Bringoutcherdead! Bringouchyerdeed!

Rich, having the same grasp on Spanish that toddler does on the very first cheerios he is able to feed himself, has made a proclamation. Even though he hasnt quite mastered basic verb conjugation, he has declared a revolution on the Spanish language and fancies himself the Che Guevara of this revolution. Among his many ambitious goals for this revolution is to teach the many Spanish speaking people of this world how to pronounce the name of a popular brand of Latin American chips in a fashion that's a little more "kiwi." He also wants the phrase "si to that shit" to become an often used part of the Spanish lexicon. If you notice, that phrase has Spanish to English word ratio of 1 to 3. But he insists that it would be a valid and useful combination of words for Spanish speakers. I for one, believe he can do it. And so i support him with my whole corazón, a word which I am certain I will have to define for him if he ever reads this. Only when he asks about it, he will pronounce it like "craisin" just like the wonderful dried fruit snack that saved the cranberry farming industry from extinction.

He outlined his plan on the way to the border Nicaragua as we rode the nicest bus weve been on to date. Daddy Day Care 2 dubbed in Spanish played in the background, the landscape of El Salvador passed before our eyes, the clock read 526am and apparently the conditions were ripe for revolution. We had purchased tickets all the way to Managua, but after three or four border stops and 7 hours, we just got off the bus in León, Nicaragua's second largest city.

The hostel we stayed in actually had the most interesting attraction of the city, right within its walls. This attraction was a street dog named July that came and go as he pleased but had definitely hit the street dog jackpot by allying himself with a hostel that had cushions and pillows at ground level and lax regulations about dogs using their facilities. The first day we got there, July failed to move an inch for 12 full hours. When we whistled, he would move his ears 9/10 of an inch to indicate to us that he was alive and his ears did work. But never a full inch. I made the ridiculous assumption that he lived at the hostel full time and just kind of hung around all day. But all those assumptions were dashed to pieces when, walking home from the centro one night, we ran into July at the corner of Calle Tercero Noroeste and Real de Guadalupe. He was headed in the opposite direction. But upon arriving at the corner we exchanged pleasantries. Apparently lacking any other pressing obligations, he decided to join us wherever it was that we were headed.

Theres not much to say about July. He was a normal, healthy mutt, unnuetered, happy and apparently unfettered by the demands of the rat race to which weve all given our lives. Immediately after this impromptu meeting we all learned two things about July. We learned why he was so commited to conserving energy during the daylight hours and we learned that he had excellent spatial reasoning skills. We learned both of these things the next time a Ford Festiva taxi with 13 passengers drove by. July lined himself up in the street when the car was still about a block and a half away and waited patiently head turned vigilantly to the rear. As the car approached he began a light saunter and sped up slowly until he was running at the same speed as the car. This happened exactly at the same time that the car got next to him and at this point he began barking with resolve. The easiest thing to compare it to is in old westerns when a cowboy had to board a moving train from the back of a horse. I didnt have a microscope on me because i traded it to a street vendor for an ice cream and a DVD of the movie Oceanwalkers, but if i had had one, i would have been able to offer empirical evidence showing that the distance between July and the car was exactly the width of a single electron. And im pretty sure he would have gotten closer if the laws that govern the physical functions of the universe didnt make it impossible. He had a lot of faith in the skill of the driver because in Nicaragua, drivers dont swerve out of the way for street dogs. Especially taxi drivers. Despite this there is a distinct lack of roadkill anywhere in latin american cities. And i have a strong feeling that if a dog ever got hit by a vehicle in the street of any of the cities weve been in, the evidence would remain for a long, long time. So not only does July have excellent timing, he also has a precognitive link to the mind of the driver of any given car and so he can anticipate their movements with godlike accuracy... and then bark a lot. He did this unfailingly, to every car that had the misfortune of passing us on the way back to the hostel that night. Then he laid down on the floor couch and didnt move for a few hours.

The following day was the Dia de los Difuntos, which is the Nicaraguan Day of the Dead. Its a little different from its mexican counterpart in that it's celebrated on the 2nd and there isnt as much fanfare. Its still a big holiday though, and when we went to the cemetery we saw more people in that one place than we had seen in the whole of Nicaragua put together. People go to the cemetery to do maintenance on the graves of their deceased loved ones. And then, if the vendors present were any indication, they drink orange juice and eat popsicles. I might be oversimplifying a bit, though. Everywhere people were painting and flowering and weeding graves. The most capitalistic among the people had arrived at the cemetery with shovels and machetes and had them available for rent, or offered their maintenance services to those who could afford it. When business was slow, as it invariably appeared to be this year, they just engaged themselves in playful machete fights, or machete vs. rake fights, or machete on shovel, or the classic and often most entertaining, machete sucker punch special. I think its further evidence that we need to do something about the state of the world economy. The downtrickle is horrendous, and when people have to choose between paying a 12 year old to pull weeds from their great uncle Bartholomew's gravesite or eat a late afternoon cemetery popsicle, things have gone too far. No one should have to make that choice.

Never has it been so apparent that the imposed social class system carries on even into death as it was in the Nicaraguan cemetery. Some gravesites cost more than a prebubble burst American home, with marble and statues and modern appliances like refrigerators for the dead, toasters for the dead, electric toothbrushes and a lifetime supply of Glisten... for the dead. Then there were others that were just an unmarked pile of dirt. Some of the piles had been maintained, some had not. There are bones under their for sure, but they definitely arent enjoying well chilled milk. Which is something any pile of bones will tell you is important for preventing osteoporosis. There were also middle of the road graves, marked but meager and usually subscribing to the idea that pastels are the colors that will be in for eternity. They probably have a toaster, but it isnt digital or stainless, and it only has three settings and it never toasts evenly. I guess the same is true in American cemeteries, that there is a class division even amongst rotting flesh. Im not a very opinionated person but i think thats the dumbest fucking thing ever in the universe and im still strongly opposed to blowing up the moon as well. So here is my proposal, and Ive been assured by my attorneys at Bob Loblaw and Assoc. (Twofer) That this is an actionable clause in my last will and testament. When i die, donate all my everything to people who need it or science or drop me off a building for a sweet youtube video or something. Use the viable parts for fertilizer and ground beef. Then whatever is left, make it as compact and uncumbersome as possible. If i can be vaporized, feel free. Whatever the case, i dont see any reason to leave behind a diseased lump of organic material. And i want to donate my skin, but all the recipients have to use it on visible parts of their body like their face, or if theyre a stripper of some kind, anywhere else. But at least make sure they've checked the technicolor box on their burn unit entry paperwork. So thats it, until i die, ill battle fiercely in the class struggle. But after that, i just want someone to wear my forearm skin on their face. I said forearm. Ive been circumcised twice. Once when i was born and once when i dropped a shampoo bottle in the shower and a bevel on the cap somehow managed to repeat the procedure with surgical precision. I wish i could say i had been frightened by a jaguar, but that would just be ridiculous.

After Day of the Dead ended and we scoured the town to ensure a lack of zombie activity, we geared up to head to Grenada near lake Nicaragua. This would require us to travel through the capital, Managua. A place where just days before the US ambassador to Nicaragua had made some disparaging and public remarks about the president of Nicaragua. This propelled the sentiment of welcome and hospitality to an all time high, which is a Spanish word that means rock bottom absolute lowest possible. Also we committed our first act of auto theft and met a Nicaraguan street hustler who spoke English way too well but knew where to find good Chinese food. All this and more next time... same murciélago time... mismo bat channel.

Boulevard de Enrico Fermi's Megatons de Destrucción. You thought I forgot.