like wearing a leash. An electronic leash where anyone can reach you at any time."

We drank and got caught up; my almost daily trips to downtown Tijuana are now reduced to once or twice a week. Javier and me talked about how culture is sometimes marginalized by technology. Then we discussed more important matters, like sports and the climate and his years in the army and the insanity of crossing the border. All of the while, cell phones went off irregularly but frequently. We bought each other a beer and then I got out of there and headed over to the Dandy del Sur for one last drink; cell signals don't seem to easily penetrate the walls in the Dandy.

I wasn't in there any more than ten minutes when Javier appeared.

"I thought you would be here," he said.

"No cell phones," I said, laughing.

I made my trip home uneventful. After getting some tacos at the corner to go, I flagged down a taxi with a meter and got in the back seat. The meter was broken. I told him where I wanted to go and we negotiated a price of one hundred pesos. The extra ninety pesos were certainly a value since I didn't have to listen to the one-sided conversations of other passengers. Except for taking the freeway, which didn't exist when I first came to Tijuana, everything was just like it was twenty years ago, which is okay by me.

Of Masks, Fences, And Efficient City Government

2009-05-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

As if an imaginary barrier could stop one thing from going somewhere else, or even a real barrier like the big metal fence could stop anything and anyone, people here are wearing masks in order not to contract some mysterious virus. It somehow escapes the psyche of Tijuanenses that, regardless of the boundaries they encounter and still manage to get over, some things in life can't be stopped. Masks, fences, inhospitable terrain, reasonable precautions, it doesn't matter. Obviously, this is irony at its best.

Build a big giant fence and they'll get over, under, or through it; let a flu strain mutate, and surgical masks dominate the pedestrian population.

There are no cases of the current flu, the swine flu, reported in Tijuana. Apparently, this doesn't matter. Some people here have decided that surgical masks will somehow save them. I think that they would be better off covering their ears, because nothing spreads faster than panic. Relax my friends. We're going to be fine.

Thursday, I defied the Mexican government's suggestion that I remain at home and instead crossed the border. I sort of had to. I had an appointment to get my passport, I need one in a month or else the United States of America will not let me enter their country anymore. I tried to go to bed early on Wednesday evening, but my nocturnal habits betrayed me. Even tequila didn't help much. I crawled into bed after two in the morning. This is what happens.

Rocio woke me up at five-thirty as she left for work, but my body decided that I had more time. A ten-thirty appointment begged me for just another fifteen or twenty minutes. I was out of the house at about a quarter after seven, hung over, bleary-eyed and wishing that I had the night before to do all over again. I took a taxi libre to the border, ten dollars. It was crowded, I sipped on a coffee and it took forty-five minutes to cross.

My familiarity with San Diego is mostly specific. I was born there but not raised there, so I can only rely on where I've been. All of those years working in Chula Vista and I never really explored the East Side of the city. On the trolley I felt like a tourist. I got out at the Palomar Street station, as if programmed by five years of habit. I went to the first bus I saw. "How do I get to F Street and Fourth?"

"You want the seven-oh-one," the driver said.

I found the right bus climbed aboard and told the driver where I needed to go, generally, and he nodded. "City Hall, near the library," he said. I sat and grabbed a schedule. As we rolled on, I told him that I would have been better off riding the trolley to H Street and getting there backwards. He laughed. But time was on my side, I told him that it didn't matter either way.

When I had called last week to make this appointment, the lady on the other end of the line was extraordinarily helpful. My notes, however, written hastily on the back of an envelope that would have been otherwise discarded, were poor and not very handy when it came to where she told me that I would have to get a certified copy of my birth certificate. I went to Chula Vista City Hall, I figured I would start there. It was eight-forty in the morning. They were closed.

* * * *
Government in Baja, and in all of Mexico, is largely inefficient in many ways. People wait in line for hours for the most simple of transactions. Sometimes the United States of America is the same way. Visit the local department of motor vehicles and the proof is usually there. Or else, the social security office is a good place to experience the inefficiency of government. It isn't usually limited to one country or one state. It is everywhere.

I remember the first time I applied for a passport. It was complicated. It took many days, several hours for each transaction. I held that passport for nine years until it was stolen here in Mexico, not more than a couple of months before it was set to expire. I laughed when it happened. Not one time was I ever asked for that passport, neither in crossing the border nor in my dealings with Baja officials. I didn't need it, and I didn't care.

I remember reporting it at the border afterward. They shrugged. "It doesn't matter," they told me.

Back then, it didn't matter.

Seventeen years ago, when I crossed the border, I was asked my citizenship. When I told them that I was a citizen of the United States of America, they simply waved me through. There were no x-ray machines, no computers at the stations, and only occasionally I was asked for identification. Undocumented migrants passed freely through the traffic lanes, running in packs of one hundred or more; rarely was even a single one apprehended. The climate of border travel was completely different back then.

When I hear someone remark about or else read some statement concerning illegal border crossings being a current problem, I laugh and think about seventeen years ago. I remember when it was a problem, when the signs and flashing lights all over interstate five warned motorists to be cautious of people crossing the freeway. Back then, border officials were more concerned with the relative safety of both the motorist and the illegal immigrant than they were of actually capturing the illegal immigrant. Times change.

Governments change.

* * * *
Chula Vista City Hall was closed, but there was a maintenance worker there. "We open at ten," he told me.

"Forgive my ignorance, but I need to get a certified copy of my birth certificate," I told him. "Where would I do that?"

"Ah, then you need to go to the clerk's office. That's on Third and H Street."

I got there at ten minutes until nine o'clock. Seventeen dollars and fifteen minutes later, I had it, a certified copy of my certificate of live birth. I walked down Third Street, knowing that I would get there early, back to city hall. Some lady was pushing a cart as I passed her on the sidewalk. She was agitated.

"The police should just leave me alone," she said, imagining that someone was listening.

There were no police anywhere. I smiled. She was safe. It was nice to see that some of the people who seem to live in their own imaginary world were not confined to the streets of downtown Tijuana.

I arrived almost an hour early for my appointment. I filled out an application and the very wonderful lady - the same one who helped me on the phone a week earlier - she took my picture and very carefully checked my application. She then took my money orders, stamped everything, and even made me a photocopy of my birth certificate. She was wonderful.

By ten-thirty that morning, the time of my initial appointment to obtain my passport, I was already on the trolley headed south toward San Ysidro.

I had thanked every employee of the City of Chula Vista that helped me, I let them know that it was the most efficient local government I had ever run across. When I set up the appointment to apply for the passport, I was given every piece of information I needed, including exact amounts in order to get money orders. Getting my birth certificate was easy and fast, and applying for my passport was painless.

* * * *
At noon, Jody rolled in to the Nuevo Perico and I shared the details of my wonderful morning in the United States of America.

"How much did it cost you?"

"Over two hundred dollars, I had to get it expedited both ways so it will arrive in two-to-three weeks. And I also got the crossing card so I don't have to carry my passport around," I said.

Jody shook his head. "That's a lot of money."

"It's my own stupidity. I should have done it six months ago. But the speed and efficiency of the City of Chula Vista pretty much takes the sting away. Besides, all of the times that the United States government kept threatening to require passports to cross, only to extend the deadline. How am I supposed to know when to take them seriously?"

"I'll be having to renew mine in a couple of years," Jody said.

"Do it in Chula Vista," I recommended.

We parted ways, and I wandered up the street, people in surgical masks passing me, the race books closed, the schools shut down, only the bars and the pharmacies could be counted on to remain open in Tijuana. During the long cab ride home, I thought about how it was probably the first day in many years that the time I had spent in the United States of America was more pleasant than the remainder of the day in Mexico. I think it has to do with the fact that dealing with an efficient city government is a better experience than the fences and masks that awaited me back home.

At least, the bars weren't as crowded.

The Working Girls

2009-04-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

Today was cooler, it might have hit ninety degrees but tonight will dip into the fifties. Yesterday was a lot hotter. I was again reminded while crossing the border that I needed a passport. Today I called the closest place in San Ysidro to make an appointment. August. This will not work, I need one before the end of May.

Chula Vista, seven miles north of San Ysidro, was easier. Next Thursday, I have an appointment. The lady was awesome, helpful, and wonderful. It will cost me over two hundred dollars. Check or money order. No cash accepted.

I’ll also have to get a new birth certificate. Luckily, I was born in San Diego. Otherwise, I would be in deep trouble, unable to enter the United States of America in order to buy the necessary documents to enter the United States of America. This is what happens.

* * * *
The heat was wonderful yesterday. In the early morning, I took a cab to Centro and found Scott sitting in the Cafe Francais sipping Colombian coffee and joined him after purchasing some of my own. At home I drink instant coffee, so the freshly brewed Colombian is a treat. Scott has fallen into a sudden and prolonged bout of sobriety. It frustrates me.

It took a while to catch up, we were finally waterlogged with the coffee and headed down to the race and sports book on fourth street, where they still list race results on chalkboards. Scott bets baseball, and he's been doing rather well lately, cashing for a couple hundred dollars. When I inquired about the Kentucky Derby future betting I was incorrectly informed that I Want Revenge was fifty-to-one. When I purchased the ticket, it was five to one. They asked if I wanted to return it. I couldn't. I never return tickets unless a horse scratches out.

I watched Scott eat breakfast at a small cafe in the breezeway outside of the race book. I have never known a human being that can eat as fast as Scott eats, he inhaled his breakfast in five minutes.

We crossed the border, Scott to buy more time on his cell phone and myself for some banking. I was reminded once again that I have thirty-nine days in order to procure a passport. I bought my first passport almost seventeen years ago. Two months before it was set to expire it was stolen. I never needed it here. Mexico couldn't care less. On the first of June, the United States of America has decided that I'm not worthy of entering the country unless I have one.

We headed back into Mexico, the heat building, and into Scott's world, Zona Norte. The prostitutes are so beautiful. I wanted to take their picture but it's frowned upon. One day I am going to pay a couple of them for their time and just interview them and then I can get some pictures. So gorgeous. I'll write a story about them, a good story, dozens and dozens of beautiful girls, working the streets, making an otherwise bizarre area worthy of adulation. Judge the profession as you see fit, but don't judge the working girls.

There is a race book inside of Zona Norte, sort of an oasis inside of a sandstorm, you can't walk the streets of Zona Norte without someone asking for something. Money, food, a shoeshine, a wristwatch for sale, drugs, everything is for sale there. The prostitutes make nice with passers-by and everyone else works their gimmicks. Inside of the race book is air-conditioned heaven. Outside it was over one hundred degrees and in the race book it was sixty-eight. Scott pondered wagering on baseball games while I had a beer.

