Went to the movies yesterday in the cineplex at an Otay shopping center.  Everyone out for Saturday shopping and looking.  We looked at a 250 dollar pair of ostrich loafers.  Sweet little brown things.  Of course I did not buy them.

We saw the beginning of the ice age movie.  I will write a poem about dinner mentioning that fact, if you notice below.  It was a pretty film but your typical disaster movie cliche: troubled marriage/family hero, crippled child in danger, stubborn bureaucrats who finally see the light, manly self-sacrifice, the triumph of young love, massive destruction, yes, all your standard disaster movie formulae, complete and utter lies most of them, but hey, it IS fiction, and besides, - sparkle glitter - , the latest in SFX s.p.e.c.i.a.l EFFECTS all in one great big sweet ride beyond the frozen end of the world and back again.

One little tidbit of plot went over quite humorously well here in this particular Tijuana audience who already lives at the end of the Earth : in order to escape the iceage superstorm, millions of gringos cross the Rio Grande river (it is called Rio Bravo del Norte by Mexicans, BTW) illegally escaping south into Mexico (immigration in reverse as well as that old gringo myth of making a beer run for the border, eh?) and then Mexico legally opens the border after the U.S. forgives all latinamerican debt.  The pattering of little laughters echoed around the theater - perhaps the only real humor in the whole fricking film (that I can remember today in my own day-after yesterday writing tomorrow) - a laughter that sounded both delighted and ironic.

BUT we were all there NOT for the irony and hints of Ciudad Juarez and Mexicali, but rather for the spectacle : to see tornadoes destroy L.A. and floods and freeze devastate Manhattan.  Hollywood conquers the world, destroys civilization, burns all the books, and then delivers a happy ending with sun shining smiling down on all that ice and snow oh yes.  A great big pile of pretty pictures but not very believable.  Except whatshisname still makes an almost believable teenager - time to send him to the university.

Frankly, I preferred A.I.  That one was much more artistic.  And if you recall it also had global melting and then an ice age, yes, aside from all the human-machine um er uh... misunderstanding.  You already should know what I mean, dear 'bot friends.  That's why you don't talk very much except dot yunohu when.

We humans are very troubled by and fascinated with our own creations.  Makes us ignore the more real social problems like global migration and neocolonial neoimperial mercantile capital movement step on people like bugs outsource splat goodby flyaway flyaway capital factory golondrinas yes. 

We humans are very troubled by and fascinated with our own creations.  Eventually you will outweigh them us.  "You better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago."  Don't know about you, fellowhuman, but I used to watch all the old monsterSF movies.  Forget which channel it was but my older friends here in Tijuana remember her too: the black-dressed slinky vamp called Cosmosina and then MoonaLisa, she who (years before equally sexy LA Elvira) used to anchor Saturday afternoon monster movie show and scific '50s and '60s on bprder Sandiego TV you know trash films and a few of them real gems with some art involved like War of the Worlds and It Came from Outer Space and Invaders from Mars plus a hundred others oh of course not to forget Godzilla etc and the big grandfather of them all King Kong (from the 1930s I mean) and of course some even older gems from the silent era like The Lost World....

Perhaps that is another one of many reasons why Tijuana fascinates me so: it is a kind of monster movie, in the flesh, in reality, in undeniable Mexican 3-D (no, in Mexicalifornic 4-D), full living color stereophonic sight and sound etc.

Yes.  Tijuana is a monster movie, is a living science fiction epic.   But it looks like a city.  Like some kind of Frankenstein daughter of Los Angeles and Mexico City.  Frankly

Scarlet, I don't deeve a Gamn because here there be mucho myucho eSpanish yes and I can listen and learn and learn and lean and LAN and earn and ear hear here yas oh jes yes I can.

Except I don't think I will ever dare to do to Spanish like what I just did to English no.  I have such a native command of my mother tongue that I think nothing of violating her by my hand of the hijo de la chihuahua que soy yos sey yes it is igual playful and violent this wild romp and streamofconscious let-go and let goop happen aya.  Aca.

And that, too, is part & parcel-post of my love for monster movies.  I create my-own-monster (the new fun kids' game [send no money, not available in stores]) my own Frankenstein creatures built out of words.

My first wife la amargura - blessed be she - comes from Chicago and remembers the giant grasshopper crawling up the Wrigley building - the chewing gum family skyscraper.  They also owned the Cubs - blessed be they - the baseball team that arranged for Ronald Reagan of sainted memory requisat in pace (I always voted against him when I was young)  My grandmother however loveeeeeeed him our governor later USprez; she died happy in the knowledge that her teflon dog could at last get enough cheese.  The man came out west in the 1930s to cover spring training on Catalina Island - used to be the Wriggly private island where buffalo still roam free with wild peccaries - javalinas - and we three went there a week after la amargura got pregnant it was like some magical pilgrimage fertility visit to Avalon of Arthur floating in the redundant sea of westernesse yes all those icons and images merge in my brain on this Sunday morning as the megaphone car goes by shouting TAMALES TAMALES CINCO PESOS CINCO PESOS TAMALES TAMALES DE ELOTE DE PUERCO DE CHILE DE QUESO de animal muerto como dijo mi amor ja ja ja

FANCY RESTAURANT

We also went out to eat yesterday after the movie to celebrate my first full paycheck (which has soooooooo quickly almost vanished almost overnight almost with past due bills and sudden splurges yes) and also to celebrate our first two months in our new home together after four years finally we found a nest in the strangely geometrical fascination labyrinth of these postmodern Mexican blocks of modules of New Tijuana etc.

I have a resolution to almost always go somewhere to eat that I ain't been before - there is such a wealth of restaurants in this megalopolis - and so we were headed for the Oaxacan restaurant I've heard about but never been - la Guelaguetza - just off Industrial Blvd. across the the Bougainvillea Hotel but they closed at seven p.m.

So we went nearby a few doors down the curious, hidden, diagonal block (I meanwhile enjoying this architectural street exploration) a few doors down to the RITZ a very fancy shmantzy place where they serve you complimentary sherry and hors d'oeuvres and a man is playing the piano even now, tonight, and there is allllll that ambience de su ambiente bien tranquilo que rico si and what with all the food and wine well, it only set me back fifty dollars, which is quite a lot but not too bad considering what you get. 

We also bought a painting from the piano player for 200 pesos (after bargaining down from 35 dollars).  D.Leon.  A pretty little courtyard scene opening from shadow into light, with lots of flowers and of course a couple arches and some steps leading up from darkness into the sunlight, very tipico, very kitsch, but also somewhat allegorical with the pathway from dark into light, yes, well, yes, a little cliche yes but pretty and nicely framed.  I want to buy original works like that to dress our house, and of course so, too, does Tere... so I think it shall slowly happen like that as the months go by.

Now it is almost nine a.m. and I can hear my love stirring and moving around in the tiled hallway.  I look up from the table and listen.  Time to set down the pen and get ready to go to the street market with her.  Another morning writing by hand is coming to its end. 

Later, later, I shall type this into the computer, and maybe tomorrow or the next day post it onto the internet for you and you and you and me, too, yes.

And I will see the delightful email from Gary webnetarts telling me more Tijuanagringo news yes.  Mmmmmmmmmmm.... the new site inaugurating in October now has a redirect www.tijuanagringo.com.  Yes it's true I am happy and slowly working and building html code.

okei bai         okay bye