It Happened In Monterrey

...but not a long time ago, just last week. What happened? A few things. Maybe even more. Mainly, I did a show with Meat last week, and my poor lappy entered that phase where you start to contemplate whether this might be the appropriate time to finally pull the feeding tube. Sad. But the Meat show proved to be a good time, the crowd making up for its stature in enthusiasm.

This visit was my first to Mexico, and well-placed it was after four days of dealing with the vacuous soullessness of casino resorts. * Monterrey and surroundings are beautiful, especially stunning for someone who isn't used to waking up at the base of a mile-and-a-half tall mountain. 100 miles or so south of the border, desert and scrubland give way to the Sierra Madre range, and it is here, among the foothills and first valleys, where Monterrey lies.

I wasn't able to explore the city directly as much as I would have liked to, as our hotel was located in an area where the most prominent features were other hotels, a mall, highways, office buildings, and a golf course. Not too ped-friendly. However, several of us, boss included, piled into a couple cabs on our day off and spent the afternoon driving around to a handful of flea markets, which afforded us the opportunity of a fly-by tour at least. By the second market, though, I started to wonder if the driver may have interpreted "Can you show us some cool places where we can walk around, poke our heads in to shops, scope the city?" as, "Take us to the places where tourists go to by cheap, kitschy, tourist shit," as it had pretty much the same stuff as the first. The third, though, bore fruit in the form of a groovy marble/quartz chess set, pieces hewn Mexican-style, which forms succeeded in thoroughly confusing several of my friends who attempted to wrangle the first game out of it.

Things were not as cheap as one may think, given the stereotypes spun into our notions of Mexico. I found a few very nice linen Guayabera shirts, and immediately thought I'd hit the jackpot until I looked at the price tag: 1,500 pesos each, or about $140. Yikes. That's even high for the Dominican boutiques up in Harlem...

The day of the show, I broke from the pack several hours before sound check and took a cab from the hotel up into the mountains, to a park called Chipinque, overlooking the city. Had I more time, I could have killed many hours hiking back and forth along the mountainside. I was quite happy to have the time I did, though, as these adventures don't seem to include much of an opportunity for nature-wandering. In addition to the opening pano, there are a handful of other pictures which will soon be available on my Flickr page.

A notable discovery was the Mexican obsession with 22 year-old French euro-pop superstar, Alizée:


And admittedly, after seeing three of her videos on TV while eating at a local bar, a couple of which were shown twice, several of us Loafers were pretty much hooked, too. Considering her sultry voice, excellent wardrobe choices, and respectable talent at hip manipulation, why wouldn't we be!? Even given the overwhelming techno-poppiness of the music, her videos, while saccharine, are ultimately satiating. ** Sometimes, it's just a wonderful thing to celebrate the superficial joys of being male.

Dammit, why did we have to get stuck with Britney? Not fair. I call a misdeal...

Now, back in New York for a couple weeks. It's good to be back in the city. But Williamsburg seems only to grow more maddening with each return. Is the degree of its obnoxiousness actually increasing at an exponential rate!? Maybe it's time to think about moving...

* Yes, I know, I owe y'all a review of Atlantic City. Coming. Sometime. Slightly inhibited by the performance of said lappy. Your patience is most appreciated.

** Go to YouTube and poke around if you need any convincing.