Sita introduced me to Cash’s music only 5 years ago and I knew little about his story. This film whetted my appetite to know more since many reviews say it only hints at the real darkness in his life. The Spanish title is Johnny y June: Madness and Passion. I wholeheartedly agree about the passion aspect, Joaquin Phoenix is nigh on perfect as Cash from his stance, speech patterns to his on-stage persona, but we only see flashes of the madness (a few amphetamines too many, a Zeppelinesque outburst in his dressing room and a mano-a-maquina with his Massey Ferguson). The relationship with June is very well developed- and though not knowing much about June- I can only say that it’s a perfectly believable love story. The music throughout is well chosen and this morning I woke up with Ring of Fire echoing around my mind (which makes a pleasant change from ‘Can’t get you out of my head”…). If this doesn’t spark yet another Cash revival I don’t know what will. Fantastic performances all round, a great soundtrack and a gripping story make for a very memorable film. I hope we see a sequel as the closing credits’ ‘They toured for 30 odd years then died” doesn’t really do justice to the rest of this incredible man’s journey. Next time I’m near an English language bookshop I’ll be looking for the autobiography to find out more.
It’s nearing the end of a marathon three days. On Friday evening Sita was involved in some kind of field “research” as part of her Tequila Diploma course from the Universidad de Guadalajara. She and a dozen or so classmates went on a University-sponsored pub crawl around Guadalajara which took in El Sin Rival, La Fuente, La Maestranza and Los Famosos Equipales to name but a few. Because some of us have to work for a living I arranged to meet up with them at the end of it all at 8 in Los Equipales. I got there at 7:30 so I could have a chance to catch up a bit, after looking like the lonliest gringo in el centro historico for 90 minutes or so and a couple of their speciality drink, nalgas alegres (rum, grenadine, orange crush and a splash of wine and ice) they phoned the bar to say they’d be there soon. And what a happy bunch they were too. Dr. Jaime (pictured) is the bloke who gave us the masterclass on Mayahuel and friends way back when, in the picture he’s holding a popular botana (bar snack) called viril. It looks innocuous enough, but it is sliced, marinated bull’s penis. I tried it once 8 years ago, Cesar told me what it was and I didn’t believe him. I spat it to the other side of the bar when I realised he wasn’t joking and still have occasional nightmares… anyway, back to the bar… I had a fine old time chatting with everyone while we were plied with free tequila-based drinks, eventually we all decided to move on to a more salubrious atmosphere and ended up in a bar with a cover band doing Green Day, Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz and suchlike in Chapultepec somewhere. It was a great evening all in all, nice to be out with such a friendly crowd. I hope they invite me along on more of these scientific field trips…
Que mas? Well Saturday morning, after another fry-up, we got our stuff together browsed the map of Jalisco and decided on Tapalpa instead of Mazamitla. Sita had been grilling her Mexican colleagues on the best places to visit in the mountains and Tapalpa was highly recommended. It’s recently been awarded the status of Pueblo Magico (Magic Town) which means it’s officially recognised as a lovely place and gets cash thrown at it to entice the likes of Sita and me. It only took a couple of hours to get there along a toll dual carriageway which goes down through what looks like a dry lake then we left it to take the winding road up the mountains. Before entering the town we saw all kinds of signs for parapenting. There’s powerful thermal currents and steep cliffs to jump off. Me Dad’s into all the parapenting lark and if we haven’t been deported or bankrupted by October I’ll definitely take him there and have a go myself too. You know you’re in the town because your average driving speed drops to 5 mph as the streets are inexpertly cobbled. It brought back fond memories of the exhaust pipe making a bid for freedom in Puerto Vallarta at new year, but luckily the welding job held up nicely.
