As I learned more about this curious fellow, I came to realize that his glorious vision of a mad world, where an aristocracy of eccentrics abandon themselves to leisure and luxury, portrays in abstract terms the very character of Mestizo Mexico; bathing in an orgy of blood and copulation, violence and mirth, whilst making fun of death and misery, it is the combined inheritance of a soul half-European and half-Amer-Indian. Hence, San Roman, who I would never have come across under ordinary circumstances, turned out to be the cinematic circus-master of the Mexican people I had only heard about in legend; a player of jokes and angry tricks throwing the distorted mirror in our faces. It is as if El Cucuy (the Bogey-man of Mexican Lore) comes for its prey, which is what some would say of the intent of San Roman’s “perverted” mind.
What then have I to understand of this early run-in with an eccentric figure of Mexican art? It would be an intriguing experience to delve into the heart and genius of this creature of mystery; a random set of chance occurrences that left me muddling over the workings of coincidence. To understand his movies, so I was convinced, is to understand the mind of Mexico. The whole idea behind some of San Roman’s films involves what he remembered as a child, and it’s really not the movie you are seeing, if you are trying to follow it. It’s the mind of San Roman you are looking through, perhaps even at the subconscious level.
It’s the soul of Mexico he was trying to release from the bondage of ignorance and superstition, which Mexico is still suffering from, by way of his Art.
Thus here, in the art of this mysterious cineast, a man who is dated by his special vision of his own culture, we learn that his own people are like a plague on the land, infecting even the dreams of the coming generation with doubts about the meaning of their survival in a world increasingly pre-occupied with transforming itself into a homogenized society of haves and have-nots. This is so eerily reminiscent of dilemmas faced by humanity before; dilemmas involving the future of modern nations increasingly inter-dependent by way of commerce, politics, and the welfare of their natural resources. This is so typical of the lessons coming out of history books, but no one, except perhaps a freak like San Roman, is smart enough to recognize the unfolding of events that will cause the Muse of History to visit Humankind once-more with old-time miseries and calamities.
At the human level, notwithstanding, all that San Roman could do was hold a mirror up to the society that forged his character and nurtured his prejudices; thus you have a man crying in the streets filled with mendicants unable to hear his complaints about their own filthy habits; thus you have a self-righteous artist condemning the sneaky beggars that make up a significant sector of Mexican society, and who have made of begging a going-concern. They profit from the misdirected compassion of superstitious, though sincere, people devoted to their idols, like La Guadalupana (a cognomen for the Virgen of Guadalupe, and don’t get caught calling her an idol, lest you imperil your life for lack of discretion), and worried that, if they don’t make gestures of charity, they might imperil the divine grace they hope will save them from their own ignorance.
Yet, the beggars happily play on their fears and sense of charity by using their own children to do the begging for them, and if the latter are remiss in their daily tallies, they get beaten without need of justification. Others yet put their children to sell trashy wares while the adults thieve around, their barbarity against their own offspring is almost too incredible to abide. And yet, this is supposed to be the reality San Roman grew up with, and tried to express through his art? I wondered about him and his intentions, for even the dirty habits of the common masses are loudly revealed through his images; the sputum on the streets, the vomiting and urinating, the drunkenness, the demanding righteousness and violent outbursts of provincial wretches that insist you buy them a drink if you happen to cross their malodorous path; peasants who have no escape from the harsh elements and oppression of their social betters, except to seek consolation in liquid spirits, to imbibe without restraint. These revolting details are poetically projected on to the cinematic screen.
And yet, his movies are regarded as out-dated, obsolete, old-fashioned and reactionary just because he insisted, by way of message in his films, on self-determination and personal accountability, rather than finding new and modern ways of blaming your parents, the Church, and society at large for individual sins and disappointments.
Thus, Mexico’s society, in spite of San Roman’s unheeded protestations, continues to be plagued with congestion, over-population, hunger (30 million people, as of 2010, are without enough to eat, or a place to rest in), ignorance, lack of opportunity, disease, pestilence, social unrest, and social decay. All that San Roman could do for the society he ostensibly loved was to grouch about all these things he knew could never be fixed, especially in view of the fact that nothing was really broken that needed fixing (or so his compatriots complained)!
Now that I got an education, albeit cinematic, on the whys and wherefore of a Mexico lost in the Sea of Fate sans a compass, I go on to the next rendezvous, the next random occurrence, reaching out to random hearts with a faint understanding of what next to expect.
Into the stream of consciousness I plunge, ready to let the current take me to wherever perdition wishes me to go!
BIBLICAL PLAGUES
IN THE LAND OF MAIZ
Whilst ruminating, palliating the setbacks of, and digesting, most excruciatingly, the vomitable crap that passes for food in Reynosa (and don’t you believe anybody that tells you that Mexican food is good wherever you go in the country), I would be exposed to more than a few odd, or downright bizarre characters. Speaking of the “beauties” of nature, if my mind didn’t have enough to worry about, I just got wind that Mexico is being over-run with an epidemic of the Swine Flu!