* * * *
A couch arrived tonight. Juan, from Iraq, ordered it here in Mexico for his mother as a Mother’s Day gift. Tomorrow, I have to find room for it. I’m going to slap the hell out of that kid when he comes home. We needed a couch like a fish needs a bicycle. Maybe even less than that.

I made cream of ham and potato soup with some very elaborate sandwiches tonight. Three types of meat, two types of cheese, bacon and avocado, toasted. Odds are good that we are the only family in the entire city that ate this tonight. I’m a gringo, I can’t not cook what I love. Lucky for me, the family loves it too.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll make chili beans.

It wouldn’t bother me in the least if I never crossed the border again. I don’t hate the United States of America, I was born and raised there, I am proud of my upbringing and admire the history so much. My blood is red, like Mexican blood, but my blood is gringo blood, I can’t deny my heritage. It’s a very coveted heritage to own.

Forgive me if I find it sort of stupid that the land where I was born is now demanding that I pay upwards of two hundred dollars in order to prove it so that I can enter the country.

* * * *
Scott and me decided to try and find Jody. We checked bar after bar, no Jody. We ran into him accidentally. Scott excused himself, fell into his temporary sobriety, and Jody and me went to have a few beers.

"The hookers are a lot prettier than I remember," I said.

"Yes. And this is the day shift, you should see them at night," Jody said.

That isn’t going to happen any time soon, I’ll take his word for it. I hope that Scott falls off of the wagon soon. Then we can drink together and they can trade stories about the working girls. By then, I should have a shiny new passport. Like it matters. Like it should matter.

Friday Night In Tijuana

2009-03-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

I went to Centro de Tijuana on Friday, enjoyed a few beers, chatted with Jody, sometimes I need to get out of the house. Armed with my trusty Fujifilm S700, I decided to use the video feature for the first time. I recorded the Nuevo Perico during the six-thirty shift change, and then typically how my evenings usually go after that. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then you'll have to figure out on your own what a three-part video is worth, word-wise. Enjoy.

Ostensibly Nebulous

2009-02-21T02:41:00.001-08:00

I am pretty sure that I could construct a fully functional nuclear bomb. In other words, if I had the means to procure some enriched uranium (I'm not enriching it myself, I don't have the room here), along with other necessary materials (you know, shiny reflective metal like beryllium, suitable trigger devices, and so on), and enough time, I could do it. Assuming that I would survive any setbacks during the assembly process, I have a lot of confidence in my ability to accomplish this. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention on actually doing it, but I bet that I could.

View this as a positive revelation, because if I had any doubts then I would almost certainly have to try it.

I remember the first time that I had sopes, the lovely and wonderful soul food of Mexico. The next time that Rocio's mother cooked them, I watched. I asked her questions concerning every step. It looked so impossible. Obviously, within a month, I had to try to make sopes.

* * * *
Last night, I walked with Anna to the convenience store after dinner, after we ate sopes. These walks really are some of the most wonderful moments of my life. For one thing, never did I ever imagine that my sixteen-year-old daughter would ever really understand me in any relevant way. And she does. Also, she's delightful company most of the time.

The night before last, I got a bit upset with her. She was on the phone for over an hour when I finally came out of my office, it was too much. It was also the second time that I had to tell her. All of my kids know, there is no such thing as a third time.

"Get off the phone, now," I ordered.

She hung up, she wasn't happy.

"Look, I give you a lot more latitude in these things that I gave the other two," I told her.

"I'm not the other two," she said angrily and began heading up the stairs to bed.

"No, you're not," was the only thing I could manage to say.

Anna stomped off to bed. She was right, even though the other two are fine children, she really isn't like them at all. Juan is an amazing kid - well, young man I suppose, and Sharon, even though she inherited her mother's resolute stubbornness, seems to have straightened up. But Anna is different.

Last night, I asked her how she liked the sopes.

"I didn't like the chorizo very much. I mean, it's okay I guess, but it was different," she said.

"The fruiteria was out of the stuff I normally buy. I went to Calimax and bought what was ostensibly pork chorizo. When I got home I discovered that it was made from soy," I confessed.

"What does ostensibly mean?" Anna asked.

"It's what something seems like in appearance or perception, but not necessarily true. I get words stuck in my head and use them too much. Like ostensibly, and nebulous. I was just confessing that to someone the other day."

She pointed at me and said, "I know what nebulous means."

"And don't forget my favorite phrase these days, it applies to any situation, even something like accidentaly buying the wrong chorizo," I said.

And then we said it together, "This is what happens."

* * * *
It's funny how cooking sopes to me now is so simple. The first few times that I tried it, it scared the crap out of me, but I had to do it. Anna is like that. She decides that she wants to do something and she does it. If it is less than successful, it doesn't detour her, she does it again. She loves to bake, and she's getting good at it. If she wants to do something she just does it.

Good for her.

She attempted to make sopes a couple of times while I was making them, she wanted to try it. Her first couple of attempts, less than perfect, reminded me of what my first attempts were like. I told her that practice would enable her to get it right. I think that the next time I make sopes, I'm going to have her do most of it. And she will. And I'm sure that she'll do fine.

"How many gringos do you think know how to make sopes?" I asked Anna.

"Probably not many," she said. "None that I know of, except for you."

And then, as we came back to the house last night, I only thought it, I didn't have to say it, because perhaps Anna was thinking the same thing. Ostensibly, there are more Mexicans that know how to prepare grits than there are gringos who know how to make sopes. And that distinction, at best, is nebulous. This is what happens.

Water And Clay

2009-02-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

Initially, I ignore knocking at the door anytime before noon, because it's going to be someone I don't know. Someone is going to want to sell me something, or else it will be someone in a police officer's uniform asking for donations, or maybe even some poor people with a story about not having enough money to bury their uncle. This morning, after the third persistent series of knocks, I walked out of my office to see. There was two young men, well-dressed, and I pegged them as Mormons and mentally prepared my best polite, "No, gracias."

One of them was holding a breaker fuse, and pointing at the electrical meters across the entry to the cul-de-sac, babbling something in Spanish.

"Those meters belong to the houses across from mine," I told him in Spanish.

His friend then spoke up, "Do you speak English?"

There was no accent at all in his voice.

"Yes."

"Do you know who sells these?"

"No. There is a hardware store two blocks up the street. They probably don't carry them but they'll know who would."

"Okay. Can we borrow a screwdriver?"

"No. Again, you can get a screwdriver from the hardware store. Good luck, gentlemen."

I have never seen these people before. I still think that they are Mormons. Maybe they went to one of the houses to talk about Jesus and learned that there was an electrical problem. I have no idea. I'll never know. That's okay with me, because I still have my screwdriver.

* * * *
I noticed that it is bright and sunny outside and again perhaps seventy degrees. It rained a lot on Monday, pools of water still sit awaiting evaporation. People in San Diego first complain about the rain but then proclaim that it's needed, no matter that it's annoying. This isn't true for Tijuana. We don't need the rain. The ground here is mostly clay, it doesn't hold rainwater, and the rainwater finds its way to the Pacific Ocean without stopping unless it finds a place to pool up. This process is only messy and never functionally works in a positive manner.

And then one observation leads to another.

Out on the boulevard, there are often times – among the taco stands and taxi queues and street vendors – Mormons are also there and standing static, arms outstretched with literature in hand. They are mostly harmless, like clay, as the people pass them by as so much water. They seem nice enough. They'll barely say a word to anyone unless eye contact is made. These people out on the sidewalks of Tijuana do not bother me in the least.

Here, the dynamic person – the human being in motion – can avoid the static people made of clay. Just keep moving, just be fluid. Let gravity, or else your own energy, carry you along. That's the key to avoiding such annoyances. At least, this is one way of getting through the day here.

There is another thing that happens here, it is unique in many aspects, to Baja. Once that you stop, you are potentially a target. Drinking with Scott and Jody is the greatest example of this phenomenon. Sitting in the Nuevo Perico, people come into the bar all day. They sell everything from compact discs to cigarette lighters. Jody's favorite was the guy that walked in one day selling a toilet seat. Because if you need to buy a toilet seat, then logically you just go to a bar.

This is what happens.

My personal favorite was the very old woman who would, daily, go into the Dandy Del Sur at about five in the afternoon. She would be toting around some vegetables that were obviously discarded by a store that couldn't sell them because they were too old. Radishes, onions, and other almost rotten food. Again, this is because when you want to purchase old and unusable produce, just go have a beer somewhere and it will come to you.

"Boy, am I glad that she showed up," I told Jody one afternoon. "I'm all out of old onions and radishes."

Jody laughed. "One time I felt bad for her, so I just gave her five dollars for everything. When she left, I threw it away."

Jody stopped giving her money after that. He realizes that acting as an enabler just brings them back in hopes of another five dollars. Jody is more like clay now. I am more like clay now. You let the water flow around you, over you, even if it means that you have to say no a lot more often than you want to. Sitting still means ignoring the annoying water when you don't want to absorb it.

* * * *
When I'm at home, I don't have to answer the door. The telephone, which rings far too often, is also annoying, and so rarely for me that I am usually disappointed with myself for answering it. Often, it is a recording, from someone who wants us to switch phone or cable services. If you hang up on the recording, it calls back. I usually throw the receiver onto the couch and grab a beer, and by the time I get back from the kitchen the recording has finished.

I then go back into my office and write or read or research. The radio is always on, in the background, keeping me company. Outside, I hear the propane trucks honking, someone selling tamales, even a guy who roams around in a truck pitching brooms and mops. Occasionally, there is a man on a bicycle that rides by, he sharpens knives by turning his bike over and attaching a sharpening stone to the back wheel. This is easily ignored.

Living in Baja, you turn to clay when standing still, and turn to water when moving about. When the Mormons come to your door, you don't have to answer it. When you go to the store, you don't have to acknowledge the Mormons on the street. Then, you just smile about it, even when the rains come down, because even the Mormons here need umbrellas sometimes.

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Twenty-one – Conclusion And Opinion

2009-02-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Between the pirate and the privateer, there is a gray area that defies black and white or any other binary distinction along with a vast ocean in which to settle the differences. Politics and economics have always worked this way. In times of economic surplus, the pirate becomes a privateer. In times of economic peril, the privateer becomes the pirate. When the economy is stable, then it becomes difficult to determine the difference. This is what happens.

I listened to the Shiny New President's press conference the other evening. As with all presidential press conferences, the questions are prescreened, to a point, so that the President isn't embarrassed or ambushed. This is understandable. And when one reporter asked about "earmarking" on the stimulus package, Obama denied it. This is almost true, as there is almost no earmarks in the bill. But Obama went on to admit that there was a lot of "pork" in the bill. I admired his acknowledgement of the obvious. Previous administrations wouldn't have been that honest. On the other hand, he had nothing to lose, because he knew that he'd already won.