We went to the tourist info place and found the last room available at Hotel Hacienda, very nice if not too well sound-proofed and went for a wander round the town. It’s very well conserved. I couldn’t make much progress with my cars that resemble where they’re parked because all the buildings were painted the same colour, off-white and ox-blood. There were a couple though… and . We had a coffee and watched the local fresas playing with spud guns (I think) and soaked up the atmosphere. Then we fired up the altima and went off first to see the reservoir where there’s an odd mix of cacti and pines, then over to see the Piedrotas (big stones). They’re a little like the tors in Dartmoor, but less wide spread. They’ve been there a fair while and the Otomi indians used them as handy chopping boards for human sacrifices. I should also mention that the air was gorgeous. It’s not something you notice if you haven’t been living in a city of 4 million odd where 80% of cars don’t have catalytic converters and there’s a fairly cavalier attitude to forest fires, but it was a refreshing change. We drove back to the pueblo and had a swift pint in front a TV with Chivas vs. Tigres on. At half time we had a nap and then out to hunt down a Spanish tapas bar/restaurant that Sita’d spotted earlier. Ole, Ola, or some such title.
We got a table on the balcony and the undivided attention of Omar, the waiter there. We had some fantastic food (I knew when I started this blog that a lot of it would be about eating habits…) cheeses, jamon serrano, lomo, chicken, cake… and took our time. There was a v. talented couple playing acoustic guitar for ambience. When they played Obladi by the Beatles though, i took it upon myself to make a request, Cavatina (theme from The Deerhunter/ Take Hart’s The Gallery), which they didn’t know. A bit more wine later, I asked for anything from El concierto de Aranjuez or Recuerdos de la Alhambra, and fair play they knew both of them and did perfect renditions. Omar told us about the area, his views on tequila (reposado and anejo are mierda, apparently, full of chemicals and bourbon contaminants), his mate who got his parapent mangled in an updraught and just managed to save himself with a back-up chute, and the history of Tapalpa. He recommended we con our way into the country club to get decent views of the volcanos and after brekky the next day we did just that. After that we took the non-toll road back to Gwod and had a bit of a rest until the evening when Victor, Sarah and Jose came round for the Superbowl and pizza. By the end of it I was starting to vaguely understand the game but I’ll not be making a habit of it. Also, the superbowl is famous for its adverts in the states (it’s what usually makes it bearable), we just got local ads for banks and mobile phones though. I had a look at a few of the American ads on google video, and don’t think I missed much… T’was another late night though, today should be a lot more tranquil. i think we’re going to see the Johnny Cash biopic tonight, and I’ll probably be out with me camera again this ‘avo. I’m glad I have today off work because of the Constitution holiday or summink, cos, as I may have mentioned before, I’m not as young as I used to be. So all in all, a solidly entertaining weekend peopled with friendly folk and gorgeous countryside, life is good.
In other news, we’ve decided on Mazamitla for this weekend’s getaway, 90 minutes drive south of Guad on the other side of Chapala. Pictures will be forthcoming. Whether you like it or not 🙂
but I’m quite impressed with Internet Explorer 7 and all its taggy stuff. They’ve obviously learnt a lot from good old firefox, tags, search boxes, floating windows, and better RSS support. It’s faster to load and has slightly more screen real estate. It doesn’t look as sleek though as FF though and I’ll keep with FF on general principle…
Well today, I’ve done the first 4 pages of my history assignment and I’d forgotten quite how rewarding it is to write essays. Might post it later… we’re still in the mid 16th century i’m afraid.
Well there’s 20mins to go and i’m not sure i’ll be writing much more for today. Always finish before you run out of ideas is the trick with essays. That way when you start again, you’ll have something to write. So I’ll start slowly packing up me stuff. Let us know what you reckon to the lucha pix. Suggestions for next time etc… and I’m still up for the virtual busking, comment yer requests
Oh what a night. I’m a convert. I’m not sure of the names or who won or many other trivialities, but i do know that I smiled the whole way through. It’s like panto without the nagging suspicion you’re going to be dragged up on stage and made to sing the birdie song because you have a birthday in January, and it’s a lot better, natch.