That’s all I need; to end up sneezing uncontrollably like a pig! (no pun intended ... that is, consciously)
Yes, I heard about it one fine Thursday morning on the TV news. I wrote to an old email correspondent, a certain Cecilia notable for her remarkable derrier; she wrote yesterday that there was very little mention of it beforehand, and on the Friday before the alert had been reported all over the news, people began wearing face masks, and all schools in the Distrito Federal and surrounding areas were closed ... gotta’ watch out for everything these days.
Things weren’t all that hot in Reynosa either, and soon I noticed many of the youngsters hauling off to school were wearing face-masks as well, and general car-traffic was down considerably ~ at least the awful virus did have that salutary effect. These initial days of my grand sojourn, it would appear, were already fraught with unseen dangers. I thought beforehand that I might catch some disease from something I ate, not from just breathing the air.
The next day, as I prepared to move on to my next stop, I learned that the danger was spreading throughout the land, and panic was beginning to set in, all of Mexico closed its schools, students across the land were asked to stay put on Friday after at least 16 otherwise healthy people were reported dead, and nearly a thousand others reportedly fell ill from what could be a totally undiagnosed strain of the strange swine flu. According now to the TV news-reporters, The World Health Organization worried that it could mark the start of a flu pandemic. FANTASTIC! Just as I get to this country, now I have to worry about a pandemic?
No one can know, especially not the Mexicans who distrust anybody with an academic pedigree, if the scientists in the U.S. and Mexico were actually working overtime to make certain if the deaths were all due to the same new strain of the pig flu that sickened seven people just in Reynosa, never mind the rest of the country.
Furthermore, the same World Health Organization counted at least 57 deaths in Mexico City, although it wasn’t yet clear if this larger number was due to pig flu. It might have been old-fashioned stabbings, love quarrels, or drunken binges that did the job of sending a few dozen more Mexicans to their final retirement locales.
“We are very, very concerned,” the mayor of
Reynosa announced on the radio, and said, “We have what appears to be a new sort of virus and it has spread from human to human.”
First of all, Really, you don’t say? to the mayor. Then, if international spread is confirmed, and with so many impoverished locals unaffectedly climbing over the border fences before La Migra (immigration officials) gets wind of their illegal crossings, and it will assuredly happen, then they will meet WHO’s criteria for raising the pandemic alert level, and they will have Mexico to thank for it.
Other officials raised the internal alert system on a Friday, enabling the federal ministries to divert more money and personnel to dealing with the outbreak, which really puts a damper on all the money laundering and other corrupt activities going on within the halls of the federal government.
So, with Mexicans getting in a tiff over a pig flu pandemic, well then, “It’s all hands on deck at the moment.” as the local mayor said.
What is a dumb tourist like me supposed to do under the circumstances? Now, it would seem they won’t let me go home because I might already be infected, and they don’t want to risk annoying Uncle Sam lest the virus should spread to Main Street America. I scoured the newspapers for leads; the latest coming out of the capital was that Mexico’s Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said only 16 of the deaths were indeed caused by the new strain, through testing at government laboratories. Samples from 44 other people who’d died suddenly were still being tested, though the officials were loathe to admit to the flu as the principal cause. The public health ministry put the exact number of the unlucky ill at around 943 throughout the country. How they came up with the statistics so quickly I was left dumbfounded, especially in view of the fact that they never seem able to find out where so many public funds go to, once one of their clerks discovers they’re missing.
But, what the hell does all of this have to do with me?
Hence, this fellow Cordova said samples were also sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (since Mexicans distrust their own agencies) to determine whether it was the same virus now infecting seven people in Texas and California. As of the moment, while I emptied my coffee cup, sitting here like an idiot in the “La Cocada” Cafe’ and unable to go nowhere until the officials said it was safe to take one of the buses again, the health ministry pawns reported that tests show the flu is a “new, different strain that originally came from pigs.”
Wow! Who would have thought that the Pig Flu actually comes from pigs! Personally, I thought the virus came from my brother Alberto’s boyfriend, whom everyone refers to as Juana la Cerda (Johnny the Sow ~ and what a sow he is, right down to his feminine hygiene).
Yet, Cordova, media hog that he turned out to be, came back to the air-waves and announced, “We certainly have 60 deaths that we can’t be sure are from the same virus, but it is probable.”
Furthermore, Cordova described a scary new strain that had felled only people among the expectedly less-vulnerable youth, as well as the mid-adult age range. One suggestion was made that the most vulnerable sectors of the population, babies and the old, had been vaccinated against other strains, and that the normally reliable vaccines may be providing some protection. But, how the Hell does that help me, considering the fact that I had not been vaccinated hitherto hopping on the bus for this country?
Some local clerks I asked, once panic started to irritate me, tried to reassure me that, “at this point, we do not have any confirmations of swine influenza in Mexico,” of the kind that sickened local residents, as well as the students in Mexico City.
