Good Weekend/Bad Weekend

Here’s a best of times/worst of times scenario for you: Not only did the trip to Porta Vallarta fall through, leaving me in Guadalajara instead (something about Sonya getting in a fight with whoever we were meant to stay with), but then I found out that half of the other students had already made plans to come out here as well, including Riverside Girl, awkward baggage and all. Irony is a funny thing, isn’t it?

I spent all of my time here with Paulina anyway, and since Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico I was able to avoid any run-ins with You Know Who. But I was nervous all the same, sure that it would happen like some bad romantic comedy that I couldn’t escape. I guess there are worse contrived genres to be stuck in, like Slasher Flick or whatever you call it when someone has to co-star with an animal, but it almost spoiled the weekend.



Luckily, I managed to have a blast with Paulina regardless. On Friday, she helped me track down the new Portishead album here (record shops in Morelia are the drizzling shits), and it’s pretty damn great. If you don’t know who they are, I won’t bore you too much, but I will say that their singer, Beth Gibbons, is easily my favorite female vocalist ever and her ability to sound both otherworldly and sexy hasn’t diminished with ten years out of the limelight. The music has gotten less cosmopolitan and a lot more psychedelic and paranoid, like a female take on Radiohead or TV On The Radio. I feel stoned just listening to this wonderful thing. Below is a clip for the first single, the appropriately-named “Machine Gun”:



Afterwards we met up with Paulina best friend Liz and a bunch of other people I can’t remember right now (one of them was named Sergio). We rolled out to a very chic bar that played lots of loud techno and served us fruity drinks with names like “Gummy” and “Diablo.” Somehow I’m more attracted to Paulina after finding out she only likes drinking beer. But her friends talked way too fast for me to even hope to understand, and Sergio seemed a little too comfortable touching my special lady while I sat there looking sheepish. When we left it wasn't soon enough for me.

We tried to head out to a party afterwards, but there were many parents there and we ended up horsing around in front of the house, with Liz driving Sergio’s car and – from what I can tell – causing its radiator to overheat. Needless to say, that kind of ended anymore plans for the night, and Paulina and I fell asleep during the long drive home.



Yesterday proved more fun: we went to see “Get Smart” (or, as it’s known here, “Espia Agente 86”), which had enough naturally-funny people in it (even a Bill Murray cameo) to be enjoyable despite a pretty lousy script. Plus, I’m starting to catch on to this “foreigners just don’t get Judd Aptow” thing, because most of the jokes in this movie drew crickets. Way cooler was the “VIP” theater we saw it in, where you watch in L-Z-Boy chairs and order from a menu (yes, there are waiters) that includes burgers, sushi, and a wide range of cocktails. I’m wondering why someone in the US hasn’t figured out a way to make this work.

Also, in another example of my notoriously weak gay-dar, Paulina helped me realize that Lorencito is definitely not playing for the same team as me. As if him only listening to disco and being part of the Madonna fan-club (serious) wasn’t enough to tip me off, I found out that “Naco”, which he uses liberally, is a really catty term that only girls use for people with no fashion sense. I had previously just assumed that his impeccable style was part of the “metro” trend catching on here (it hasn't), and I had dismissed his touchiness with his friends as part of the “friendly” Mexican culture I keep hearing about. This doesn’t change anything other than making me feel less bad that Lorenzo hasn’t invited me to go out with him and his friends more.



Anyway, today Paulina has to work and I’m being shipped back to Morelia, where many hours of compositions await me. But as far as expensive and completely unproductive weekends go, this one was, to quote Larry David: “pretty….pretty….pretty good.”

Tangled Up In Blue

I've gotten used to a lot of things here (I can even drink the tap water), but the yappy-ass dog pictured above is not one of them. Seriously, this poor dog is permanently marooned on the bleeding roof with nothing to do but bark at literally *anything* that passes by his house, be that a person, fellow dog, car, or just trash caught in the breeze. Can you tell what he's barking at in that picture? That's right, the answer is nothing.

I alternate between feeling pity for his boring existence and wanting to fly a 747 into his obnoxious face. Every night he gets into a righteous yapping-match with my host-family's own canine waste of space, whose name is Yago. As I write this, he is still barking at me for taking the following picture of him:



Between the two of them, the mosquitoes, and the petroleum delivery truck that drives around blasting its jingle at all hours of the morning, I haven't been getting much sleep. Yago lives below my window, which means that every time he senses my presence he barks for at least five minutes. I've contemplated poisoning him with the bug spray they gave me, but Lorencito loves the stupid thing, and I would probably get found out anyway.

Apparently Lorenzo has had Yago a long time, and once, when they were both very young, they saw a ghost. According to Lorenzo, he awoke to Yago barking and saw the silhouette of girl dressed like Christina Ricci in the Addam's Family Movie (his words, not mine). He remembers her vividly at the foot of his bed, giggling, as she reached towards him to pull him into Underworld before Yago scared her off. "Animals can see these things more than we can," he told me.