And the only obvious earmarking on the stimulus bill came from a Republican Senator, in case you are wondering.

A little more than half of this bill was written long before Obama won the election. Those portions of the bill sat on someone's desk, drawing dust and sitting patiently until an opportunity presented itself. This is how politics works. Republicans pass their type of legislation this way, too. In fact, the last administration hijacked congress, in that the act of a congressman voting against legislation that supported and funded a war that was very unpopular within their own constituency could translate to anti-patriotism. The current administration did not need such tactics, only the ability to pick off a couple of senators from the other side of the aisle.

The appropriations provisions in the stimulus bill are ostensibly designed from the Keynesian macroeconomic model which contends that increasing the cash supply to government for investment in infrastructure, when combined with tax cuts or credits to the lower and middle class, stimulates economic growth. This is similar to what the Roosevelt administration did with the New Deal. There is plenty of debate amongst economists and historians concerning the effectiveness of the New Deal, and that perhaps the second World War had more to do with recovery from the Great Depression than did anything else. I am willing to seek a compromise that the combination of the two events helped to get the United States of America back on its feet.

And to be fair, and completely honest, I don't believe that Supply-side macroeconomics had as much to do with economic recovery from the recession in the Reagan administration as did other factors.

* * * *
Many years ago, I took my family up to Del Mar for a day at the racetrack. I remember that they had these booths set up, temporary kiosks, and that people were giving away free souvenirs, horse racing stuff. One item - and it escapes me now as to what that item was, appeared very attractive to add to my collection. I wanted to buy one, but they weren’t for sale. They were free! All I had to do was to fill out an application for a credit card. I explained to the young lady that I really didn't want a credit card, but she insisted that it was harmless, and that the most that they would do is to simply offer me the card and that I could refuse it if I chose to do so.

Perhaps a month later, I was sitting at my desk at work, and I received a telephone call. It was a credit card company.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions," she said.

"But I don't own any credit cards," I told her.

"No, this is concerning your application."

"But I didn't apply for..."

Then I remembered that I had, indeed, applied for their credit card. I acknowledged it.

"We were wondering, how old are you?" she asked.

"Thirty-eight, why?"

“Well, you have no credit rating at all. In fact, we can't find any reference to where you bank. We were just wondering if you were just starting out, you know, maybe that you just graduated high school or something."

"Nope. I have no credit cards and no bank account."

She was dumbfounded. I told her why I applied, that it wasn't for the card, it was for the horse racing memorabilia that I could add to my collection. I told her that she could rip up my application and that I was sorry for wasting her time. But it occurred to me that people are sometimes worth more by what they owe than what they don't owe. This is truer now than it was then, in that if you have a credit card with a high limit and you aren't using it and you don't owe on it, the card will likely be cancelled soon. In order to maintain a good credit rating, one needs to owe something against it. Ironic, just a little?

* * * *
The last company that I worked for began to feel it immediately and it wasn't pretty. The majority of their business came from companies that provided material used to sell houses, mostly new houses, because traditionally such advertising and attention-getting has paid off for the housing industry. Orders began to drop fast as the inventory of unsold houses began to climb. I rationalized that the housing industry still needed to advertise, and that perhaps they wanted it at a lower cost. I argued, unsuccessfully, that the company should go directly after the homebuilders, cutting out the middleman. Unfortunately, the owner had a lot of loyalty to these middlemen, and even though our sales staff had leads on builders that our clients weren't pursuing, they didn’t have the required experience to go after them.

Last that I heard, that company is still in business, but in very bad shape. There isn't anything that I found in this stimulus bill that is going to help them, except that one of their clients sells motivational material to schools. Unfortunately, their profit margin with this client is extremely low. There are a lot of businesses that will not benefit enough from this particular bill to keep them from going under. This was a problem in the Roosevelt administration, and it will be a problem for the Obama administration. This is what happens.

Under the Keynesian model of economic recovery, the limitation is that government spending dictates the area of recovery. Under the Supply-side model, the limitation is that wealth in the private sector dictates the area of economic recovery. Both are, at best, unproven theories with supporters and detractors, and at worst, irrelevant to thousands of people who have lost their jobs, and their homes, and their future.

* * * *
Dismiss, for a moment, the catalyst that started this particular recession. The Reagan administration loosened the reigns on tight controls of financial institutions by the Federal government, in order to provide wealthy investors that had benefited from Supply-side tax cuts the opportunity to secure financing for reinvestment into the private sector. This had the appearance of success when the economy recovered and, in fact, flourished in the mid-eighties, but this also reduced government income, thereby creating a dichotomy. The twenty years that followed Reagan, this dichotomy was not only ignored but exploited by politics, and while the reigns were completely let loose on financial regulation by the time that the last President began his second term, government at both the State and Federal levels continued to spend money that it didn't have.

Financial institutions and government irresponsibly ignored what any child already knows: You can't spend what you don't have, and you don't loan money to someone that you know can't pay you back. But that's over now. The Federal government has no choice but to print more money in order to make some attempt at staving off a complete collapse of the economy, which would ensure a depression, and then maybe even a war in order to reset everything. Nobody wants that.

Economic recovery occurs when the private business sector begins to invest in the production of goods and the provision of services, mandated and balanced by the demand of the market. These businesses secure capital for such investments through loans and lines of credit, which are secured through banks and other lending institutions. Lending institutions make money through one of two methods: by marginally high interest made on a moderate amount of loans, or from marginally low interest rates on a high volume of loans. Because of their irresponsibility, these lending institutions don't have a lot of money, which precludes the latter method. But interest rates are so low that loaning only a little bit of money can't make a substantial enough profit.

So, under this stimulus plan, interest rates should rise. This will enable financial institutions to get back on their feet while also staving off potential inflation from printing out almost 800 billions dollars and pumping it into the public sector. Unfortunately, this isn't going to help the housing industry or the automobile industry, or any other industry that relies on consumer loans in order to sell their product. And small businesses will suffer, because their lines of credit will command higher payments. So, under this stimulus plan, you have to keep interest rates down, guard against rising inflation, while pumping billions into the public sector. They've tried to give the lending institutions more money in order to provide them with enough to loan at a reduced rate, but that didn't work out too well, because the banks decided to use their first bail-out to make money through other means, like buying up smaller banks.

This is an impossible task, because people seem to not want to cooperate.

* * * *
The spending of public funds in this bill is ridiculous. Most of it is not designed to get the economy back on its feet, and it is irresponsible and misleading to claim that it is. A National Health Care system is something that should be debated separately and that it's part of a stimulus package is deceitful. In fact, a good half of the items in the bill should all be legislated separately and so should funding for education and so should funding for the Army Corps of Engineers. The problem with such funding is that these funds are often misappropriated, especially when given in bulk. In the decade prior to hurricane Katrina, the State of Louisiana had been given nine billion dollars in order to repair and improve the levees that protect the city of New Orleans. Only ten percent of that money went toward its intended use.

What would I do differently? A lot. First of all, don't give any money to businesses that substantially manufacture goods outside of the United States of America. General Motors is going to take what they get and invest it at facilities in Brazil and Mexico because they profit more from the assembly plants there. Secondly, give smaller companies the bigger tax breaks, because those companies are going to close quickly without their lines of credit. Banks will not close the lines of credit on larger companies as fast because the volume, in spite of the low interest rate, makes them more profitable. And another thing I would think would work better, is to figure out a way to get money into the public sector a lot faster than the appropriated funds seem to allow. Billions of dollars in highway funding will certainly create a lot of jobs, but unless the planning has already been completed this is going to take a long time before constructions actually begins.

The thing that most disappoints me about this particular stimulus package is that it is a combination of money that is both thoughtlessly thrown into government spending and unilaterally tied to partisan projects. Trying to make up for a lack of revenue by the government for necessary projects that were overlooked by previous administrations in this way isn't fair to anyone. One alternative would be to give the tax breaks and other portions of the bill that would have an immediate impact on the economy, and then to set aside the other appropriations and subsequent items of the bill, debate them, and come up with better organized and more widely accepted and acceptably compromised ways to accomplish what needs to be done in order to revive the economy.

"This bill is not perfect," President Obama told reporters at his latest press conference.

I agree, Mr. President. Thank you, at least, for not lying to me.

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Twenty – Scotty, We Need More Power!

2009-02-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

Fuck this is a grind, and I'm glad it's almost over (this is worse than following the Tour-De-France). The last section of the stimulus deals with energy. You can never have too much energy. Or apparently, pages in a bill. Anyway, this section amends the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It increases benefits already given to anyone who took advantage of that bill. In addition, it provides for "financial support to smart grid demonstration projects in urban, suburban, and rural areas, including areas where electric system assets are controlled by tax-exempt entities and areas where electric system assets are controlled by investor-owned utilities." Grants will be provided to cover half of the costs in some cases.

There is also a lot about biofuels in here, none of which are specified but they keep using the word, "support". And there is more about Weatherization. And more Grants. And on and on. Again, very little is specific in here so far as money to be spent, but at least there aren't many reports to fill out. Maybe by the time they wrote this, they were tired and forgot about that part. The point of this section is to promote Energy Independence.

The last seven chapters didn't give much of a clue about cost, other than combined it would be somewhere around 435 billion, because direct Appropriations are around 390 billion. And I know, there have been amendments, and will likely be even more amendments. Health Care and Education make up the majority of this bill. This is a lot to digest. I will write a conclusion, which will be simply my opinion of course. But I won't be home tomorrow, so the only decision I have is whether to try and digest this tonight and write about it, or to give it some thought and come back tomorrow night or Wednesday and do it.

Next: Chapter Twenty-one – Conclusion And Opinion

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Nineteen – Dial-Up No More!

2009-02-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

Okay. So now we all have internet access. Well, most of us. The first part of this next-to-last section deals with broadband, which implies something better than dial-up. First they're going to make a map. This is so they know where broadband isn't available. Then they're going to give Grants to deploy broadband for areas that are still struggling with dial-up. Then they’re going to make a web site. Then they're going to write reports. No fewer than 80% of people will have broadband access in the U.S. (by State) by the time they are finished.

Just so that you know, this is how the Government defines it: For the purpose of this section - the term "advanced broadband service" means a service delivering data to the end user transmitted at a speed of at least 45 megabits per second downstream and at least 15 megabits per second upstream. Just so you know. There is a lot more stuff on Grants and even how to apply for a Grant and of course, more reports.

One more section to go.

Next: Chapter Twenty – Scotty, We Need More Power!

