There are many things to enjoy on the drive from Tucson to Rocky Point on a sunny afternoon. There are picturesque water towers and windmills, busloads of community college basketball players hovering above the roller foods at gas stations, the Buenos Aires National Forest, prehistoric volcanoes, and there are little towns with names that by nature have you asking yourself, “Why?” These are just a few. Please also do not forget that the time it takes to make the trip works out such that you can pretty much listen to all of David Bowie’s singles from 1969 to 1993 back-to-back.

How effortlessly we forget the Spanish word for pratfall.

I have something to offer here at the end of 2015. I was on Mexican buses for six or so hours just about every Saturday or Sunday this year. That gave me at least five hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds each weekend to jot down all the videos selected from hard disks full of video files the Mexican government has authorized its bus drivers to choose from. Or Sony or Warner Brothers.

You have probably seen all of these films, but I still actually have to work my way through them as some sort of make-up assignment. For some reason at the time it seemed more important to catch up on podcasts and reading, the latter also being known by its Sonoran colloquialism motion sickness.

But if those things aren’t important to you anymore and you are ready to spend a few hours living life as if you were in a hermetically sealed movie theater with air thickened by a strange cinnamon air freshener or if you just want to start 2016 as if you were rolling down a dangerously cratered highway with stunning views of cardons and the Sea of Cortes at exactly 90 kilometers per hour while migrating plastic Coca Cola bottles peck at your feet, I hope this playlist will help you to be the best passenger bus cinema club curator you can be.

If you are disappointed with the results of your eye exam, Hiram can take a photo of you with a mythical beast and remind you it could be worse.

How did you manage to forget how loudly that one uncle sucks his teeth? No, really. How?

Perhaps because I had mentioned how much I enjoyed Padre Jesus’ no-nonsense masses in the past, my mother-in-law this year took us to his 7:00 O’clock mass at San Esteban, the Goldilocks chapel—not too rich, not too poor. We arrived early enough to get seats in the middle of the room. The sermon in a nutshell: So much trouble is caused by people trying to be powerful. People say they want peace on earth and then they try to get it by being powerful and that never works. When everyone is trying to be powerful, there isn’t much peace. If you want peace, as God wants, it’s easy. Be humble and do your job. “The sheperds of the Christmas story weren’t trying to be powerful, they were tending their sheep. They were doing their job.”

Ho hum. It turned into “Do as you are told.” so quickly. Last year’s cold cow spit communion was easier to swallow. But there was singing and hand clapping (welcome because it muffles those bratty tambourines) and there was a nun in the pews, styled like a nun in an old movie or on a bottle of Mexican egg nog. We both looked a little out of place in this crowd of dark-haired and dressed-up worshippers. I was a tall gringo wearing a cheap blue sweater. She was the kind-faced older woman in a habit and a worn brown robe. I wanted to ask her for a photo, but I talked myself out of it, which I have been doing more often than not this year. Ho hum.

Pepitoria for dinner. Bistro Tufeeesa.

Do not let the holidays make you crazy. That is why we have marimbas.

radiomarimba.com

The Navy fired an unarmed missile from a submarine off the coast of Southern California on Saturday, creating a bright light that streaked across the state and was visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona.

A Navy spokesman told The San Diego Union-Tribune (http://bit.ly/1Qm74Sn ) the Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the missile test at sea Saturday from the USS Kentucky, a ballistic missile submarine.

Cmdr. Ryan Perry said the launches are conducted on a frequent basis to ensure the continued reliability of the system and that information about such test launches is classified prior to the launch.

The lack of information about the streak of light around sunset led to a flurry of calls to law enforcement agencies and lit up social media as people posted photos and video of the celestial sight.

Naval Missile Test Off California Creates Streaking Light (The New York Times)

The fruit of the Rambutan tree is fuzzy, red, and about the size of a golf ball. It’s native to Malaysia, but recently it has become a valuable crop in southern Mexico and Central America. People in Chiapas crack open the husks and snack on the semi-sweet white pulp everywhere—on the street, in cars, and on the small buses that go from town-to-town.

Rambután meets the music of Barry White

Want to know which Pet Shop Boys song I like the most? All of them. All of them, all of them, all of them. All of them except “It’s a Sin”, which is like “Love Shack” if Pet Shop Boys were the B-52’s. Another thing in this world that flusters me because I cannot understand its popularity.