Dispatches from The Mayan Empire

"You bravos had better be ready to fight, or we'll never get out of East Texas tonight, but the trail is long and the river is wide, and my ride's here" - Warren Zevon, My Ride's Here + + + My day tends to start around 10:30am or so most of the time. No more early mornings on the corners barking or occasionally DJ'ing for Vampiz has allowed me to set my own schedule for work (writing, which tends to be in fits and starts throughout the day unless I'm on a roll). Which is nice, since I am not a morning person. I tend to shamble out of bed like something from the 'Legend of Boggy Creek' films, swallow my morning fistful of pills (allergy meds, the price I pay for my lovely cat, vitamins, and acetaminophen with codeine to allow me to move without wincing in pain constantly). After that its typically a lovely hot shower thanks to my miracle shower head with a built in heating unit. I admit its not the safest of showers, but it is hot, with...

"There is nothing wrong with spending a night in jail if it means getting the shot you need." - Werner Herzog + + +  It has occurred to me that in my posts here on 'Dispatches' I only occasionally share with my loyal readers my photography in small doses. Which is a bit of a crime, as there are so many interesting this to see here. Not that I am some fantastic shutterbug, I'm mediocre at best, but I never the less have always greatly enjoyed it as a hobby. One could always tell how desperate I am in life if I start selling my cameras, with my primary rig being the last to go. Letting go of my favorite camera has always been just a little bit like chewing off a limb to escape a trap. Sure, it works, but it leaves one slightly on the crippled side. Not that my loss of cameras in times of extreme financial desperation compares in any meaningful way to someone actually becoming disabled due to an accident, its just to illustrate how hard it is for me to...

"Home. . home is where you wear your hat... I feel so break-up, I wanna go home." - Lord John Whorfin, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension + + + Every time I cross the border from Mexico into Texas, in the US of A I get this weird feeling. This strange anxiety, in the pit of my stomach, that feeling you get when you know you've eaten some bad Chinese food but the effects haven't set in yet. [[When walking across the bridge I may have once or twice danced in front of this sign, just to say I did it Which I just did. So there you go.]] Its not dealing with the immigration officers on the Mexican side, unless I'm in my car. I'm always worried about getting Greta stuck in Texas after that one fiasco thanks to the state of Pennsylvania no longer issuing stickers. Its not dealing with the border patrol agents on the US side either. Though they have performed more than one "agricultural inspection" on Gr...

"Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."  - Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House + + +  It occurs to me that I have written extensively about the squat Tessa and I called home our first few weeks in Mexico. Despite its difficulties such a lack of shower, sleeping on essentially a cement floor, the lack of insulation, or windows that weren't just particle board haphazardly nailed to the window frames, the rodent issue (which Tessa dealt with in her typical brutally efficient manner quickly, she even left one of the rats dead and disemboweled in front of the hole the were entering through) or the frequently used Crack Shack in what would have been our backyard.  [[ "La Cabane à Crack", French makes it sound so much more respectable. ]] Despite all of those problems ...

"She lives like tomorrow isn't coming and yesterday never happened." - Crystal Woods, Write Like No One Is Reading + + + Friday, Day One: Nuevo Senorial "Around the outside of the room other beautiful women wearing little or nothing at all flitted between the infatuated, intoxicated men, sometimes luring them away for a private dance. The men would follow obediently, weighed down by lust and credit cards."  - R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room [[They have a sign on the front of the building, but I suspect this is how most random clients discover what waits beyond the privacy curtains at the end of the entrance hallway.]] There are a lot of strange places I expected to find myself in my life. Sitting in the corner of a darkened Mexican strip club in a dusty border town wasn't one of them. 2:30 in the afternoon, beer in one hand, pen in the other, making observations about the club and its clientele for my weird little travelogue. Somet...