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Eighteen - Free Nationalized Health Care

2009-02-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

The Federal Medicare Assistance Percentages (FMAP), which is the ratio that Federal assists State government for Medicare, will temporarily increase for a couple of years. The percentage depends on how much unemployment or general poverty exists in that specific State. It could be as high as twenty percent. There is also an increase in cap expenditures, depending. The State may not deposit this money and sit on it until they need it. This is because States always know when they'll need it, because poor people get sick very non-randomly. There are dozens or regulations and even moratoria on other existing regulations. Because sometimes you need regulations and sometimes you don't. Again, there are more reports. And some clauses. And then more reports. And Family Planning Services, which I hope and presume is free birth control. And Native Americans get it, too. Fucking casinos.

And there are DSH allotments. DSH stands for Disproportionate Share Hospital, which has to do with one hospital treating more poor people than other hospitals. I think it's like revenue sharing in baseball.

We're almost done now.

Next: Chapter Nineteen – Dial-up No More!

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Seventeen - The Beginning Of A National Health Care System

2009-02-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

Let's take a moment to talk about the "Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act", but because that's so damned long, let's just call it HITECH. This is another example of your crafty government at work, masters of the acronym. HITECH creates a brand shiny new office and lodges itself into the Public Health Service Act. Deeply. Deep and hard. Just the way America likes it.

This begins with identifying terms. It amends the Public Health Service Act, and adds Health Information Technology and Quality, and then defines EHR Technology, Enterprise Integration, and on and on. Then they establish an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (HIT). It ensures stuff that Doctors use to ensure, because apparently Doctor's sucked at it. The duties of the National Coordinator are to Health Information Technology works. This is because the government has to have access to your health records by the year 2014 ("The utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014"). This is so they can determine whether or not your doctor should treat you. There are penalties that your Doctor will have to pay for not complying with it.

If you think that I am kidding, you need to read Division B, Title IV of the bill. Now, let's pretend that you are all pro-National Health Care and a Democrat. Why is this a bad idea? Because sooner or later the other guys will get to run the government again for a while. This happens. And now you want an abortion. Guess what's going to happen?

This section is the blueprint for Nationalized Healthcare. There will be a HIT Czar, and that HIT Czar, within twelve months, will have a "Chief Privacy Officer". And a Policy Committee. Here's a slice of their responsibilities: "Technologies that as a part of a qualified electronic health record allow for an accounting of disclosures made by a covered entity (as defined for purposes of regulations promulgated under section 264(c) of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) for purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations (as such terms are defined for purposes of such regulations)". This will scare you, unless you are a Socialist. And if you are a socialist, you aren’t reading this anyway.

There are pages and pages of crap in here. It is, by far, the largest part of this bill.

There will also be a Standards Committee, because apparently there can never be too many committees. This is going to be a government regulated system, and they might even charge for it ("AUTHORIZATION TO CHARGE A NOMINAL FEE - The National Coordinator may impose a nominal fee for the adoption by a health care provider of the health information technology system developed or approved"). Then, they get Medicare and Medicaid involved, but those guys get it free. There are Grants and Appropriations to provide incentives to get Doctors and Hospitals on board. And other funding. Lots of other funding. Billions of dollars. It would take me a month to break this down.

Plus, I didn't get any tequila today because it's raining like hell here.

Anyway, welcome to the birth of Socialized Medicine in the United States of America. And don't argue with me unless you have read this provision, please, you would be wasting both your time and mine. If you want it, you've won. And if you don't want it, you're screwed, because it's here.

Next: Chapter Eighteen – Free Nationalized Health Care

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Sixteen - Healthy Bums Like Me

2009-02-09T17:35:00.001-08:00

Once someone becomes dis-employed, they are eligible for COBRA, which is an extension of any Health Insurance that they had when they were employed. Once unemployed, in order to keep their Health Insurance, such people pay premiums. In this next section, the Federal government has decided that you only have to pay 35% of your premium. Again, there are rules and regulations. Also, there is some Emergency Medicaid provisions, but it would take me a week to get through it all. This all costs money. How much is anyone's guess.

Many pages of information, a lot of money spent, but no way to know the total and I'm not about to attempt a guess.

By the way, I'm listening to the President's Press Conference at the moment. The Shiny New Guy is certainly right about one thing: This entire mess got started by banks taking stupid risks while the Federal Government cheered it all on.

Next: Chapter Seventeen – The Beginning Of A National Health Care System

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Fifteen - Non-Working Class

2009-02-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

Another provision for "Assistance for Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families" begins with an extension of Unemployment Compensation – plus a raise! Ostensibly, people on Unemployment will get $25 more, which will keep me in booze quite nicely. This shall be reimbursed to the states in full, and in effect through next year, from the general fund in the Treasury, according to pages and pages of rules and regulations. There is also stuff in there about dependant allowances, but I am guessing that this changes from State to State. There are a lot of areas where 7 billion dollars comes up (multiple amounts of 7 billion), but it's fuzzy and sketchy as to how much money will go toward this part of the bill. Also, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) gets a couple of years of emergency funding, including Grants for extra caseloads. There is no apparent limit to this funding. This includes emergency money for SSI recipients. Again, there are a buttload of rules and regulation, so your mileage may vary.

Again, nothing to add to the total, but it's all in there somewhere.

Next: Chapter Sixteen – Healthy Bums Like Me

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Fourteen - Give Me Some (Tax) Credit

2009-02-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Other Provisions must be items in the bill that aren't Appropriated, otherwise they wouldn't get their own special section, and the first series of items falls under Tax Provisions. All of this stuff is applied to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, in the form of revisions and additions. Don't think for a minute that I have the time or the talent to get into any detail. I don't. Plus, I'm out of tequila.

First in this section is an Earned Income Credit. I have no idea how to quantify it into one big number, but basically, for anyone making $75,000 or less ($150,000 if filing jointly), you get $500 ($1,000 if filing jointly), or 6.2% of your income, whichever is less. Once you hit over $75,000 of income, the amount starts to drop dramatically as income goes up. This is in effect for the next two years. We have no choice but to set this aside and see how it fits into the total at the end. There is going to be a lot of that from now on.

Next is another Tax Relief item, one for families with children. Basically, more than three qualifying kids will get you $5,000 per year over the next two years. I wonder what having 14 kids will get. Again, I have no idea how to quantify this. Sorry. Consult your own Tax Professional. And yet more Tax Credits! The Hope Scholarship Credit, for tuition and expenses (but not materials), can yield up to $2,500 if I'm reading this right. Of course, again, there's no way to quantify it. And it only applies for the first four years of college. Because, apparently, by the time you hit your fifth year of higher learning, you're already wealthy enough to afford college.

Now we get to Housing Incentives. First-time homebuyers no longer have to repay that tax credit, that is if you buy before July of this year. Oh, and they're reducing the ceiling for Low Income Housing Grants Received in 2009. Apparently, your government really wants you to buy a house.

And there are some Tax Incentives for Business, including a special allowance for certain property acquired during 2009, a temporary increase in limitations on expensing of certain depreciable business assets, an adjustment to 5-year carryback of operating losses (10%, ostensibly), except that none of this applies if you received a TARP payment, otherwise known as the old guy's bailout plan.

There are also incentives for hiring Veterans and "Disconnected Youth". Disconnected Youth must be between 16 and 25 years of age, and be unemployed, unskilled, and uneducated beyond high school. The best way to find a Disconnected Youth in order to hire him or her: Excessive facial piercing and/or tattoos, spends much time smoking dope behind convenience stores, is a member of a rock, punk, or emo band (irrespective of musical ability), has put to memory all lyrics of every song every published and/or performed by the band, "Greenday", and blames his or her parents for everything.

The next part of the bill gives the I.R.S. some sort of power concerning change of ownership of a company. Duh. They pretty much do whatever they want to anyway.

We now get to Fiscal Relief for State and Local Governments, starting with changes that make Tax-Exempt Bonds more marketable by modifying some of the obligations and limitations. There is a lot of modifying, and I'm sure this costs money, but I have no idea how much. There is a section on school bonds, but I have no idea what impact this has at the Federal level. It resets the limits on school construction bonds. Is it higher or lower? No idea. Where is a tax expert when I need one? Also, they address taxable bond options for government bonds. Apparently, if you own these bonds you get a 35% tax credit against the payable interest. Maybe. There are rules. Lots of them.

Speaking of Bonds, apparently there are Zone Recovery Bonds. This could be brand new, I have no idea. This is weighed by what zones have employment declines. There is something about limitations of 10 and 15 billion, depending. Oh, and they are repealing the withholding tax on Government contractors.

There are Energy Incentives, or at least there are changes to whatever existed prior to this bill. These include Renewable Energy Incentives, in the form of Tax Credits; Increased Allocation of Bonds for "New Clean Renewable Energy": 4 billion; Energy Conservation Incentives in the form of Tax Credits; Energy Research incentives in the form of Tax Credits. That's a lot of incentive.

Next in this section is stuff that didn't fit anywhere else. After a few paragraphs on Labor Standards, it seems that the Feds will match whatever the States will Grant for Low-income Housing Credit Allocations. There is also a provision that provides Grants in lieu of Tax Credits for certain Specified Energy property. You'll also be happy to know that after this year, there will be more reports made so that we can see where we're at. Every three Months. Because you can never have too many reports.

We have a little bit to add to our total, which is now 390.479 billion* but note the asterisk. There are billions being spent here that aren't quantifiable. At least for me. But we'll sort out all of that later.

* Plus Billions T.B.D.

Next: Chapter Fifteen – Non-Working Class

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Thirteen - Stop Shaking

2009-02-09T12:32:00.000-08:00

Apparently, the States are so scared they're shaking. There is a section in here, the last section under Appropriations Provisions, that gives States some Federal money for, um, Stabilization. Schools get a whopping 79 billion to play with, half this year and the other half next year, above and beyond that already stated in earlier chapters. And since there must be oversight, 25 million, and since there must be more grants, 15 billion more for that. Then there are pages on how the Governor is responsible for all of it and if it isn't spent then it has to be returned (let's all take a guess on how much is really going to be returned). Then we get a 650 million innovation fund because you can never have too much innovation. Then there are pages on how many reports will be generated, and a clause prohibiting private schools from getting any of the money. This is because private schools suck and are renowned for their inferior performance to public schools.

This is the end of all of the Appropriations Provisions of the bill. All of the sections following this concern "Other Provisions". Most of these are not quantifiable, in terms of being able to add to the total spending. But since I am only on page 251 of 647 at this point, there are a lot of provisions in there, or at least a lot of words. We'll just have to do the best we can with it.

We're at 386.479 billion. And now this bill gets almost impossible to slog through, but go on we must.