I took tons of photos, at first, furtively, then getting more brazen and using the flash a bit, then they told me I needed a permit which you have to get in advance, so i watched for another 20 minutes, then sneaked another picture in. A lady came up and told me I’d be escorted out if I continued so that was that. I’m definitely going back and getting a permit next time so I can take some proper ringside pics. The place was packed and full of hardcore fans with their gimp masks and all. Something I’d not seen before in mexico was the class warfare. The people in the cheap seats (3 bucks) were chanting for the rudos and the folks where i was (6 bucks) turned around and chanted ‘pobres’ (poor people) back at them. There was a fence in between… Shocking… Besides all the action there were vendors selling beer, chicharron (deep fried pig fat/skin), pizza, crisps, fags and of course, masks. It was a great spectacle, I can’t believe I’d never been before.
Well, Sita, Jose, Jana, Victor and Cesar, you missed a treat, but I’m well up for going again. Oh, how I spoil you with options for seeing the pictures… first off there’s a Flickr Slideshow, Flickr thumbnails then there’s an all singing, all dancing, Windows Media File (4670k) (Recommended, broadband especially).
Some bright spark has converted all the series of QI (Stephen Fry & friends) to MP3s so i’ve been listening to them non stop. I love how what started as a harmless panel game has gradually descended into a primary school classroom with Fry as the teacher and the rest of them misbehaving. What other country could this format work in?
Channel4.com – IT Crowd Not quite sure what the benefits for C4 are, but many thanks all the same. Channel Four are streaming episodes of new Graham Lineham comedy The IT Crowd. And it’s got Chris Morris in it. It’s a cross between Father Ted, Black Books and The Office and is rather good. Click the link for the download page. Righty, I’m off to see Satanico fight Loco Max. On my own… cheers
Here’s the line up for the lucha libre this evening. Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks aren’t billed, but we live in hope. I’m sure EL HOMBRE SIN NOMBRE won’t fail to entertain… and if all else fails, there’s Strongbad
ARENA COLISEO: Martes 31 de Enero 19:30 HRS.
LUCHA ESTELAR: DOS CARAS JR., DR.WAGNER E HIJO DE LIZMARK vs TARZAN BOY, REY BUCANERO Y UNIVERSO 2000
LUCHA SEMIFINAL BLACK WARRIOR, SATANICO Y LIZMARK vs EMILIO CHARLES, HIJO DE PIERROTH Y HOMBRE SIN NOMBRE
LUCHA ESPECIAL VIRUS, TONY RIVERA Y STUKA vs OKUMURA, DR. X Y LOCO MAX
SEGUNDA LUCHA LEONO, TRUENO Y DANGER vs RAMSTEIN, MESALA Y CALIGULA
PRIMERA LUCHA RAYOS TAPATIOS I Y II vs POLVORA Y VAQUERO
So Sunday morning I awoke, stretched and started peeling spuds for a tortilla cos we’d been invited round some friends of Victor and Jayna’s for brunch (desalmuerzo?). Lots of Yanquis teaching in the American School of Gwod were round there and had brought such delights as waffles, pancakes, olive tapenade and bacon. T’was very nice and I got to explain what I was doing in MX. It was nice to say, Well, I’m not teaching English… Afterwards, V&J came round for a nice cup of tea and a sit down and agreed to come to the lucha libre on Tuesday… Sita missed out on all of this ‘cos of grant applications, Spanish revision and other trifles. I wandered off to Santa Tere to see the market being taken down, try and find some more ‘cars that resemble where they’re parked‘ and hunt down a cantina (La Taberna de Mou). Success on 2 out of 3; Moe’s Bar is still too elusive and I did walk for a fair while.
The evening was pleasant enough, with the leftovers of Sita’s recreations of tequila based dishes from Saturday and we watched El Matador, which is an American film set largely in Mexico D.F., and was pretty good. I rang Jose today to check he’s still up for the lucha libre and he is. He also wants to make a cortometraje mini film about some idea he’s had or other and is coming round to pitch it this evening. More news about that as it happens…
Sita rang me at work to say she’s got shunted by an SUV when she was waiting at a red light. Had a miserable time of it because the SUV was driven by a hija de la chingada miserable woman. Sita and the altima are unscathed, but it sounds like the slanging match they had wasn’t much fun. Bless her.
