poorwhitecrippledboy

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Tastes Like Chicken?!

For me, Tamales remind me of Christmas in California, my family is not from Mexico, but for a good part of my life I have lived in areas that were if not a majority Mexican then pretty close, and Tamales are a decidedly Christmas fare in these areas, the basic tradition as I remember it was for all the women in the family to be in the kitchen making huge mounds of Tamales on Christmas Eve, (while all the men drank until they passed out). Tamales are a labor intensive food, you boil the husks, prepare the filling, and take mounds of wet masa and form it into Tamales, then wrap the corn husks around the filled masa and steam them, sound easy? my guess is its not, but really I cant say for sure, the one and only time I was lucky enough to be invited to one of these fetes I was forced to display my Machismo and Bravado with the Men by drinking way to much and passing out in the yard. (freshly made Tamales do make an excellent hangover food that I can say for sure) there are so many types o

The trouble with fruit

Yeah, I know its April fools day, this is not a joke though, its not a prank it actually happened to me yesterday and not today, I wasn’t going to write about it but I find I have no choice other than to get the whole nasty episode out of my head, So pardon my verbosity and the graphic nature of what follows, (if graphic scenarios aren’t your thing you might just stop reading this now.) I have been spending a fair amount of time on the various highways of Mexico this winter, none more than Mexico 200 and when you drive down Mexico’s Highway 200 you slowly wind down the coast of Mainland Mexico, at every village there is a tope (or 3) topes are essentially giant speed-bumps meant to slow you down when you are driving through the small towns that dot the coastline here. These topes generally mark the main areas of each village or poblado. Commerce springs up around these markers, in the form of fruit vendors, abbarotes (convenience stores) and vendors of all types dependent upon what may

As I write this I am sitting on the beach in my tent in Michoacan MX. an amazing coastline full of tiny indigenous pueblos that are beginning to change ala the California of my youth (gone baby gone). In Ticla the indian girl of maybe 15 years old sits behind the counter of the abbarotes (convenience store) I am buying Cacahuates (peanuts) Mangos, Bananas, Coffee, and Condensed Milk, I ask a simple question but she doesnt seem to hear me, inside my head I check Mi Palabras (words), and I check my pronunciation, feeling fairly sure I am speaking correctly I try again,this time louder, she looks in my eyes, reaches for her ear and pulls out her I-Pod headset and answers me in the affirmative proving once again that things are not exactly as they seem down here. She sits behind a well stocked glass case filled with stickers and sex wax, the selection is a stoners paradise candy, ice cream, and red bull I see the well stocked store and think its a shame that here in Mexico the things that

Somewhere north of La Paz

When one decides to drive to a remote beach deep in the baja there are may things one must first consider, such as; Is there air in the spare? Do we have enough water? How about beer, should we grab some? How much gas do we have? Tires are solid. Will there be food? Quanto Kilometros to la playa? Donde es la calle de costa. Many questions, yes many questions indeed. For me I prefer to do a cursory map check (it’s usually the tiny squiggle I cant even see) Then turn to mi amigo Eduardo and ask aya or aqui? So tonight 60 km of crushing dirt roads later it is nearing sunset and we sit on el Pacifico, our kidneys bashed, the Toyota is hot, the waves crashing on la mar, we are in a small valley that drains onto the beach, sunset is a golden glow of liquid light, we are semi stuck in deep sand but no matter, there are many whales spouting off shore and its absolutely incredible its un perfecto campo (except for maybe the deep sand and low charge on the power chair that effectively leaves me

La Chingadera heads for home

Its not often in a persons life that an opportunity arises to drive a 1973 Volkswagen thing from California to Costa Rica and get paid for it. For me the call came in July of 2007, I had more or less forgotten that I had even put the car up for sale, and I was sitting at my sisters farm in beaver creek Oregon when it did come, I don't remember the exact words that were spoken, but it went something like this; I want to buy your car, will you take 8000 for it? would you be interested in delivering it to Costa? Yes seemed like the right answer at the time so thats what I said. Between monsoons, hurricanes, and missed connections, some months passed before we had all the details worked out, agreed on a plan of action, and money and titles changed hands, but somewhere near Thanksgiving of 07 I found myself planning the details for the Sunday drive of a lifetime. Trying to get out of the country was not the simplest task for me, since having fought a bout with cancer a couple of years

Nuevo Amigos

There is something that I just love about meeting new friends, particularly its great to meet people who speak a different language than you do, there is a purity and warmth when two people are doing there best to communicate simple thoughts using rudimentary language skills that is simply unmatched in same language communication. After all, if you believe the idea that we are vibrational beings (i know I do) then regardless of our language skills, we pull the people to us who have the lessons we need at that time, so for me, the inner work I have been doing is to practice non judgement, this is no simple task, we are trained from birth to make snap judgements about people, I have been in sales virtually all my life, and commisions live and die based on your ability to read someone (judge) so as I travel this amazing journey, I am always amazed how quickly the attraction of vibration serves me. I have done a fair bit of picking up hitchikers this trip, the first of which was a born aga