Notes

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.

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.

The next time you find yourself forgetting the words to the song you are lip synching in an important cabaret act, just mouth the words watermelon, watermelon over and over until you remember. Only other fakers will know the difference. Unless you are in a Spanish speaking place. Then you should probably substitute guayava for watermelon lest you be discovered.

Has the summer's novelty song happened yet? So out of touch.

Disappointed a monsoon did not happen in my parts this hot afternoon, I distract myself by meditating on what Sade's 1985 single The Sweetest Taboo might sound like if interpreted by trained collies.

We thought we’d go to nearby beach Las Conchas for just a couple hours and then come home and get work done on weekend projects. The fresh ceviche tostadas and cold beer abided by our strict terms, but the sunburns took longer than expected and ultimately all we had time for when we got home was a nap.