Cars come in pretty much the same colour in most countries, but in Mexico, the same colours are used for painting houses. It’s natural to suppose that if someone buys a red car, then they’re likely to paint their house red too. Maybe. I’m not sure if this is statistically significant but there’s a selection up on Flickr, click any of these photos for a look. Anroad, my latest quest is for shots of chamelon cars, that try and blend in with their surroundings…
Last night Sita came home knackered from her Tequila class, it was at a world class restaurant and they were watching various tequila infused dishes being prepared and then sampling them. She got a chef’s hat and everthing. Picture coming soon… So we didn’t do the whole music club thing, instead we settled down to Steven Colbert’s unique take on recent news courtesy of bitttorrrent and an early night. If I’ve understood it correctly right now (sat. midday) she’s off tasting cocktails with her class. That can’t be right surely? We’ll see soon enough. She took the camera so I couldn’t go on my photography mission so maybe this afternoon.
So what have I been up to? Well, driving sita to her class, but also watching Steven Fry researching his family’s history in a v. interesting BBC documentary, cooking a gourmet turkey bacon and cheese omelette and archiving my blog for 2004. Who knows? Maybe in the distant future people will wonder what expat Zummerzet folk in the Americas filled their time with in the beginning of the 21st Century and my since blog isn’t cached by google (deliberately) there’ll need to be a printed record. I’ve been reading all about the dread building up to Atticus’s arrival, my old job *shudder*, our doggy’s problematic behaviour at Xmas around Sally and Martin and all kinds of other things. I can’t wait to find out what happened next. To be honest it’s pretty sub-Adrian Mole (he mentions the outside world and other people occasionally) but it’s been a laugh. I’m glad I’m doing this. Anyway, if you’d like a 1.6 meg PDF of 2004’s entries to print out, email or comment me and I’ll send the link. That’s it for now, happy weekend and all that, byee, gwyn
Last night’s (patriotic) shepherd’s-pieathon spawned all kinds of ideas:
Tonight: Friday night music club round Jose’s psuedo uncle’s. Sunday morning: Brunch round Victor and Jayna’s Tuesday: Lucha Libre (wrestling). Definitely. No excuses this time… Sat/Sun: Arandas, Jalisco’s Tequila II Sun: Superbowl party chez nous (not my idea), I’ll be on pizza production again.
So that’s plenty to be getting on with for a few days. I feel like the photography’s taken a back seat the last few weeks, so maybe I’ll head off tomorrow morning with me 1 gig SD card and get some more Gwod cityscapes in. I’ve still got the Parque site to finish off too. So I’ll not be bored. Don’t you worry now.
Also in an idle moment I set up all my email notifications for spam at gwynunlimited to forward directly to contact @ phentermine-support.com, how d’ya like them apples eh?
When I logged into scrabble today I saw this message, thought it might help the folks who got here via google for ISC server status…
Worth a try
EDIT: 2/Nov/08: The isc.ro site’s been down for me (and everyone else according to http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/) for a week or so. I can still log in and play though… Doesn’t bode well.
EDIT: 1/June/08 : Just noticed a spike in traffic for hardcore scrabble addicts wondering what’s up with the ISC server. On their site it’s saying:
The main server is currently experiencing an outage. We do not have an estimated time to repair at present. ISC backup server is running, to connect select from the ‘Open Connection’ window ‘ISC backup server’ We apologize for the inconvenience.
I can’t connect to the backup server though… Hey ho. Looks like it’s back to Scrabulous on Facebook
Just testing a new button I’ve got on me browser that I can press when I want to blog a page I like… My scrabble rating’s presently at 915, highest ever. This year I intend to get past 1000. Sita’s moving over to the dark side though, with her Su Doku, so fat chance of any real world practice…
Did he even study for this exam? (c) Gwyn’s History School Report, 1988
The sad thing is I did. Anyroad, I’ve been all over the interweb and in and out of books researching the history of the Royal Inland Road and also listening to the Top of the Pods podcast (I even got me name read out on it the other day. And it has upwards of 1600 listeners…). So here is the natural conjunction of those two pasttimes: my Top 10 historical things I’ve learnt about El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro:
10. The whole thing about Moctezuma thinking (Conquistador) Cortes was Quetzalcoatl- their lightning god- returning was probably a convenient myth made up by the priests to showcase once again that God was a Spaniard.