Next: Chapter Fourteen – Give Me Some (Tax) Credit

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Twelve - The Road Home

2009-02-08T23:21:00.000-08:00

We come to another interesting section of this bill, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Sexy. First up, the airports are going to get 3 billion dollars for discretionary projects. Most people would settle for improvements in luggage handling, but they're going to use discretion. Like when they take away your shampoo. You terrorist. You're probably better off driving, especially now with 30 billion dollars going into highway infrastructure. Oh, all of those new shiny roads! Except that it takes a long time to build roads. A really long time. But the old roads still are pretty damned good. People from the U.S. sometimes complain about their roads to me. I tell them to drive in Mexico for a few days. And the roads here are way better than they used to be. You have no idea.

If you can't wait for the new roads to be built, just take a train! The railroads are getting 300 million to maintenance their tracks and stuff, and Amtrak gets another 800 million for maintenance, but know that "none of the funds under this heading shall be used to subsidize the operating losses of Amtrak". Of course not. Now Amtrak can take the money they had set aside to repair the tracks and use them to offset their operating losses.

The Federal Transit Administration is slated to receive 6 billion, most of which has to go toward urban transit. That would be busses and subways and so on. Nothing specific. Then they get another 2 billion for use in "fixed guideway" systems, which are ostensibly certain subway systems, or other forms of fixed transit. And then they get another 1 billion for the same thing, except that it has to go into projects already under construction (that should narrow things down, so you'll know which lobbyist to thank for that one).

Public Housing gets a 5 billion dollar boost, providing cheap rent to poor people, while 2.5 billion is going into energy retrofit projects for people already in Section 8 housing. This is because the elderly and the disabled who aren't poor enough to qualify for the cheap electricity back in a previous chapter, but are still somehow able to qualify for section 8 housing, should get an energy retrofit. The bill stipulates "that the Secretary may set aside funds made available under this heading for an efficiency incentive payable upon satisfactory completion of energy retrofit investments, and may provide additional incentives if such investments resulted in extraordinary job creation for low-income and very low income persons". In other words, if you're a poor electrician, you're in luck. And you're hired.

Native American housing gets another 500 million because those damned casinos are so stingy, while the Community Development Fund receives 1 billion ostensibly as HUD money in order to force poor people to own homes. They get 4.19 billion more to get poor people into already abandoned and/or foreclosed homes, because nobody likes a vacant house. Then, because HUD is so damned good at it, 1.5 billion goes toward the Home Investment Partnership Program, which encourages poor people to rent. After 10 million for the "Self-Help and Assisted Homeownership Opportunity Program" (please invent an acronym for this soon, it's long), we get to the Homeless Assistance Grants, which requires 1.5 billion. Usually the homeless are happy with a couple of dollars at a time, and now the bastards are getting greedy.

The "Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control" (Are you shitting me? This is a real office?) needs 100 million because apparently some people haven't figured out that lead is bad. BAD! The rest of this section is all about transparency. There will be reports issued. And there will be reports on the reports. And someone will have to report on the state of the report about the reports. It's the government, stupid.

Well, that was fun. And nice and pricey. We're up to 291.804 billion, but now the homeless are rich!

Next: Chapter Thirteen – Stop Shaking

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Eleven - Affairs With Foreigners

2009-02-08T21:29:00.001-08:00

There are actually a couple of items concerning the State Department in here. Rather than to hide them somewhere else, they gave it its own section. Maybe they figured that no one would read this far.

For "Capitol Investment Fund": 276 million. This is for "the design and construction of a backup information management facility in the United States to support mission-critical operations and projects", and "to carry out the Department of State's responsibilities under the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative". This is a little bit scary. A country that can't manage to secure its own border is going to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to keep foreign hackers off of the internet. Mmmmkay.

And the International Boundary and Water Commission gets 224 million "for an additional amount for Construction for the water quantity program to meet immediate repair and rehabilitation requirements". Water quantity? Dude, the problem is quality, not quantity.

This section was short and easy, I wish that the rest of the bill was like this. Oh, and we're at 232.404 billion.

Next: Chapter Twelve – The Road Home

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Ten - Let's Build A Fort!

2009-02-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

I thought that we were finished with the Armed Forces part of this, but apparently not. Military Construction and Veteran's Affairs begins with 920 million in funds for housing construction, troop training, and child development centers. The Army's involvement in child development is baffling to me, maybe it's another recruiting tool. The Navy and Marine Corps get a combined 350 million for the same purposes, while the Air Force receives 280 million. The combined Military gets 3.75 billion in order to construct hospitals and ambulatory centers in the United States. This is because they have guns and bombs and stuff. It won't be very effective if you're, say, deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, but if you stay home then pretty soon you'll have a shiny new ambulance to take you to a shiny new hospital if your weapon misfires. The combined National Guard and other Reserve units get a combined 400 million to build stuff with.

The Department of Defense Base Closure Account gets 300 million, because chains and padlocks cost money. The Veterans Health Administration receives 950 million for non-recurring maintenance (another confusing term and seemingly an oxymoron, non-recurring maintenance ), and the National Cemetery Administration will receive 50 million for monument and memorial repair.

Not a very active section, but we're totaling 231.904 billion now.

Next: Chapter Eleven – Affairs With Foreigners

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Nine - Get A Job

2009-02-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, this must be where the jobs are, in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education portion of this bill. Plus, there is a lot of money being distributed here. Starting with labor, Training and Employment Services gets 4 billion, to train unemployed people how to do those jobs that have all become available. You know, the government jobs. For the Community Service Employment for Older Americans: 120 million, because old people apparently don't matter as much. The Feds will give State Unemployment Insurance 500 million, with half go to pay claims and half go for reemployment programs. Reemployment is what happens when you lose a job that you like because the economy sucks and then start working for the government. The Labor Departmental Management people need 80 million because now they have to hire more unemployed people to train unemployed people to become reemployed, and the Office of Job Corps gets 300 million for no apparent reason.

In the area of Health, Health Resources and Services gets 2.188 billion half of which is for construction, and the other half for training and stuff. The Center for Disease Control: 462 million, I assume for controlling diseases, while The National Center for Research Resources wins 1.5 billion because you can never have too much research. Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of Health and Human Services gets 1.5 billion and can give it to Centers of the National Institutes of Health and to the Common Fund for whatever, except that it can't be used to build anything. On the other hand, Health buildings and facilities receive 500 million for that purpose. Healthcare research and quality nab 1.1 million. We need quality research.

Human Services must be where the jobs are, with Low-income home energy assistance getting 1 billion because poor people need electricity, too. Child care assistance for low-income families comes to 2 billion. and another child care service under the Children and Family Services programs gets 3.2 billion, shared about equally by the programs Head Start, Early Head Start, and Community Services Block Grant Act. The head start programs already gets around 7 billion a year in funding. The Community Services Block Grant Act gets around a billion. They need more, people already with six children are having octuplets now! Aging Services programs need only 200 million because apparently old people have a lot of trouble with the aging thing, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology gets 2 billion to do pretty much whatever they want to. Public Health Services receives 900 million, almost half for vaccinations and almost half for construction, and the Prevention and Wellness fund gets 3.15 billion because healthy people apparently need it. Also, "there is hereby established a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research". I have no idea what that is.

In the schooling stuff, we have Education For The Disadvantaged that gets 13 billion, although disadvantaged means poor not incapable. For Impact Aid: 100 million. This is the "No Child Left Behind" thing. For School Improvement, 1.066 billion, and for Innovation and Improvement 225 million, because innovations should be less costly than simple improvement. Special Education gets 13.6 billion, which makes little sense since Vocational Rehabilitation only gets 700 million. I mean, it's supposed to be about jobs. Student Aid receives 16.126 billion, because apparently all of you students out there have already paid off your loans and now they want to loan more. Student Aid Administration needs 50 million because someone has to administrate this. Higher Education gets 100 million because it isn't as important as lower education, apparently, while the Institute of Educated Sciences needs 250 million. Dude. It's an Institute. Students are tired of those trailers, so School Modernization, Renovation, and Repair receives 14 billion, while Higher Education, Modernization, and Repair gets 6 billion and a large and wordy number of pages instructing that construction should be green and that steel must be from the U.S. follow. Oh, and Increases in Mandatory Pell Grants: 1.474 billion Must. Have. More. Pell.

Other items that didn't seem to belong anywhere else include AmeriCorps Grants at 160 million, the National Service Trust with 40 million, and SSI Administrative expenses 900 million (because it takes a lot of administration to mail those checks).

We're making headway now, at 224.904 billion dollars, and our failing schools and health care systems will be made whole again. Not a lot of jobs, unless you're a government employee type of person, or a nurse, teacher, or student. But it sure looks shiny, whatever it is.

Next: Chapter Ten – Let's Build A Fort!

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Eight - The Good Earth

2009-02-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

It's very important to protect our interior and our environment, and this portion of the bill addresses that issue. First, the Bureau of Land Management: 325 million for construction, "priority road, bridge, and trail repair". Priority, as in, shouldn't that have been taken care of with the funding already given? There must be a lot of trails in bad shape. And the Fish and Wildlife Service gets 300 million for construction, "priority road, bridge, and trail repair". Because fishes need bridges, damn it. And wildlife needs roads, in order to drive their battery-operated vehicles. And there we go with that priority thing again. Hurry up! The fish and wildlife, which now have high-speed internet access, need to get home and check their email.

The National Park Service gets 1.7 billion for construction, because all of that annoying wilderness needs some big buildings and shit. Oh, and National Mall in Washington receives 200 million for repair because it's a lot easier to use tax money than to charge a mere five dollar admission fee to attend the shiny new President's inauguration. The Centennial Challenge, which is already slated to haul in 3 billion over the next ten years, gets an additional 100 million, limited to matching donated funds, because its goal is to make America realize the potential of the National Park System. Got it. I now realize that the NPS needed 3.1 billion in order to have potential.

The Geological Survey gets 200 million for equipment, because rocks are important, too. The Bureau of Indian Affairs receives 500 million for construction of schools, jails, and houses, because the casinos, even though people work there for free, are far too poor to provide such an infrastructure. And the Hazardous Substance Superfund of 800 million is absolutely necessary, because how else are hazardous materials going to get funding? The "Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Program" has to have 200 million because Mr. And Mrs. Underground Storage Tank lost their children's inheritance when the stock market tanked (pardon the pun). A trust fund for the young Tanks is just the thing needed.

State and Tribal Assistance Grants come to 8.4 billion where the majority of the money "shall be for capitalization grants for the Clean Water State Revolving Funds". Just so everyone knows, these are already funded at about 5 billion dollars annually. This is what water treatment costs in the U.S. But more is needed. And don't think for a minute that any of this funding goes anywhere else. Because it doesn't. That we know of. I think.

