Isaac Newton's Testicles

Disclaimer: this entry was written in pieces, sporadically, on a cellphone, and then converted into a format usable by the computer, and then loosely edited during a heated game of Spongebob Monopoly. And photos... forget about it right now. But I'll add them in later. Mostly I'm just posting these things as proof of life. So don't get on my ass about the grammar, spelling, or general lack of continuity. You try doing this shit while keeping a vigilant eye on your monopoly money while struggling to understand the rapid fire Spanish being spoken by three people who are all very capable of speaking English to make sure they aren't conspiring to distract you and steal the title deed to Tentacle Acres. End Disclaimer

Here are the scores as they stand now.

Swine flu and drug cartels: 0

Calen and Colten: 3

We have been in Mexico city for well over 24 hours now and the most dangerous thing we've encountered has to be the uneven sidewalks that so diligently try to reintroduce us to our often forgotten friends, Gravity and Twisted Ankles.  Every hora (hour) que pasa (that passes) sin (without) any of the excitement we were promised by the media, friends, family, friends of friends, homeland security, and random people on the street with strong opinions, we slip deeper into a state of boredom and despondency.  It's not so much that we want to be the victims of a random act of violencia.  It's the anticipation.  So like any bored tourists, we decided to take matters into our hands.  We spent most of today trying actively to entice the criminal elements of this fine city to take notice of us.  The plan was to spend the day walking around looking very conspicuously like lost tourists.  We did so by putting on our matching t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase "USA A-OK!!!," donning neon flavored fanny packs (yes, flavored), and reading all of our maps upside down while maintaining dumbfounded blank faces (it wasn't hard) and just generally trying to appear unfocused and vulnerable.  Fool proof, right?  Wrong.  We didn't even get so much as a sideways look.  The policia wouldn't even rob us.  And if you cant get taken advantage of by the police in Mexico City, then it's time to reevaluate your tactics.

We knew we had no choice but to crank it up to 11.  We went to the place where during the day, there are bootleg markets.  But we went at night when all that is left on the streets are the people who run the bootleg markets.   At night, the markets are closed and we figured without a clearly defined sense of purpose, the "fell off a truck" sales team would be happy to make our acquaintance.  So we removed our shirts and pants and tied them around our eyes, effectively rendering us blind and unable to serve as reliable witnesses against any would be criminals.  We then took all the money out of our pockets and stuffed it in the waistband of our underwear, being careful to ensure that the money was still visible from a distance and easily recognizable as large denomination pesos.  We then proceeded to perform the chicken dance, which we later found out was a much more inflammatory gesture than we had previously known.  Still, nothing.  I'm not sure if we overdid it or what.  The weirdest thing is that I think we ended up with more money in our underwear than when we started.  I guess it all worked out for the best though, because a cursory glance at a Mexican legal guide listed stuffing ones underwear with money and performing a dance in a venue not zoned for such actividad (activity) as an actionable offense punishable by several consecutive life sentences in prison or a fine of 120 pesos (currently about 10 dollars American).

Aside from behemoth failure at becoming just another statistic and perhaps a cautionary tale for future visitors to Mexico City, there were some highlights of the day.  We visited the Museo Nacional de Antropologia where we saw, among other things, this giant dong.

Don’t try and use your imagination.  It is exactly what it looks like.  It said so on the information card, and I’m pretty sure they proofread those things.  The museum, apart from its phallic wonders, or perhaps because of them, is quite impressive both in scale, and the detail of the exhibits.  There were burial exhibits everywhere.  We never knew there were so many different ways to stuff a recently deceased body into a hole and then leave it there forever. But leave it to the Prehispanic Mesoamerican indigenous cultures to find about a trillion different ways.

 

We rode the metro to the Zócalo which was the town center of old timey Mexico City if I'm not mistaken, which I probably am.  This was on the way to the bootleg market in Tepito and merited a look around.  I don’t think I've ever been in a cathedral that big before.  Oh yeah, there was a cathedral, and we went to it, and it was big, just to clarify the lack of transition.   It was, how do you say, very Catholic, with all kinds of beautiful and dramatic imagery, insanely detailed architecture, and you guessed it, high, arching, cathedral ceilings. 

After awhile it became exhausting seeing all the paintings and statues of people who were clearly better than us, morally, and just in general.  If any of them were alive today they would probably be better than us at video games, too.  We Brothers Smith like to maintain this deep seated delusion that we're ok people in the moral sense.  And depictions of pure, suffering, holy saints don’t do much but create feelings of inadequacy deep within our souls.  So we left the church to see if we could find some stolen computers or chihuahua fights or something.

We could tell that Tepito would have been awesome, had we arrived 4 hours earlier.  I guess the Mexican bootleg market keeps bank hours. Since one of our major concerns is maintaining a light load for travel, we resisted the temptation to impulse buy some authentic Kasio watches or bedazzled and officially licensed Ed Hearty shirts.  The bootleg leather motorcycle jackets seemed nice though, and I want to say that if your’e ever in Mexico City and you are in the market for a leather jacket that might, but probably won’t, prevent your skin from being ripped from your body in a 30 mph fall from a motorcycle, and you want to look good doing it, without the hefty price tag of tried and tested jackets, Tepito is the place to go.

On a more serious note, we learned from our new friends here about a march happening on Friday to commemorate a rather gruesome event in Mexico's history.  In 1968, the year Mexico City hosted the olympic games, there was a massacre of 40,000 (a four with 4 zeroes, this according to the account we received, although disputed) students and other unfortunate souls who happened to be in the area.  This was done in an effort to create a peaceful ambiance for the upcoming games because the government and students were at odds over certain oppression that most governments attempt to impose at some point during their existence.   The massacre was successfully covered up, somehow, someway.  And the profound pain of an entire nation was swept under the rug for the sake of what amounts to marketability.  This is only a very precursory description of the events, based on my very inadequate understanding.  But it merits further examination.  And even though it may seem like something that could “never happen to me” it’s a good illustration of why a government should be afraid of its people and not the other way around.   A government is an institution, inherently heartless ruling over millions of people each of whom possess both hearts and minds capable of profound feeling.  The relationship doesn’t add up.  Governments also tend to arise by way of violence and maintain power in the same fashion.  There doesn’t have to be a massacre or bloodshed for violence to occur either.

Tune in next time where I will discuss the very imperative issue of getting a street named after the balls of famous scientists like they do here in Ciudad de Mexico.