From the pedestrian bridge over the river, up the middle of old Mexico Bridge Avenue (aka First Street), the new sidewalks twist and turn, like a huge, flattened snake, filling the entire breadth of the old street, the street where all the cars and trucks and busses used to drive up from the river bridge into the little town.

The old street that now has been converted into one huge pedestrian passageway from the river to the corner of First and Revolution, up the gentle hill on foot to the foot of the towering millennium arch -- it is steel like a sword, not wooden like an arrow -- where 235 years ago the brown and white peoples of the Mexican expedition of colonization made their camp in 1769 on the last night on the last corner before arriving at San Diego to conquer both sides of this land for New Spain and send all the Indian souls into the great beyond.  Gaspar de Portola and Junipero Serra and all those first immigrants from Mexico to California, yes, they camped here where tourists now get drunk to hell and back again and then scr#w you all mo'fo.

"I look at the map on the wall and laugh OH COLUMBUS what an India you found..." (Ralph Ellison, Invisible...)

mission state

This is the place where the two Californias begin and began, Alta California, and Baja California, the California which the Franciscans wanted to make their world of mission, and the California which they gave over to the Dominicans.  The native land that was conquered and colonized and reconquered and recolonized and reconquered and recolonized again and then neocolonized and re-neo-recolonized and postmoderneocolonized by the maquila factories of my capitalist brothers and sisters who disown me for failing to reveal gracefully (oh the bourgeois we MUST Always be graceful at the dinner table what if you were eating with the Queen of England, Danial you pig...)

for failing to reveal nor Chat GRACEFULLY without picking your nose that knows that, in fact, the emperor (maybe the empress) have no new clothes only old marxian nudity from the planet Mars oh yes oh no we babble babble babble our own neoimperial bla bla bla bla ho ho hochibuey orale God bless A now kiss my A....

Us U.S'ns gringoes graphilocos mad to write here in these pages also have a mission, certainly yes:

Our Mission: To gaze into ancient & postmodern Mexico from the macaronic border @ Tijuana while we indulge our hypergraphia and logomania and hopefully encourage other people to come visit and enjoy this unique city at the end of the earth.

with American warts and all....

Everyone it seems has a mission.  The business community of downtown Tijuana has a mission to attract the tourists back from Los Angeles, back from all of California, the United States and all ships at sea and around the world come on down to Tijuana it's an easy & fun trolley ride from downtown San Diego and then a simple walk across the border along the cement store-lined pathway over the river and through the streets to old Revolution Avenue we go.  The man with the star will not stop your car because you are walking, not driving eh?  Yeah.

So they are building all the new streets and sidewalks.  First in 2001 they took almost a year to construct the "Monumental Clock" which really is that fourteen-story stainless steel arch with throbbing cables in the wind like Saint Cecilia's harp twang thrum snap.  Then in 2002 they redid the diagonal pedestrian street of Plaza Santa Cecilia herself and Danial wrote his MoNStRoUs poem Border Poet Line.

Then in 2003 they re-did the first two blocks of Revolution Avenue with super-wide new sidewalks and narrower street which often shuts down to host festivals and open-air concerts or Motorcycle and Cholo Car displays pretty cherry definitely some Hot Machines and on December 14th they all brought toys down for the children of Tijuana on the same day Sadam was finally captured not Satan Clause yes, no, I ran out from the internet café to tell a couple bikers the news... they had a mission, yes, to bring toys to Mexico, I had a mission, yes, to tell them that not-Satan Husein was captured, and I did and they said yes and thank you and oh my... vroom vrooom VROOOOM.

And yes, the business powers of Tijuana have a mission, yes, to attract more tourists, more visitors, more business.  And thus they have reconstructed the historic centro (ho ho ho people say there's no history here they are bling blang blind there IS History and Herstory everywhere where there here) and to accomplish their mission they now sponsor big public events therein herein yes in the shadow of the giant steel arch Saint Louis eat your heart out Disneyland Tijuana Loves YOU Too yes.

I do not have the faintest idea how to write any of that bla bla bla in Spanish... *sigh*

And so now the mission to renovate downtown Tijuana continues and in the late fall and winter turning to 2004 they are finishing the sidewalks running all the way down from the giant arch to the river.  Come on down and see it now... I have walked back and forth several times through November and December and January going back and forth for family holidaze days does yes it does and I do and Michael too.

That's right, Dano, I go with you everywhere....

And we'll be working on this literary form of dialogue more, right, that too Michael makes me talk with you...

Uh-huh.

I got a mission to cover and uncover these new sidewalks, I gotta mission, you gotta mission, all God's children got a mission on the nneeewwwwwww sssidewalkkkkkssssssss... why, even Carmela Castrejon the Tijuana artist invited last year (before?) to present her work at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, she got a mission and per-mission to work her work of art praying for peace with flocks of plaster doves laid out on the street (Revolución) last spring just before the war started I still have a couple of the plaster doves she gave me and must take one to Tamaulipas, I think, I think of the year going out and the year coming new, a chance to give a class and a chance to take a plaster dove to Monterey and Laredo when I go next month to see another woman oh my sweet Tere my Tere my God I miss her....

That is my Tere mission, to go see her again (it's been almost a year, now) and then figure out how we can get her back to Tijuana - where we met four years ago - and how we can go into business together, not just love but work together her administrative skills creating a bilingual art & culture businessss hmmmmmm....

But my mission right now is this page where I wanted to tell you -- all of you -- about the archeology of the new sidewalks that I am intrigued watching the last & latest movement of unrolling all the way down old bridge street toward the river and linking the pedestrian bridge over the concrete channel (who cares if it stinks) up to the monumental steel arch....

I wonder how long before the cops figure out the routine of rousting the bums from the new benches every night or....

HEY MISTER DON'T YOU WANT A BLANKET one last thing you buy before you go home

No.  Sorry, I am home.  In Tijuana.  Gringo, yes, but I live here now five years.  Ever since '99 gave birth to my millennium negative one.  Yes.  Look, Ma -- I even have a visa so I can go further south and spend good money in deepest Mexico!  Enjoy!

Thank you for sharing.  That is all.

Oh-- I almost forgot: Happy New Year, Carlos!  It looks like rain tonight, yes.  It does.  Okay bye.

Oh, one last thing... bendita Carmela, I think you will smile when I tell you my resolution for new year... aint gonna take sh!t from you know who AND then be silent.  No.  Whatever f@rt he grunts at me will now on be on subject one TO reportage Here.  I only wonder if I will find the balls -- or be stupid enough to carry it out... cut off my own nose to spite my face after all, for some things are worth putting up with... as you know as I know as... the a$$hole is as stupid does (not you, per se, but you know who and me too heh heh heh...)

Just to say how grateful I am you and Gary were reading here yes.  And Gary was right.  Having a date and being real makes all the difference.

d i f e r a n c e   remember when we had to write essays regurgitating what that meant?  Ho ho hochibuey and   a w a y . . . 

Tom. Brett. Chris. Jim. Tere. The Oceanside Girls. And all the others. Named here and not named here.