Forest Service: 650 million for construction, because it costs a lot to saw down those damned trees and build stuff that they can actually use. Like internet cafes for all of the wireless high speed computers, and roads for the battery operated cars. Related to that is Wildland Fire Management at 850 million, because sometimes we have to burn stuff. Again, because of the inability for the poor and struggling casinos to make a profit, Indian Health Facilities gets 550 million.

The Smithsonian gets 150 million for maintenance projects because charging a small entrance fee to offset such costs would be downright capitalistic. And last, and apparently least, the National Endowments for the Arts receives 50 million, and the tradition of funding only matching donated funds is not required.

According to my abacus the total so far is 132.412 billion. This bill had better hurry up and start spending some real money, and quick.

Next: Chapter Nine – Get A Job

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Seven - The Gestapo

2009-02-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

If the other guy was still in charge, I bet that a lot more of this bill would be devoted to funding the Homeland Security people, but the new guy seems to want to run a leaner Gestapo. Starting with the Sea Ports of Entry, 100 million for "non-intrusive detection technology" (don't they still call those things x-ray machines?). To repair and construct inspection facilities at land ports of entry, 150 million, but it doesn't specify if this includes rubber gloves for those infrequent yet memorable body cavity searches. Aviation Security gets a cool 500 million for explosives detection systems, and the Coast guard gets 150 million for alteration or removal of obstructive bridges. Of course, that last portion of funding could be eliminated by simply flying any aircraft found to have explosives from the new Aviation Security detection system into the bridge that's doing the obstructing. Problem solved.

Emergency Food and Shelter gets 200 million to feed and house the homeless and illegal immigrants. Speaking of illegal immigrants, there is section of this bill that buys section 401b (which directly affects sections 402 and 403) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 five more years of enforcing the rules on the books about verifying proper identification when employing people (and yes, I went to the trouble to research this because I am thorough). Because there is nothing worse than an irresponsible illegal immigrant. This must be why we need the shelters.

The remaining few pages of this portion of the bill reminds the Gestapo that it has to keep spending the money allotted from the other existing bills that are now law.

That was a lot of work for very little return, but we're at 117.437 billion dollars and we've solved the homeless crisis.

Next: Chapter Eight – The Good Earth

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Six - Show Me The Money

2009-02-08T12:52:00.001-08:00

We come to a wordy section of the bill, all about Financial Services and General Government, that starts out simple enough by giving some love to the Federal Buildings Fund: 7.7 billion, of which one billion must go toward construction, repair, and alteration of border facilities. I can tell you first hand, that while I'm waiting an hour or two to be interrogated by the United States representative whenever I cross the border, my main concern is how much more beautiful the facilities should be. Same thing with the Internal Revenue Service, I mean, if I'm going to have to get a big stick rammed up my ass and lose lots of money to the government that I could have been using to stimulate the economy, the least that they can do is to remodel the building for me.

And it's about time that the government got some Electric Cars: 600 million. Especially now that they're subsidizing the battery-makers, because it would be a damned shame to have batteries for electric cars and no electric cars to put them in.

Then the bill starts to get boring, wordy, and downright confusing. The best that I can make out is that the government will continue to guarantee small business loans in existing legislation, but with some increases, percentage-wise. Unfortunately, it's impossible to calculate how much more money is going to be spent. I have no choice but to trust the Small Business Administration on this one. Oh, and if you're an illegal alien, you can’t have any money. Except for Welfare, of course.

There is one place that stipulates loans to small businesses can't exceed a total of: 3 billion, so it is entirely possible that I'm merely skeptical of that limit by all of the pages of SBA wordiness. Also know that you're limited to 10 million dollars. And we can't forget the administrative cost of loaning 3 billion dollars to small businesses, which is: 426 million.

We're only up to 116.337 billion so far. Probably. Hopefully. And we have electric cars!

Next: Chapter Seven – The Gestapo

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Five - Take The Power Back

2009-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt, no debt created by government is complete without energy and water. This is because energy companies never seem to turn a good enough profit.

It starts with funding for construction by the Army Corps of Engineers: 2 billion. Well, construction, except "that funds provided in this paragraph may only be used for programs, projects or activities previously funded". In other words, remember that money you got in order to build something? Well here's some more. Keep building it. Just hurry up. And that Mississippi River project: 250 million, same goes for that.

And the Army Corps of Engineers also gets for Operation and Maintenance: 2.2 billion, as long as they don't build anything new. Just operate and maintain, and do it with a Regulatory Program: 25 million. It doesn't say what to regulate. Just regulate something. Operate, maintain, and regulate.

Water Reclamation: 500 million, but there's a catch – it has to be able to pay for itself within 25 years. This shouldn't be a problem, however, because by then, adjusting for the future value of the dollar, it's about what the average consumer will pay for water every month.

Renewable Energy: 18.5 billion. The money is divided up, most of it goes toward either batteries (I had no idea that batteries were renewable), or the Weatherization Assistance Program, which will make people in the insulation and caulking industries happy. I was hoping for windmills and solar panels. Maybe even some hydrogen. Luckily, I can press my investments in Home Depot and The Energizer Bunny. And for Electricity Delivery: 4.5 billion. Because there just aren't enough wires.

Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program: 1 billion. What's that you say? Batteries dead in your flashlight? Out of cash? Worry no more! I have no idea how this works, the bill certainly doesn't explain it, but if my electricity delivery person fails to show up it's nice to know that I can borrow some batteries.

Institutional Loan Guarantee Program: 500 million and Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program: 8 billion. This isn't explained in the bill. My guess is that someone who is innovative with their technology can step right up and get a loan. But only innovative people who would really need it. Someone like Bill Gates, for example.

Fossil Energy: 2.4 billion. Because we need to burn more carbon. And just when I thought that we already covered it, apparently there needs to be more Science: 2 billion. This is for the "America Competes Act", which sends money to the National Science Foundation, among other things. And for when the burning carbon or dropped test tubes make a mess, there is money for Environmental Cleanup: 500 million.

In case the Power Companies need money, they can have some. Western Area Power Administration: 3.2 billion, ostensibly a loan, forgivable, and Bonneville Power Administration: 3.2 billion, ostensibly a loan, can remain outstanding. All of the other Power Companies can go screw themselves. Or get better lobbyists.

The total so far comes to 104.611 billion, but the good news is that we're about one quarter way through the bill already.

Next: Chapter Six – Show Me The Money

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Four - Defense Wins Championships

2009-02-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

It seems only fair that if the government is going to print up and spend 825 billion dollars, that some of it should go toward defense, single most important aspect of Federal government. Heck, some communist countries sink most of their GDP into it, and rely on aid from other countries to take care of everything else. You know what they say, defense wins championships.

Facility Infrastructure: 4.5 billion. According to the bill, most of the money goes to the Army and the Air Force. The idea is to "improve, repair, and modernize the Department of Defense", and to "restore and modernize Army barracks". Pentagon? Hah! What we need is an Octagon! With a bat-cave and a fleet of bat-mobiles. And those antiquated army barracks must go, they're behind the times. Replace the coffee makers with espresso machines, boom-boxes with iPods, and cots with futons. No remodel would be complete without bay windows and walk-in closets.

Also included is Energy Research: 350 million. This goes toward development, test, and evaluation. Blindly, boldly, and without direction. Just like most military projects.

We're at 55.611 billion, not including Bruce Wayne's consulting fee.

Next: Chapter Five – Take The Power Back

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Three - Traded, Jaded, And Sedated

2009-02-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

Continuing on in our tour of the Stimulus Plan, the next section is Commerce, Justice, and Science. It's a baffling combination. Why they combined three seemingly unrelated areas is beyond me. But again, what do I know? I'm just some dumb-ass with a calculator.

It begins with administrative funding for Economic Development: 250 million dollars. Okay, so apparently the U.S. has an economy, and apparently, it is insufficiently developed. We need administration! The good news is that apparently it takes only half as much to administrate economic development as it does to administrate & distribute food and nutrition programs. Next comes Periodic Censuses and Programs: 1 billion. It's important to count people, and we need more statistics because statistics give the government reasons to create money and save the economy, as insufficiently developed as the economy apparently is. And this provides jobs! Clipboard, pencil, and go! I bet that clipboard and pencil manufacturers are loving this.

Administrative costs for National Telecommunications and Information: 350 million dollars. Apparently, broadband needs to be administrated. I guess I'm lucky. I have broadband here in Mexico, and my administrative costs are, um, nothing. Must be the exchange rate. Wireless and Broadband Deployment: 2.8 billion. I love the word deployment. I picture a massive number of geeky former cable-installers quickly marching throughout the countryside with wireless, high-speed modems, fighting the good fight in the war against dial-up. This is directly related to the Digital to Analog Converter Box Program: 650 million. Because nothing beats taking shiny new digital technology and converting it into good old analog. Well, except that giving partial credit toward purchasing televisions that receive a digital signal would create a lot of new jobs. Wait...

Moving along, we come to Scientific and Technical Research: 100 million (70 million for necessary expenses of the Technology Innovation Program and "$30,000,000 shall be available for the necessary expenses of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership.") Now, before you get all bent out of shape over the 30 million going to the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, otherwise known as MEP, it's a non-profit organization. That doesn’t mean it's free, though. It's like church. You attend, and they pass the plate. Think of it as your government giving a little bit to the church, and you'll feel better. Wait...

Construction of Research facilities: 300 million. I have no idea what's going to be constructed, but for 300 million, I bet that it's awesome. And to NOAA Operations, Research, and Facilities: 1 billion. NOAA is already outstanding, I hit their web site daily. I can see storm cells approaching a full hour before they actually hit. With that extra billion, I reckon I'll be able to count the raindrops on my roof. I'll need that information if the census takers come around.

State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance: 3 billion. With State and local governments forced to spend money on lobbyists to get their fair share of funding in this bill, it's nice to see the Federal government reciprocate by providing funding in order to re-hire the cops that had to be laid off. And for Community Oriented Policing Services: 1 billion. Hell, the acronym alone is worth a billion. COPS! And I can't stress enough the accounts I've read where the police just weren't sufficiently community oriented. "Robber who shot store clerk is shot by police!" It's such a shame. If only the police would have been more community oriented.

NASA: 600 million. I'm happy to see government of the United States of America willing to fund a one-way trip back to the moon. Maybe those soon to be rich folk in the urban sector will pitch in and we can get the rocket ship back home. Also, for reasons beyond my simple mind's ability to contemplate, 50 million of NASA's money goes toward already guaranteed disaster relief from a previous disaster. Lastly, the National Science Foundation: 3 billion. This goes toward research and related activities. Related activities are, um, you know, related activities. It isn't important, I guess, to define related activities, it's only 3 billion dollars.

My calculator says 50.761 billion so far, but at least we won't be going back to the moon anytime soon, so we're in good shape.