9 Guadalajara was founded in 4 separate places. Injuns was the usual excuse for upping camp and starting again down the road.
8 Guadalajara is named after renowned sadist/explorer Nuo de Guzmán’s home town in Spain.
7 Nomadic Indians were a lot harder to fight than the settled ones, hence the 40+ year Chichimeca War from 1550 to 1590ish. ‘Chichimeca’ is what the Aztecs (not the most peace-loving of nations) named them. It means, depending on which source you use, ‘of dog lineage’, ‘language of dogs’, ‘dog people’. Basically sons of bitches…
6 The camino was originally used for sucking all the mineral wealth out of Zacatecas and surrounding area and supplying them with vittles from Guadalajara. Cos the land round them parts weren’t none too fertile.
5 The Chichimecas found it very easy to attack these convoys and used their impressive bow and arrow skills to take out the muleteers and who they reckoned were atrespassin’ on their land. Hence the swift change of route to go via San Miguel de Allende to Mexico City and stay well away from Gwod.
4 The Chichmecas only started playing nicely when the Spanish/Mestizos stopped attacking and enslaving them and started trading trinkets and baubles instead. Half Chichimeca/ half Spanish Miguel Caldera spearheaded the operation of ‘Paz por compra’ (peace by purchase) which replaced the previous tactics of ‘Guerra a sangre y fuego’ (War of blood and fire, or more roughly, shock and awe…)
3 Juan de Oate extended the route from Zacatecas up to Santa Fe, New Mexico once the Chichimecas had calmed down a bit. But he still had troubles when he had to finance the whole thing and there wasn’t much in the way of gold/ silver/ docile natives to find. His brutal reprisals in Acoma at his mutinous men and indignant indigenous peeps by cutting off feet and suchlike made him few friends, even the Spanish Virreyes stripped him of all kinds of titles and fined him.
2 The Camino Real was later important for all kinds of historic events. Which I’m still getting to… Independence, Revolution, Cristero War. And ting.
1 Wikipedia is more useful than any other site on the interweb for historical research. If I earned a living wage, I’d donate… I read the founder’s personal appeal, and he says it’s there for ‘the child in Africa who is going to use free textbooks and reference works produced by our community and find a solution to the crushing poverty that surrounds him.” And I’m sure if he’d pondered it further, he’d have continued ‘and impoverished Brits trying to research background material for a documentary of trinational importance in Mexico”.
And also, thanks, Amy, the latest Guestmappee who’s no longer in manateeville but NYC with a predilectation for audience participation in Comedy Central satirical news shows.
See you at AgaveWeb.com (Agave being the cactus succulent Tequila is made from, web being what spiders do and .com signifying that someone’s out to make money from the site you’re visiting.
Search terms that got people to the site. Michael Jackson Dance Moves is a regular one for Gwynunlimited, they get to the film review of 13 going on 30…
Google Pagerank
Righty, I’m giving it a week and Gwyn’s blog is moving addresses and all because of the Russians and their underhand phentermine flogging tactics. What they give with www.allofmp3.com they take away with this stuff. The archive will stay here but I’ll turn off comments and shove a bit red CLICK HERE TO GO TO NEW BLOG button in the first entry, then I’m afraid you’ll have to update your bookmarks, links or aggregators and hie thee hence to agaveweb.com/blog. I meanwhile will have to notify feedburner, technorati, google, bloggingbrits, and a ‘sinfin‘ of other sites to try to nudge the pagerank up a bit.
