just call me horchata

I was driving home Thursday night from a late shift and Barry Manilow's 80's classic, "I'm Your Man" popped into my head. Ahhh, 80's dance music. I loved that Hi-NRG (high energy) sound, somewhat related to EuroBeat or EuroPop. The only thing I can find today that I like as much is House and Trance.

Strangely enough, North Carolina had some hot clubs back then, notably "Wham!" which later became "Encore!" (both in Greensboro). Wham! was often called the best nightclub between Washington DC and Atlanta. Durham had the excellent "42nd Street" which later became "Power Company." I was never fond of the clubs in Charlotte.

My favorites for an occasional drive to Atlanta, GA, were "The Armory" and "Weekends."

Back then, life circumstances often put me in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Guadalajara had some great clubbing. "Monica's" and "Betty Boop's" were my faves. Guadalajara also had the best raves. Most were fund raisers for the gay pride group called GOHL (Grupo Orgullo Homosexual de la Liberación). A rave in Guadalajara usually got going well by 1AM and usually terminated by 7AM on a Sunday morning. That often put the ravers on the same Sunday-morning mass transit as people going to church, which could be embarrassing.

Heck, I got so into all this that I broke the bank in 1986 and treated myself to two weekends of partying in Paris (the one in France). It was well worth it. I *STILL* love all things French.

To prepare for all-night clubbing, or a rave, the following schedule usually applied:

• 2PM - some exercise, usually a bike ride or walking at a park (or the Champs-Élysées, lol) to get the blood flowing.
• 5 to 6PM - a carefully planned dinner. It had to be enough to sustain for the upcoming evening, but not so much that it would drag you down later, or heaven forbid, put you on the toilet.
• 7:30 to 9PM - rest. Commonly called a "bar nap."
• 10PM - light snack like potato chips.
• 11PM - shower and begin primping.
• 12AM - one or two warm-up cocktails.
• 12:30AM - departure time!

Then it was out for all-night fun. Nice times with lots of strobe lights, lasers, smoke machines, throbbing disco, and 100's of people thrashing around and having fun on the dance floor. Amazingly, good friendships were sometimes formed of this.

Here's the Barry Manilow download that made all this come to mind:

Amazing viral video of a kindergarten teacher calming children as machine guns roar outside.

More info here and here.

The Spanish is the clarion, clear, beautiful Spanish of Mexico. To me it is the most beautiful in the world. I'm sorry so much for the violence there.

My first trip outside of the United States was in 1980. I went to Guadalajara, Jalsico, Mexico. Prior to that, my only foreign adventure had been walking a few hundred feet across the border into Ciudad Juárez from Texas when I was a little kid.

That first real trip to Mexico in 1980 profoundly changed my life to this very day. I was so impressed with Guadalajara that I was practically peeing on myself the whole time I was there. From 1980 to the present, I have now been to Mexico over twenty times, I think, maybe more, I don't know. I feel like I got my footing on life there.

Anyway, below are some old scanned prints of some of the first people I met in Guadalajara. Some I have seen again over the years, some I haven't. I wanted to preserve the memories in this way.

Image #1: The Romero-Arias family and me. I stayed with this family while doing a summer Spanish-immersion course. They spoke no English, only a few words. They gave me a reasonable amount of time to start using Spanish, but I was rebelling against it, so one day they announced that I could no longer eat with them unless I asked for things in Spanish. That pissed me off, so I started taking a few meals at a nearby pizzeria where English was spoken. Then I realized I was being stupid, so I met their demand and started using the language for the first time. You can see me second from the right. I'm not that much taller than they are. There was a cement lip around the fountain that I was standing on. The girl on the far right, Gema, I saw again some 19 years later. She turned into a real fox. Seriously! You can tell from my smile that Guadalajara was working out for me by the time the picture was taken. I was pleased with life.



Image #2: Juan Carlos and the gringa. Juan Carlos was the youngest child of the family previously seen in the picture above. The gringa (the American girl), I don't remember her name. She hated me anyway, I think. I always wondered if she and Juan Carlos shacked up even though he was severely under age.



Image #3: My first real friend in Mexico: Cesar. Looks cool driving the pickup. I like that big-ass tall gear shifter.



Image #4: Cesar in downtown Guadalajara.



Image #5: Me in downtown Guadalajara.



Image #6: Cesar's sisters in Manzanillo. So cute posing for the camera. I like the Gremlin car in the background.

They're young, but they're pretty good!

Parque de las Palapas in downtown Cancun has this car thing set up. Parents can let their children have a little drive on quite a good selection of electric cars, SUV's, and motorcycles. For the very young ones, some of the cars were radio controlled so the parents could follow along and control the car. I was amazed at how well many of the children were able to handle the cars. When they were finished, they would usually park them carefully. All this changes when they grow up.

The most popular vehicles for the children in this park were a Cadillac Escalade, a pink Ford Mustang, and the Jeeps.

We love a good iguana.

They love to hang out on ancient Mayan buildings and soak up the sun.

Click image to see more.