Tijuana Gringo | |
Daniel's Journal | by Daniel Charles Thomas |
11 August 2001. |
Tere went to a doctor by 5&10 today to have her stomach looked at. Groggy after the exam, I led her home and begged her to go to bed and not go out shopping. She had this notion she had to go shopping. But I knew it was the drug that had knocked her out.
Meanwhile, back downtown, the legs of the monumental arch are rising segment by segment over the corner of Avenida Revolución and Calle Primera. A strong construction fence has shut down traffic through that historic intersection where the road once rose up from the river bridge into town, where Carlos saw the Ferris Wheel fall down thirty years ago I read about in newspapers I delivered.
Until this great arch is finished, the mariachis of Plaza Santa Cecilia can no longer easily serenade their couples-clientele who driveby in cars and pickups. Ten dollars per song. You can still walkup.
I shudder to tell you what the great arch already LOOKS LLIIKKEE... or to whisper that the construction company who built Fox studios and tore down the casino had now refused to bid on the enormous parabolic arch. No creatures should be harmed by this here page @ internet Salon-style fiction. Change the subject back again. Someone else's plaque on one huge concrete foot is already rusty and says this monster arch was built in 2000... way behind schedule, they're building it a year later, no? Eh.
By damned coincidence, barely a block away up the diagonal pedestrian plaza, a new McD's has opened its doors at Segunda and Constitución. No traditional arches stand outside the new trashfastfood joint, only the yellow signs hang on the wall. Space is precious downtown. But, then, in the nearby distance rises the Gargantua of Pantagruel, the MONUMENTAL ARCH (Monumental Clock)....
A gateway to the red light zone, or....
Another beacon calling the tourist into Tijuana from Scam Marrasco's new shopping center just across the line at the foot of Revolución. THERE IS NO COINCIDENCE, ONLY chance and fate. Eagle or Sun, Heads or Tails. Money has two sides, same coin. Diggit? Duggit. Done.
I wrote the first drafts of this arch babel "day-before yesterday" in a chair in front of Carlos' kitchen. (Even my dates can be fictions, this journal WILL be edited -- I love the internet and all that/this possibility this/that therein Lies tathata/void.) I also wrote (first draft) a poem "today" in the park. Jason and the Argonauts really will be [was] on TV tonight. I wonder if it's dubbed or titled. In either case a good excuse for more language study. Hera, la madre de dioses. Hola, me llamo Medea. Bewitching Feh Ching Kvetch. Beware the man with one huarache sandal. 'Nuff sed, for now you know that whar what Caesar said "the die is cast" in Greek, NOT Latin (always was a class-conscious SnOB he).
Yep. "Whar" = "Where" and my mother's mother's mother's tongue was Scotch-Irish Methodist Anglo, transfered to Kansas. Don't matter how many books I shove down my throat. Nope.