February 2003- Joey Comes Home, Mexico Calls

The doctors had promised that if he got better soon that there was a chance he could be shipped to SanDiego. He did, and this is some of the last email from Baghdad -

HEY BRO HEY BRO HEY BRO.
GUESS WHAT, I AM LEAVING FER THE US IN 10 HRS. I DONT WRITE AFORE ACUSE I WAS GOING FROM THE HOPSPITAL AT NIGHT CAUSE WE DONT DO MOVEMENT DURING THE DAY. I CAN BE HOME SOON OK, I WILL CALL YOU WHEN I GIT THAR. ………(personal stuff followed)

YERGOINHOMEJDUSMCPUPNOTCRUSTYYETBUTSOONT0- BEJDUSMC...........URAHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!

" Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel"

All the good wishes so many of you sent Joey could have worked magic and helped him recover fast and get home. He's still in the military, so there's no way of knowing what's to happen next, but so far so good.

Now, circle back. Last year I was bumped on a flight and got a free ticket Anywhere NorthWest flies. Mexico City surfaced as the place I most wanted to see, now that I was speaking and understanding the language. I was there the first two weeks in October and the trip worked out just great. Just before I left Paul emailed me with info about a hotel a friend of his used- the Consul Hotel, Insurgentes 133. The rooms are $15.00 a day, so clean, the water so hot, and linen changed daily. You gotta speak spanish though - I think I was the only American there. It was no problem when a guy came up to the room with me and it was located in a place it was no trouble getting around.

I'd taken a list of gay places I'd found on the internet and 10 minutes after checking in I was out to check out the Bano San Juan, metro Salto d'Agua. I'd been in Mexico city in 96 on a Carlos Castaneda seminar, but didn't speak much Spanish then and was afraid to venture out of the tourist Zona Rosa. This time I figured if I could explore in Rio that Mexico City should be no problem. And it wasn't. The subway is easy to navigate and safe, and with a city map anyone can get along fine with public transportation - anywhere you want to go one way for 20 cents. I found the bath, it was $6 to enter the 'general' area. You get a little room with a little light thin towel and then go into the shower/steam/sauna areas. It's discrete, but so gay, and sometimes with the right combinations and timing not even discrete. A massage was $4, except they tricked me for awhile into thinking it was $8 and I paid $10. They were the best I'd ever had. Three sexy masseurs, three marble slabs in the middle of the place, wide open, first buckets of hot water, then soap then strong hands working all over. No shyness about nudity or touching genitals, totally cool. First on the stomach, then a shampoo/head massage, then on the back. Just great. Banos Finisterre at San Cosme was said to be sexier cause you could have a 'guest' in your room, so if you were into being private it was, but the masseurs there were much older and didn't try as hard to make you feel good. But at both places you could maybe hook with some really nice guys.

Franciso showed me the water gardens at Xochimilco and Aldo took me on a Sunday trip to Puebla (a couple of hours away on a nice bus). Javier was the sexiest guy in the baths that day and left in a suit looking like a banker, but over dinner I found out he was a manager at Walmart. In fact the restaurant VIPS where we ate, one of hundreds of VIPS in the city and where the meal is Mexican but credit cards are accepted, is owned by Walmart. It's not enough for CocaCola, Pepsi and Walmart to strip american cities of their tax base, they're cleaning out Latin and South America too. So we lamented the fact together while sharing all we could in the time we had. Luis, my very special macho Azteca guerrero, gave me more than one magical night, first at a cantina in Garibaldi Square on a Monday night that didn't end until Tuesday morning, and then made sure I got to the stone pyramids at Teotihuacan. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to spend. There's something very special about having a tweny-something guy making fun of me while at the same time wrapped all around me and tattooing/branding me" on my thigh in Spanish with a magic marker the morning of my departure :-). It was so so nice the way he was and if I were to move there I'd ……..:-)

The food is delicious. No stomach problems and I ate in different restaurants and on the street, the only caution being bottled water. The sky was blue and sunny most of the time, October is an ideal time there. To tell you the truth I couldn't believe how good a time I was having. I saw lots of art, did the tourist stuff sure, but I just liked being there in a mental way too. Those guys were special. The resenting
looks I expected to receive as an American abroad I never saw. It's humbling to receive such courtesies when my government never concedes them anything. With little help from us, they've built and have an incredibly vibrant, clean, energetic, hardworking, people-friendly city, one of the world's largest , only behind Tokyo and NYC and 3 million more than Los Angeles. Smog? The coast of Texas was worse from the plane on the way home. Having been in both cities larger than Mexico City, I can state that unequivocably Mexico is my favorite of the three. If you can, go there and spend your money in the Mexican owned places if you can.
Learn just a little Spanish and you'll want to learn more. Listen to some latin music and find somewhere more authentic thanTacoBell. But even more importantly realize how intimately Mexico has been in our history and how welcoming we should be of them and the good things they've held onto. Ok, off my soap box and to the drawing board:-)

P.S.you'll maybe smile to know I've made arrangements to
be back there during the holidays. Yep, the crazy plans we made in fun just might come true. He says we'll go to Acapulco together, and if that happens it will be the turn of another wheel.

You see, after I got out of school way back when, I didn't have a clue as to what I wanted to do. No clue after 6 years of a parent supported college education!. You can imagine the reaction to my big announce-ment "I'm thumbing to Acapulco!" Hahahaha... But Mom, ever the trooper, took me in my stylish Panama hat, a shoulder bag and suitcase, to Interstate 85 and dropped me off, both of us choking back the tears. Two days and two thousand miles later I knocked on Uncle's door in New Mexico. He had other ideas and 'derouted' me to LosAngeles. To cut it short I never got to Acapulco, but never lost the dream.

It's possible that after the month in Mexico I'll go on to Rio, so it may be awhile before any more painting.meanwhile best wishes for the holidays! (click here for christmas card)
MUCHO MUCHO AMOR,
tom

p.p.s. entitle this little story 'reality check!'
knowing that when joey was writing from the hospital that maybe they'd ship him to California cause his knee was too weak to fight, i was thinking about how to help. one of the guys on this list, who i consider 'family', offered joey a place to stay for R&R. i mailed joey and told him about it. joey wrote back-

... IM REAL TIRED AND GOT LEG THERAPY TOMORROW IT HURTS, WAAAAAA. ANYWAYS IM GONNA SLEEPY, YA THAT DUDE IN CALIF SEEMS COOL BUT DUNNO HIM, HONSET KINDA SCARED I GET IN A PLACE WHAR I MABIE GIT KILLED

my first reaction was 'are u crazy?!!! but now i realize he's maybe sharper than me. bad stuff can happen anywhere. so guys, if we can, let's do our duty, act smart, think lucky, play safe, have fun and be a friend.

that Kenny Rogers Gambler song comes to mind
...if you're gonna play the game boy, you gotta learn to play it right. you got to know when to hold up, know when to fold up, know when to walk away , know when to run. you never count your money when your sittin at the table, there'll be time enough for countin when the dealing's done. now every gambler knows the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep, cause every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser and the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep...

NOW, GOT ANY TIME LEFT TO LOOK AT ART?