I'll be Home for Chrimmus

If only in my dreams . . . ah, to be gathered about the Chrimmus tree, happily gazing at its lights and things that hang on it. The tradition, the grace. Impressive.

It's the Chrimmus season here in Mexico, and let me tell you, things are really in full swing. The season got started with a bang with our "Posada" (Mexican-speak for Christmas party) at our outlying Mexico City office in a place called Talisman. I'm not really sure what they do there, there's no office, i think they just store old vinyls from billboards there? Regardless, it's way out in BFE in the Northeast of the city. Basically anything with "east" in the description when referring to Mexico City can be grouped into the "filthy and dangerous" category.

But, that place is also located damn near the Basilica of Guadalupe. Which is a big church dedicated to celebrating the Virgin of Guadalupe, which as you probably don't know, is one of those obviously-BS Catholic miracle image-of-the-virgin-mary-appears-in-some-everyday-object type affairs. Basically the story goes like this, as I understand it: The good friar Juan Diego was walking from his pueblo to the city, when on the side of a hill, he sees the virgin mary. Naturally. She tells him blah blah blah, and so he goes to town and tells the big priest there. Said priest wants proof, so Juan Diego goes back and the virgin tells him to gather some flowers for the other priest. He finds some flowers even though it's winter, and when he gives them to priest number 2 (not to imply that he's a shitty priest, yuk yuk) then the image of the virgin mary appears on the cloth he brought them in. Sounds plausible enough.

Well, the whole thing was a big controversy, half the catholics said it was bogus, a lot said that Mexicans (more native at the time, this is in the 16th century) are worshipping it as an icon of their native religion, somebody just painted that on there . . . etc. But, somehow nobody seemed to mind all the "obviously a bunch of bullshit" evidence, including a 2002 microanalysis that found painting materials used at the time as what had made the design in the first place, and it is now the most powerful symbol of Mexico, beyond maybe the eagle with the serpent which appears on the flag.

So, on December 12th, the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, around 8 million "peregrinos," which i understand to mean something like "pilgrims," come to Mexico City from other parts of Mexico, walking, riding bikes, hundreds of miles to come and do whatever religious people do . . . pray and shit, i guess. Yes, 8 million MORE people, just what we needed here.

So heading up to Talisman, there are just truckloads, literally, of these people. Honestly it reminded me of my Phish days, seeing these tons of people parked along the sides of a highway, just sitting around, lost for something to do until the actual event that brought them all this way. Those of you who know me well may know I once spent 30+ hours in traffic sitting and partying along the side of I-91 in Vermont trying to get to a Phish concert festival that was hampered by heavy rains, thus muddying the whole festival area and making it impossible for cars to enter.

This was like that, but probably with better music. Man, those concerts sucked ass. Anyway, yeah, crazy Catholic Mexicans. I just don't get it. Here is pre-Colombian Mexico, Aztecs, Nahuatl, Tenochtitlan (Technochocolateland, to the internet connoiseur), the whole nine yards. Rich culture, advanced society, native, natural, prosperous, beautiful. And then here comes dickless asshole Hernán Cortés to poo in the cake batter, killing half the Aztecs, leaving his whitebread heartless Spaniard buddies behind to breed the native-ness out of the people (read: rape and impregnate), and to convert them (by force if necess'ry) to Catholicism. Seems like your average Mexican interested in his/her heritage and culture would hate the living shit out of all things Spanish and Catholic, no? Well, yes, no. No is the correct answer. People here are Catholic to the guts. So much so that they totally buy into that if they pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe (which, as we'll recall, was just a painting of the Virgin Mary that appeared . . . not even sure how one prays to that . . . it's not like it's the rain god or something) for their kid to be cured of, oh, I don't know, let's say rickets, that it'll work, and then they thus are indebted to walk their happy ass a few hundred miles to the Basilica to say "hey, thanks." Couldn't just look up and give a knowing wink, i guess.

So, needless to say, traffic was a bitch.

Moving on to lighter subjects, I'm just a few fateful days away from embarking on a plane ride home to good 'ol Colorady. I sure could use a break from these 70 degree days and 60 degree evenings, i'll tell you what. I am embiggened by the fact that it's been snowing a good bit in the mountains, as I am wont to ski a couple days while i'm there. You should see the faces these Mexicans make when I describe skiing to them. You'd think I was describing a sandwich made of unicorn meat with a side of fries. Let's face it, it's hard to improve on fries.

So yes, I look forward to being in touch with all of you who may be around the Colorado while I am, I have lots of fun things planned and also have plenty of open days and evenings to accomodate all of my adoring fans. By which i mean, I'll call you because i'm looking for something to do. My cell phone doesn't work in the US, so good luck getting a hold of me.

You may have noticed that in this post I have discovered the link-to-a-webpage function. Enjoy my technological savvy, in all of its impressiveness. Here's hoping it just works.

--Lee