This story comes from perhaps the most rational, level-headed Mexican guy I've ever met, and it illustrates just how mystical their world-view is. Shayla and her boyfriend, Jaunito (pictured below) also told stories like this about encounters with the dead, and I don't mean to judge them at all. Far from it, I find their certainty in these concepts to be almost refreshing.



This weekend I'm headed to Porta Vierte with Paulina, which is perfect timing, because I desperately need to get out of Morelia for a bit. As always happens in these situations, us students are past the euphoric "getting to know each other, together" period of bonding. Petty rivalries have arisen, and we're now dividing into groups according to who-gets-along-with-who-gets-along-with-who. I rarely fare well during this period, since I'm so eager to befriend everybody that I don't fit anywhere once the battle lines are drawn.



To top all that off, I necked with a girl from Riverside over the weekend in a night of various drunken mistakes, and she's now giving me a thorough education in the art of the brush-off. She has a boyfriend, and I guess she thinks I want a relationship or something (she doesn't know about Paulina), so she has to be a bitch so I won't get the wrong idea. I'm dangerously close to another rant about American girls, so I'll stop.

Luckily, I've got a solid buddy in Angelo, who shares my love of 80's punk rock and the band life. I first referred to him as Shaggy Hippie Dude, but he got a haircut and he was never really a hippie, so I feel obligated to drop it.

The Lay of the Land

Much like there are Two Obama's, the city of Morelia seems to have a serious split-personality issue. On the one hand is the conservative colonial city built around a bunch of colonial-era churches and cathedrals (it is illegal to build anything taller than the one below), where families can take their kids out at night to see festivities like clowns and fireworks.

On the other is a rapidly modernizing university city with a pretty wild nightlife, complete with countless bars in the centro and massive raves (Ecstasy is the drug of choice) on the edge of town. What’s most amusing is to witness the scandalously-dressed Mexicanas enter the churches and immediately transform into good-little-Catholic-girls, atoning for all the sins they’re about to (or already did) commit. I won't say we're any different in the United States, but Catholicism is just so ceremonial that it's even more obvious here. It also gave them some gorgeous architecture, though:

Not that any of that is a bad thing. In a way, you get the best of both worlds here: there’s so much culture and history here, and everyone is courteous to the elderly, but it’s also great if you want to pull an all-nighter of debauchery, which has certainly been the case thus far this weekend.

Seeing as my parents read this, it’s hard to know how much detail to include about such things, but I’ll go with this: I certainly feel closer to the 13 other students I piled into a single van with on Friday, although we’re all a little mystified about how to face a certain classmate on Monday after we (and about 30 random Mexicans) saw her dancing topless. It was pretty neat that the club owners brought as a huge ice chest of beers for her efforts, though. If we're talking about the girl in sit-com terms, just think of Phoebe from "Friends" and you're getting pretty damn close.

And just in case you think your Faithful Correspondent is sacrificing his education for cheap thrills, I'll leave you with this: there's no better introduction into the culture of Mexico than getting falling-over drunk with a Mexican woman old enough to be your mother while her grandkids run by.

Out Come the Wolves

It's been a crazy few days, and I couldn't be more happy and melancholy at the same time. The day after Paulina took me on the best date ever, I had to say good bye to her, her family, and Guadalajara and get my ass to Morelia. After missing my 1:30 bus, despite Sonya (bless her heart) driving like a woman-posessed to get to the station, I caught the next 3 and 1/2 hour bus ride and landed in the city just in time to be forty five minutes late. Program Director Man didn't seem to care, but I got to be "the late guy" with the rest of the EAP students for the rest of the night.

Speaking of them, it really cracks me up how these types of overseas excursions always have the same American archetypes: Intimidating Serious Girl, Older Person, Life-Of-The-Party Guy (my roomate), Shaggy Hippy Dude, Cute Flirty Girl.... they're all here, present and accounted for. We're one token minority away from a sit-com, I swear.

There was a big festival in the city's center that night to raise money for preserving its stunning cathedrals, with marriachis, clowns, and familly theater troops performing all over. Morelia is a great city to experience this way, as its Colonial-era architecture and hopping night life gives it a traditionally-social charm. Being late, I saw all of this with Older Person (a down-to-earth British woman from UC Riverside), but being older, she wanted to turn in early. I was about to do the same, when I returned to my room, only to find it filled with m fellow students, downing cheap Vodka in preparation for a night on the town (thanks to Life-Of-The-Party Guy, of course). As you can see, I gave in to this and had a grand old time with the other students, who seem to be here primarily as a means to get shit-faced and dance on tables.

But hanging out with Cute Flirty Girl (she used me for my umbrella when it started raining, the wench) only reaffirmed what I discussed in my last entry: American girls love to play games with guys. I responded to her half-hearted advances by being maybe a bit-too-blunt her, and she ended up sleeping in my roomate's bed with him while I refused to leave the room and let nature take its course. So much for your female powers of persuation!