Next: Chapter Four – Defense Wins Championships.

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter Two - The Care And Feeding Of Farmers And Ranchers

2009-02-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

The second section in the Stimulus Package concerns Agriculture, Nutrition, and Rural Development. Agriculture concerns food, food is nutritious, and farms and ranches are rural. I am sort of confused on the concept of rural development though, as I always considered rural as undeveloped on purpose. I mean, once you develop rural you normally get something urban. But what do I know? I'm no Jedi Knight.

First on the list is buildings and facilities - rental payments, construction, repair, and maintenance: 251 million. I never knew that the Department of Agriculture even had many buildings, much less that they paid rent or were forced to, um, count seeds in substandard structures. This makes me feel uninformed. Also, I had no idea that rental payments created jobs. They probably taught that in Economics 101 in college, maybe I was out that day.

For the Farm Service Agency, additional salaries and expenses for maintaining and modernizing a technology system: 245 million. This makes sense, because the U.S. is so far behind the Russians in farming technology I was thinking that they'd never catch up. At least now they are trying. And watershed and flood prevention: 350 million (but not more than 50 million to one State). It's important to treat states equally, otherwise Rhode Island wouldn't get their fair share, and Louisiana might get too much. And watershed rehabilitation: 50 million. Because when watersheds become felons, they need to be locked up and rehabilitated. Once watersheds are rehabilitated and set free to become a part of rural society, studies prove that only in rare cases does such rehabilitation fail. Statistically, very few rehabilitated watersheds become repeat offenders.

The rural community advancement program: 5.8 billion, ostensibly as loans. Rural communities are so behind the times. Modernize those facilities, you farmers and ranchers! We need urbanization, dammit! And funding for administrative costs of ostensibly loaning 5.8 billion dollars: 1.8 billion. Because loaning money costs lots of money! And don't forget about the Rural Housing Insurance Fund: 22.1 billion, ostensibly as loans. Because rural housing can't be insured enough. And while the bill doesn't exactly say what rural housing insurance is, it's important. It must be, or it wouldn't require 22.1 billion dollars. The funding for administrative costs of ostensibly loaning 22.1 billion dollars: 501 million dollars. This is because, the reciprocal of the cost of loaning 5.8 billion dollars being 1.8 billion dollars is that the cost of loaning 22.1 billion dollars is 501 million dollars. You know, less is more, and more is less. It's the new math.

Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Broadband Program: 2.8 billion. This is so that farmers and ranchers have the same access and ability to download high-speed and wireless pornography as the city-slickers do. This is important because farmers and ranchers have spent less time working lately since dial-up is so slow. It isn't fair that someone in New York City can enjoy both corn from Nebraska and high-speed broadband pornography, when farmers in Superior, Nebraska have to settle for dial-up.

Finally, the administrative & distribution costs for Food and Nutrition Programs: 500 million. There are so many families that don't realize that they qualify for food stamps and free school lunches, it's about time that the government spent some money to get the word out.

Now we're up to 36.711 billion. But hey, Yoda's ability to update his MySpace page from the planet Dagobah sort of makes it worth it, don't you think?

Next: Chapter Three – Traded, Jaded, and Sedated.

The Stimulus Miracle: Chapter One - Birth Of A Jedi Knight

2009-02-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

There is a bill, which has passed through Congress and seems destined to pass the Senate, referred to as "The Stimulus Package". Economies of any country, even the United States of America, rise and fall and rise and fall, and so on, regularly and unpredictably, because this is the nature of economy in a free market. Or, at least, it was. Apparently, government has the ability to fix this random behavior. I remain skeptical, but what do I know? I certainly don't enjoy seeing businesses fail and people out of work.

The expected number of jobs to be created by this bill is 3,675,000 new positions. For the heck of it, I pulled out a calculator. Holy crap! I'll never doubt the government again. Here I was thinking that these new jobs would amount to nothing but low-paying labor positions, but much to my surprise, each new job will pay out $224,489.80 dollars which is almost six years worth of salary for the average worker. This is assuming that all of the money actually goes towards its goal. But it will, I'm sure. At least, I'd like for that to happen.

I decided to take a closer look at this bill, because it isn't every day that a government creates 825 billion dollars out of thin air.

"A BILL - Making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, this Act may be cited as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009".

Bills always start off sounding so promising. But the meat of the bill is what I am after, in other words, where is all of this 825 billion dollars going to go? Starting with General provisions:

Offices of Inspector General & Government Accountability Office for oversight and audit of programs, grants, and projects funded under this Act: 2.3 billion dollars.

Administrative costs are understandable. Especially when one considers that a committee has to ensure that the following provisions are followed:

"None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool."

Apparently, none of these endeavors provide jobs. And are evil. Or wet. And golf, well, we all know about golf, and even if the television ratings of golf tournaments are far higher than those of, say, soccer matches in the U.S., golf is just too boring. And don't get me started on swimming pools, those snarky lifeguards and smug pool maintenance people piss me off. And everyone knows that employees of zoos, aquariums, and gambling establishments work for free, for the love of their hobby. So far, I'm down.

Another provision that must be closely watched for compliance is that construction projects funded by the bill must use steel produced in the U.S. This is important because of the ever-thriving steel industry in the U.S. See, the lying bastards that told you that the steel industry in the U.S. died because they couldn't compete with the Japanese and then the Chinese were wrong. It's a conspiracy. Honest.

So, the President appoints a seven-member board to conduct oversight of spending. After all, you can't trust just anyone with 825 billion dollars, freshly printed cash money, these people must be hand selected. The board members are chosen from the same departments where the President just nominated Secretaries. This is a lucky coincidence. The first thing that they will do is to create a web site so that you can see how wonderful everything is going. And it will be wonderful, you just wait and see.

Next, the President selects an independent advisory panel consisting of five people. I know what you're thinking: "But if the President selects an independent advisory council, isn't that conflicting what with the President selecting the board?" No. Congress and the Senate have come to learn that President Obama is actually Obi-Wan Kenobi. The force is with him, and only good flows through his light-saber.

The board gets $ 14,000,000.00 because Obi-Wan says so.

So far, we've spent 2.314 billion dollars. But we do have a Jedi Knight. I think it's worth it.

Next: Chapter Two – The Care and Feeding of Farmers and Ranchers

Floating

2009-02-02T23:45:00.001-08:00

"This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are." ~ Plato

* * * *
They always let themselves in, because they are Rocio’s parents, and because this is Mexico and people really do marry the entire family here. I reckon that I am married to a lot of people, then, and many have keys to my house. My home is many things, it is a pit stop and a sports lounge and a restaurant and a public bathroom, and all of these things are conveniently situated near the main boulevard. There are currently several huge sacks, each filled with several hundred crushed aluminum cans sitting in my living room.

"Guess what happened?" she asked in Spanish as I emerged from my office this morning before nine o’clock, robed and disheveled and still choking down my first cup of coffee.

I didn’t want to guess. Maybe they were going to turn my living room into a recycling center. Perhaps Mexico was no longer trading in pesos and the crushed aluminum can is the new currency. Possibly, owing to the great bean bag chair craze back some forty years ago, they were bringing us the latest trend in home furnishing, the crushed aluminum can chair.

"We went down to turn these in and the recycling center is closed!" She laughed.

This time I had an answer.

"Yes, well, this is a holiday."

"Which holiday?" she asked.

Some Mexican holidays, much like many on the other side of the big metal fence, are now considered to be floating holidays. The fifth day of February is Constitution Day in Mexico, but now it floats to the nearest Monday. Today is also Ground Hog Day. Today is also my late grandmother’s birthday. Today is also Día de la Candelaria, an obscure religious holiday in Mexico celebrating the blessing of seeds and candles. Some days on the calendar are busier than others.

* * * *
Yesterday, Rocio’s parents came down the hill and watched the super bowl, the spectacle that defines American Football, even though neither understands the game. Soccer is infinitely more simple. Kick a ball into the net. American football is complicated, a game of controlled war without ammunition. They seemed to enjoy themselves anyway. Maybe they liked the halftime show.

Anna is a New England Patriots fan. I would like to tell you exactly how this happened, but I can’t. It seems that she just woke up one day and made a decision. She owns a New England Patriots cap and wears it whenever they show a game on television. One time I tried to give her an historical perspective on her favorite team. I lost her at Jim Plunkett, back in the days when they were called the Boston Patriots. This is what happens.

Everybody ate my first attempt at cooking mole verde, and even though I screwed it up, it was received with rave reviews. One ingredient, a very important one that I completely omitted by mistake, was cilantro. I have a large bag full of cilantro and I completely forgot it! Another ingredient that I knew nothing about, but apparently essential in all green mole, is pumpkin seeds. How would I have known?

I am still learning their food and I am still learning their holidays, but I am gaining on both.

* * * *
The large sacks of Aluminum cans remain static in my living room tonight. I presume that they’ll be gone at some point tomorrow. Before they left this morning, Rocio’s parents again congratulated me on the mole verde, which I knew wasn’t quite right, and so I did the best that I could to be humble in accepting their compliments. When Rocio came home, I mentioned this to her, that her parents have had many of my dishes here that are far more complex, everything from caldo de siete mares to paella. Why would they go so far out of their way to compliment my first attempt at mole when I know that it wasn’t quite right?

"You have to understand," Rocio said. "Mole isn’t just a dish, it is the defining Mexican dish, and it is complex and unique. Family recipes are guarded and passed down from generation to generation. On your first attempt, you surpassed anything that I could ever do, and you’re not even Mexican! We knew what ingredients that you left out because we know. And we also know what you put in. No one told you how to do this, and you did it, the mole was really good."

"Next time, roasted pumpkin seeds and cilantro," I smiled.

"And don’t precook the onions, they need to be raw," she added.

Unless I’ve forgotten some holiday, I’ll be going to the other side of the big metal fence tomorrow. Rechargeable batteries, kidney beans, and cayenne pepper are on my grocery list for items I have a heck of a time procuring in Mexico. But I’ll be trying mole verde again very soon. And I’ll keep my eye on the Mexican calendar, just in case some floating holiday is looming to confuse Rocio’s parents.

Those big sacks of aluminum cans make for very uncomfortable chairs.

Rapid And Sudden Collapse

2009-01-29T12:03:00.000-08:00

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

~ "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

* * * *
People come and go like clearance sales and lottery tickets, much as all events that are sometimes ordinary but fill some empty spaces for memory in our thick and stubborn skulls. We are certainly here temporarily, and while the important components of life serve as donkeys that we use to haul around such memories, it is these donkeys that we most neglect to address. All of the times I’ve crossed the border into the United States of America, many of which were quite eventful, will only serve mostly as wasted moments and dubious opportunities at storytelling - of occasionally angry tales involving inhumane treatment of tourists and expatriates, and several inadequate and poorly trained gatekeepers. I have crossed that border thousands of times along with thousands of other people who likely have their own bad memories.