Cesar was true to form and didn’t take us to the Lucha Libre last night, el muy cabron. But we’ll get there eventually especially after Ed’s glowing recommendation in the comments in the entry below, somewhere after online casino, but before Viagra. We went out for pozole and tacos instead and I watched another DVD- Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman. Review coming soon to the IFRAME on the right… Breakfast and work beckon… hasta pronto, gwyn
WELCOME! Thanks for clicking through. I’ll continue with the entries about my life in Guadalajara, Mexico as often as I can, with the occasional link to new photos here and in the Flickr Photos bit on the right. Stuff I read/watch ends up reviewed in the IFRAME to the right as well, with the occasional link to longer posts. Because of WordPress’s easy integration with Flickr and other stuff, expect more links to sites I like and better annotated photos.
Archives from 2004-2006 from the old blog are available here and might even be available in a PDF one of these days… Of course there’s still a wealth of rubbish to read here too.
Un Inglés en Guanatos is Spanish for An English bloke in Guadalajara. Although there’s a fair amount of the Welsh in my ethnic makeup English will have to do for the tagline for the time being. Guanatos, is what locals call Guadalajara, like Brum for Birmingham, Bridgey for Bridgwater, Chilangolandia for Mexico City, etc…. Self-Apsorption Central is the English version of the title, ‘cos it’s pretty much all about me, by me and for people who know me. It took me about 15 months to realise that absorption isn’t spelt with a ‘b’ too… Anyroad, if you have any suggestions for a better tagline, feel free to comment it. Talking of which… Comments can be sent via the comment thing at the bottom of each entry, this time though, you’ll have to type the letters/numbers combo in before it will let you add anything, this (as I’ve gone into in too much depth already) is to banish the spam once and for all…
You’ll still find the usual introspection and apercus about the goings on round my way (often interupted with the gratuitous use of parentheses, ellipsises and the word ‘anyroad’…) and I’m more than happy to enter into correspondance about anything I’ve mentioned. I’m still up for recording mp3s of me playing acoustic guitar versions of any songs you’d care to mention too, so far: Here comes the Sun, Land of my fathers, and an as yet unidentified Name That Tune.
What else is new?
Well if you wanted to find the article where I went into depth about how to hypnotise rabbits you can now search for it with box down there on the right.
The Blogroll is a growing list of people’s blog I myself read. I’d be glad to add you if you’re not there yet. Unless your name is Phentermine.
RSS is now an option if you’re into that kind of thing, you’ll find a wealth of options for that.
If you’ve never added yerself to the guestmap, that’s something else that further brightens up me days.
So that’ll be all for now, can’t spend all my lunchtime blogging now can I? Arse, I just did… Shall have to have a quick walk around the block and have a Milky Way so I feel the benefit. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to make your presence known. Looking forward to your continued support and readership. Salud!
Cesar lent me a load of photos from 1998 when we went to visit Lake Chapala, I’ve just scanned some of them in. I’ve put on weight since then, but not as much as Cesar. ja ja. The lake’s put on weight too, mind. Best year evah.
Sita introduced me to Cash’s music only 5 years ago and I knew little about his story. This film whetted my appetite to know more since many reviews say it only hints at the real darkness in his life. The Spanish title is Johnny y June: Madness and Passion. I wholeheartedly agree about the passion aspect, Joaquin Phoenix is nigh on perfect as Cash from his stance, speech patterns to his on-stage persona, but we only see flashes of the madness (a few amphetamines too many, a Zeppelinesque outburst in his dressing room and a mano-a-maquina with his Massey Ferguson). The relationship with June is very well developed- and though not knowing much about June- I can only say that it’s a perfectly believable love story. The music throughout is well chosen and this morning I woke up with Ring of Fire echoing around my mind (which makes a pleasant change from ‘Can’t get you out of my head”…). If this doesn’t spark yet another Cash revival I don’t know what will. Fantastic performances all round, a great soundtrack and a gripping story make for a very memorable film. I hope we see a sequel as the closing credits’ ‘They toured for 30 odd years then died” doesn’t really do justice to the rest of this incredible man’s journey. Next time I’m near an English language bookshop I’ll be looking for the autobiography to find out more.
