nearly a week in

i´ve been doing the cultural rounds during the day: museums, parks, cathedrals, plazas. just between the alameda central and the palacio de bellas artes i found a guy selling some lp´s last thursday. i flip through what he has sitting out and then ask if he´s got any mexican rock from the 60´s and 70´s, like LA REVOLUCION DE EMILIANO ZAPATA. this signifies to him that i must know what the deal is. i don´t really, but i tell him that i´m kind of a dj and i´m mostly into soul and funk 45´s these days. he tells me to come back the following day and he´ll bring some mexican stuff on 45 that i might be into. alright ok.

back the next day, but not before entering the palacio de ba and admiring the murals, though many of them are so big that support columns for the museum´s very structure tend to block a complete view. when i go back to the music man, pablo, i see that he´s brought out his record player and has a small stack of 45´s with him. oh, and he´s got his leopard-skin pantalones on him and a girl that looks to be his daughter with him, but is really his girlfriend...he shows me a few items and i´m definitely interested, but vacillate on what to buy. in the end, i walk away with three: la revolucion de emiliano zapata on polydor, peace and love on raff, and tinta blanca on philips. pablo tells me he´ll have more next week, too. word.

from there i walk to a small taquería. i´m there by myself, save for bríjido, the taco man - a true character. he talks to me of tall germans, california, and the value of an education. i eat my three tacos soaked in lime juice and tell him i´ll be back. when? he asks. soon, i respond.

i see X-MEN 3 later that evening. without a doubt, i was the only gringo in the sold out theater. the movie was nothing more that ehhhh and i ate too much popcorn. taking the long way home, i see a men´s clothing store called ROBERT´S: EL ARTE DE SER (ROBERT´S: THE ART OF BEING). not quite the CREPUSCULARITY, but funny enough. i then pass through the zocalo and come upon a book fair. a pleasant surprise. make a few purchases before getting back to the hotel, playing a few games of tetris on my game boy, and then trying to get to sleep.

as a tourist, it seems that consumption works the quickest to abate the solitude, but the few friends i´ve found in pablo and brígido help too.

the next day, saturday, i start off with some chicken quesadillas - with the green sauce, aka the hot shit. my fire breath quickly went from dragon to dragoon. i spend the afternoon in chapultepec park and check out the huge and impressive anthropology museum nearby, though only make my way through maybe 1/3 of it in two hours.

that night i´m trying to kill the usual down time twixt dinner and bed when i hear this bad, bad music being played. it´s ostensibly a cover band at an outdoor cafe. vh1 gone bad kind of thing. all long hair, tight shirts, and self-styled attitude. making jokes about being wasted and on drugs at 9.45 pm. they went from some contemporary emo to radiohead´s ´creep.´ and the drummer. oh, god. the drummer was way off, doing all these superfluous flourishes and fills, but would not stop fucking twirling his sticks at every opportunity! he´s whirling them around like they were lassos. then, he takes a sip of his bottled water and directly spits it out like an aggressive fountain. some strange noise soon starts to emanate from the crowd. i look over to see one of the male fans standing up on a bench and threatening to take down his pants. he comes close, but eventually refrains and is pulled down from on high. the band ends with a cover of ´are you gonna go my way´ by lenny kravitz, which turns immediately into an extended drum solo. naturally. it´s all i can do to laugh and walk away.

more soon. yesterday turned into a big day itself, including a protest led by masked men and women and another encounter with brígido.