The border is the donkey and my many crossings are packed onto it, its legs buckling under the weight, and it stands obstinate and unfriendly in its burden.

Richard Millhouse Nixon opened the current National Border facilities at San Ysidro, California, by deciding to have every vehicle entering the United States of America thoroughly searched for a period of twenty-four hours. President Nixon was somehow convinced that people were smuggling contraband into the United States of America about as easy as rivers carry water. They didn’t find anything of note back then, which only proved that Nixon was a few decades too early. Many people have bad timing; this is not a trait limited to those who hold office.

Timing was not an issue with me on Monday, nor did I have anything with which to burden the beast. For the first time in many, many years, I timed it perfectly - a border crossing in which I had absolutely no wait. I walked up to the gatekeeper and actually had to fish identification out of my pocket at her counter, when usually I have a good long time to have everything ready to present by the time I get up there. I wanted to do a dance except that it was ten o’clock in the morning and I had a tequila hangover, two circumstances that discourage spontaneous celebration of any kind.

* * * *
It wasn’t but a week ago that I awoke to the radio and to a voice that informed listeners that the Joint Forces Command of United States of America placed Mexico at risk of rapid and sudden collapse, on equal footing with Pakistan. After I stopped laughing, I began to wonder then, if they are so incorrect about Mexico, how accurate could they possibly be about Pakistan? The voice on the radio said the worry about Mexico was from fears that violence by the cartels and how this was something that the Mexican government was having a difficult time controlling. I shrugged and got dressed and came downstairs to make some coffee and read.

Apparently, the United States of America has its own issues controlling violence up there, according to the news reports I read every day.

Then I read about the four hundred million dollars in aid that the United States of America is gifting Mexico, in order to fight the war on drugs. This aid is not being given in the form cash money, but in equipment. The United States of America also estimates that the value of the drugs that are smuggled into their country each year from Mexico are valued at somewhere between ten and twenty billion dollars. I didn’t need to break out a calculator in order to realize that someone up there failed mathematics.

* * * *
I did my business over there quickly and efficiently and made my way back over to this side of the big metal fence. I looked for any sign of impending rapid and sudden collapse and I found nothing out of the ordinary. The tourists are still mostly missing, the Mexicans in Centro still do what they can do to survive in spite of it, and everyone else here seems quite fine. I met up with Scott and we had a few beers and I asked him what he thought of the possibility of a rapid and sudden collapse here. Scott laughed.

"I wouldn’t know," he said. "Everything looks normal to me."

I bought some tacos and took them home, watching out the window of the taxi, looking for signs of civil unrest. People here were just being people. I walked in the door and Anna was watching television. My tacos tasted every bit as wonderful as they always have. From my office, I could even hear my neighbor Ted over the hum of my radio, in his backyard and tinkering with metallic objects getting ready to fire up the grinder. Everything was just fine.

I hope that everything is just fine in Pakistan, too.

Bringing Home The Bacon

2009-01-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

I told Anna to grab a jacket - unsure of what was going on outside, the suddenly unpredictable climate here produced rain yesterday along with some sunshine. I needed to go to the supermarket, and Anna is great insurance in cases like forgetting something important the moment after I walk out of the store – if I am alone, I have to make two trips, but with Anna, I can send her in while I wait.

"Do we have to take the cart?" Anna asked, obviously hoping for a quick trip

"We’re taking the cart."

How embarrassing for her! To be seen with her father toting along one of those carts that the old ladies use to carry their goods home must be a traumatic event for a teenager. To keep Anna’s mind off of it, I handed her my camera, and told her to shoot whatever she wanted to.

"Except for me pulling the cart," I added. "That’s off-limits."

The other thing I reminded her was that taking pictures inside of a business in Mexico is technically not legal unless you first get permission. If I had been the one with the camera there would have been trouble, or at least they would have wanted money for the privilege of photographing their shiny offerings. A fifteen-year old native, however, innocently practicing her hobby, would either be overlooked or else warned to stop.

Off to the market we went.

Calimax Fiesta. Calimax is a large chain of grocery stores in Mexico. At one time they nicknamed each store, and one could actually navigate Tijuana using the different stores as road markers.

* * * *
Even fifteen years ago, many supermarkets here were not well stocked nor regularly maintained. My initial perceptions, tainted by the clean markets with an abundance of inventory in the United States of America, were not based so much from what I was experiencing but more from what I had experienced. I saw the stores as dirty and inadequate. And they were, except that Tijuana has changed a lot in seventeen years. But back then there was no way to quickly build more supermarkets.

I love these chiles. From left to right, serrano, güerito, jalapeño, california, pasillo, and morón (or bell).

Chile California, also known as Green Chile, is always sold fresh here, it is difficult to find it canned.

Imagine San Diego with no more than perhaps thirty supermarkets. Most of these supermarkets would become so overcrowded with customers that no matter how much labor it took in order to maintain the stores, it would quickly turn into a somewhat hopeless endeavor. And supermarkets operate on the principle of selling in large volume in order to lower their profit margin and be competitive, which precludes spending money unless it’s necessary. The solution, or at least the best solution, would be to build more stores.

Fresh strawberries. In January.

Cilantro, radishes, and green onions belong together, they are all garnishes for tacos here.

Tijuana was in a constant state of flux twenty years ago, acting as a leaky portal into the relatively stable economy on the other side of the big metal fence. The population grew at a rate where Tijuana’s infrastructure, already inadequate for the population that existed even twenty years prior, became so heavily burdened that every large storm was a disaster and systems designed to provide the population with basic necessities failed regularly. Mexico’s economy, for a wide variety of reasons – including an often-corrupt government and a lack of sound regulation in banking and finance – was in a constant state of crisis.

Building new stores was not an option for most of the supermarket chains. Who would finance them?

The scales weigh in kilos and the prices are in pesos. Other than that, and some of the produce and fruit sold, it isn’t all that different than anywhere else.

* * * *
There will always be differences in supermarkets when comparing Mexico to anywhere else, most of which are cultural. Anna was born and raised in Tijuana, and while she’s seen supermarkets in the United States of America, she has not experienced the changes that I have in presentation concerning the stores here. I didn’t pay much attention to what she was up to, but I did catch her taking pictures of the dairy section.

"Why are you shooting that?"

"Look at all of this milk!" she said.

"Honey, most places have milk."

"Yes, but dad, look at all the milk!"

I shut up after that and concentrated on shopping. Anna, when not shooting pictures or poking fun at some of my purchases or not advising me on the brand of toilet paper that mom prefers, took every opportunity to use any mirror that she ran across in order to assure that her hair was still perfect. I never realized what a priority this is for a teenaged girl until recently. I always thought that the supermarkets used mirrors in order to promote the perception of inventory depth, obviously a mistake on my part.

Produce. I sent Anna to get me a head of lettuce. I guess she wanted a souvenir.

Nuts!

There are items, and large sections of all supermarkets in Mexico that I find endearing. While the markets have begun to prepackage many meat and poultry products, the butcher counters here can’t be beat. And cheeses, I have never seen so much fresh cheese before, the variety is amazing. Twenty years ago, I never imagined that there was such a thing as a style of chorizo, but there are so many styles I couldn’t even begin to explain it all in a sentence or two. These are the most profound differences compared to the supermarkets that I grew up with.

The locals love their eggs, which are relatively inexpensive here.
Mexico’s supermarkets offer a vast selection of sugary goo. Don’t even begin to ask me, I have no idea what the attraction is.

* * * *
The supermarkets in Tijuana began to change during the approach to the twenty-first century, whether by coincidence or by the effects from several changes that occurred at the time. The big metal fence, once porous and relatively easy to traverse, became increasingly difficult to get through, around, or under, and Tijuana’s permanent population began to cement itself, and less migrants arrived for what once was simply a pit stop. Concurrently, the economy in Mexico began to stabilize, in large part due to the diligence and patience of the Zedillo administration. Banks and other financial institutions were scrutinized, and regulated, and financing became an option once again.

More types of picante and chile sauce exist than I ever imagined. Appropriately, lime presses hang nearby, because chile and lime go into everything here. Soup, shrimp, potato chips, and whatever.

Many supermarkets here have their own bakery inside. The breads are outstanding, although the locals seem to prefer pastries from the smaller bakeries.

It didn’t take but a few years into the twenty-first century before supermarkets started popping up everywhere in Tijuana. Most are now clean, well stocked, and not so impossibly crowded as they once were. Notable exceptions still exist in the more urban areas, where building more stores is not so much an option due to unavailability of land. While the peso is fluctuating and the World economy is volatile and affecting Mexico as much as anyone, so long as this squall can be ridden out, Tijuana’s supermarkets every bit as wonderful and often times better than anywhere I have ever shopped.

As much as these people love their beans, you would think that I could find a kidney bean somewhere in all of this. Not a chance.

And this is just some of the packaged cheeses. There is more in the other side of the case, and a long counter that sells fresh cheeses.

* * * *
The last stop in the supermarket was the tequila section, where a young lady kept trying to assist me with my selection. This was nice of her, even if it is her job. Both me and Anna kept attempting to politely hint to her that I was fine left alone to browse the massive inventory and choose my own poison, but it wasn’t until I put a bottle in my cart that she stopped trying to be helpful. We found a short line - any other Saturday in the afternoon in that same supermarket around the time that Anna was born and we would have been in line for checkout for at least on hour. These days, it is the easiest thing about grocery shopping here.

This is my counter is my nemesis. Here is where you purchase Chorizo, bacon, lunchmeat, and so on. The last time I was here, there were thirteen people behind the counter, I stood there for five minutes looking at them, until finally someone asked me if I wanted anything. I was then asked five times if I wanted some hamon de pavo (ham-flavored processed turkey). Just bacon (unpackaged, you can buy it in whatever quantity you need) and chorizo, thank you.

Check-out. Young boys and girls bag your groceries for a small tip.

Anna and me rolled our goods over to a counter near the exit where, upon entry, people are encouraged to check for storage anything that they happen to be bringing into the store. We were there for the cart, the embarrassing thing that I use when I don’t wish to carry forty pounds of groceries for a few blocks. We had to wait for an older man who came in to do some shopping, he was having the young lady behind the counter stash what he had brought in with him. Two stacks of aluminum cans, three very long and sharp and heavy steel rods (try bringing that into a supermarket in your country), and a minute later, we got our cart.

It’s nice to know that some things here will never change, no matter what the economy brings.

(Photos courtesy Anna M. L. de Dodd)