Anyway, enough about boring Americans: my host family is amazing! They live in the centro neighborhood, which means they're close to everything cool and interesting in this city and a short distance from the University. Warm, laid-back Shayla showed me how to use the Combi's (mini-vans used as a public bus system) while crazy-smart Lorenzo Jr. (pictured above, center) took me on a mini-tour of the city. The best was this vista point, complete with hilariously-huge Mexican flag at the top:



Lorenzo's friends were also incredibly nice: after sitting down to talk with them on a whim, we spent two hours discussing politics and race in the United States and Mexico, all while Rosalind (my host-mom) served us pasta, chicken, and a chocalate cake that Lorenzo Sr. got for father's day. They all spoke to me slowly so I could understand them, and told me all the best cafe's, restaurants, and clubs to visit in town. I can already tell that I'm going to love it here.

Lorenzo's friends call him Professor, and the nick name fits. Not only is Lorenzo Jr. actually a professor, but everything he says with a certainty and firmness that inspires total confidence. He teaches English to kids aged 10 to 11, and he speaks five languages in total, so the guy is a freakin genius with linguistics. Needless to say, this has helped tremendously with our ability to communicate, and he basically walked me through my homework step by step today. Our teachers encouraged us not to lean to heavily on our host families for homework help, but Lorenzo is so good at explaining this stuff that it's practically like having a private tutor. I'm a very lucky man, in more ways than one.

"Yes, That's Me Dressed Up As A Giant Heart."

A word on why I like Mexico: not only are the women willing to talk to me, they actually pursue me with the same boldness that I've had to learn in order to talk to girls in the states. Imagine! Now it may help that I'm a white American (two obsessions of modern Mexican culture), but it's still crazy to see women so unabashedly flirtatious in general. Meanwhile, forty-plus years after our supposed sexual revolution, women in the states still have to play the coy flower when courting men or risk looking "slutty." I'll get to the point.

Two days ago I was in a cafe with Paulina's sister Sonya, and her friend Andrea, when a group of ludicrously attractive women were suddenly upon us (or upon me, to be specific), each one taking the time to caress me in some way as they passed. One of them even asked Sonya if she could "buy me" off of her. I reluctantly declined, of course - Paulina already owns me.

Like I told Sonya and Andrea, this kind of shit just doesn't happen in the US (at least not to me, anyway). Back home, there's always this transparent game of back-and-forth posturing, double talk, and silly formalities that get in the way. In Mexico, finding out where you stand with the opposite sex is as easy as smiling and seeing if he/she smiles back. Simple.



Anyway, I'm leaving early tomorrow for Morelia, which is a crying shame because I'm going to miss a concert featuring Kamikaze Fever, a totally awesome indie-rock band that Paulina went to school with. Casey, Ryan and I jammed with them last time I was here, but I've never caught them live and they sound like some dream-combination of Gang of Four and the Shins. Abel, their dapper bass player, even has "Loveless" (my favorite album ever) scrawled on the back of his Japanese-Rising-Sun bass guitar. How cool is that? Above is them performing "Ready Set Go" (co-written by Casey, way back when) and below you can check out the sweet self-produced video for their ironically-titled jam, "The Beatless":

Like a Bird on a Wire.....

I can’t believe it, but here I am in Guadalajara. After an especially hectic rendezvous with my host, Paulina (note to self: always pick a meeting spot *before* you get on the plane), I fed-exed my passport home so my parents can begin the lengthy Visa application process that will allow me to study in Barcelona, Spain, for an academic year. While I wait for that to go through, I’ll be navigating a rigorous summer immersion program in Morelia, Mexico, that starts this Saturday. Until then I’m here, in overcast Guadalajara trying my best to sharpen my abysmal Spanish skills and spend time with Paulina, who thought I would be staying for a full week.


Paulina’s sad that my stay here is so short, made worse by her being in Mexico City today as a health liaison for Hershey’s. Paulina is cousin-through-marriage to my former roommate/bandmate/buddy Casey, and I met her on a trip we took down here last January. We’ve kept in touch through Facebook, and I think she wants to be my girlfriend, which is the coolest thing that’s happened to me in the women-department in… oh, I don’t want to think about it. Anyway, here's the view from the top of her family's house:


Last night we went to see “Amor Vida En Las Vegas,” better-known to American audiences as “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” When I saw previews for this romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz and Rob Courdrey as comedic-sideman, I joked that Las Vegas probably bankrolled it, which I still believe. But it was still a fun and hilarious Knocked Up rewrite, with an unplanned marriage instead of an unplanned pregnancy.

It’s really strange going to the movies here, because a good ninety percent of the movies are American, and Paulina says that sometimes there are no Mexican films showing at all. Not only that, but driving to the mall and walking to the theater, we passed countless American chains - McDonalds, Abercrombie, and drive-through Starbucks are just ubiquitous here. I’m told that Taco Bell has somehow found a market here for there bastardized take on Mexican cuisine. No wonder so many people speak English here.

It makes it hard for me to stick to my Spanish, especially with near-bilingual Paulina. I get especially nervous when I’m trying to express romantic interest - it really kills the mood if you accidentally compliment someone’s chicken (“pollo”) when you meant their hair (“pelo”). But since she’s gone today, I’ve been forced to converse with her aunt Patricia and cousins Mariana and Juan-Pablo. They speak waaayyy too fast for me, but it’s forced me to buckle down - I’ve been consulting my 501 Spanish Verbs book all morning.