All seven of the alleged U.S. victims did recover from a strain of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers had not seen before. So, I was left to worry about the swine flu’s symptoms, especially if they’d turned out like those of the regular flu, mostly involving fever, cough and sore throat. If it turned out the symptoms included vomiting and diarrhea, then I would be proverbially screwed, because the latter symptoms were already giving me a run for my money, actually and figuratively. And yet, they could’ve been due to the extraordinary cuisine of these parts.
Closing the schools in every city, particularly one with 20 million inhabitants like Mexico City, is at least containing this bizarre virus at the school level. Also, it was announced that they expected to keep 6.1 million students home from day care centers through high schools, and thousands more might be affected as colleges and universities gave their less than disappointed alumni an early Spring Break. Already it appeared that parents scrambled worriedly to juggle work and family concerns due to what the ever exaggerating news reporters decried was the first city-wide closure of schools since Mexico City’s devastating 1985 earthquake. The latter left me a bit sad since I was just beginning to enjoy the sight of attractive youths romping about getting to and from their schools by hopping on public transportation, or otherwise.
Cecilia, a grade school teacher in her own right, e-mailed me that she and other teachers at the Cuitlahuac World preschool scrubbed down their empty classrooms with Clorox, acid and Lysol between fielding calls from parents scared right into committing diarrhea on themselves. While the school had had no known cases among its students, good, ol’ trusty Cecilia actually applauded the Federal government’s decision to shutter classes, especially in preschools.
“It’s great they are taking these measures,” she wrote me. “I think these dildo-headed officials are finally using their heads, no pun intended.”
No pun taken, Cecilia (she certainly is good at describing people).
The less than overly-excited authorities of Reynosa advised local residents not to go to work if they felt sick, and to wear surgical masks if the moving crowds showed any of the symptoms. A wider shutdown including the shutting down of government agencies was being considered. If they had carried out the latter, needless to say, no one would have noticed!
Well, Cordova went back on the air-waves and announced cryptically, “It is very likely that classes will be suspended for several days. We will have to evaluate, and let’s hope this doesn’t happen, the need to restrict activity at workplaces.”
Damn! I really could not give a crap, except for the fact that I would be stuck in this dump indefinitely.
Still, other authorities insisted, there weren’t any reasons for alarm, unless more cases showed up in the United States. The five in California and two in Texas had all recovered, and their testing indicated some common antiviral medications seemed to work against the pig virus.
What was I to believe, therefore? The new strain could spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a pig flu virus, but the knowledge wasn’t helping with my case of the runs, and I was running out of toilet paper very quickly. Now the local feds (federal officials with the help of the local police) began to check for people who could have been in contact with the seven confirmed U.S. cases, who all got sick between late February and mid-March. I felt this was the last straw. They were taking this far too seriously, but obviously they were afraid of losing all that good tourist and narco-trafficking cash to a case of the flu jitters. Therewithal, they had to check every human bodily orifice from the cantinas on the El Paso border, to the Fayuqueros (the stolen goods stalls of the black market) on the border with Belize. That’s all I needed ~ to have some masked lab-rat of a technician snooping up my anus for any signs of the flu!
Frankly, it was obvious that the U.S. cases formed a growing medical mystery because it’s damned strange how these hapless patients caught the virus. The U.S. center for disease control reported that none of the seven people---seven out of nearly 420 million people between the U.S. border with Canada and the Mexican border with Guatemala---were in contact with pigs, which is (surprise! surprise!) how people usually catch swine flu. And, only a few were in contact with each other ~ but how much in contact they were, if you know what I mean, they didn’t say.
Hence, I went back to the Ayuntamiento (the city-government hall where all the agencies are located) to ask if
they had learned anything relevant since the last fright they’d served us; these clerks could not honestly tell their olfactory orifice apart from their own anus, but they tried to describe the virus as having a unique mixture of gene segments not noticed in people or pigs before. The bug that I was supposed to be scared about contains human virus, avian virus from North America, and pig viruses from Europe, Asia, and North America as well. In other words, it just left me to wonder: where and when had this sick and twisted sort of orgy taken place that produced an illness, which could very well have been a sexually-transmitted disease, that affected all three species?
Forget it. I really don’t want to know.
Anyway, these less than qualified officials described having seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental mix with more than one pig virus in the fray.
With all this free time on my hands to play with myself, figuratively speaking, I pondered: how could I know that I would travel hundreds of miles on a voyage of adventure only to have to keep a discerning eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs! The animals were only fit as pets (maybe), and for the kitchen, as far as I was concerned. Thence, I had to worry that they are very susceptible to both bird and human viruses, and a likely place where the kind of “genetic re-assortment” (a so-called expert said) can take place that could lead to a form of pandemic flu never seen before?
Time has at last caught up with science fiction ~ at least when it came to bizarre diseases threatening the future of mankind, that’s for sure! Now I was beginning to feel like I could not tell apart my own nose from my butt-hole, with due respect to the government clerks, but this damned virus might have been something totally new. Or, it may have been lurking about for a spell and was only recently noticed because of all the people going around defecating in their pants without having had a taste of the local chili-beans, as well as improved lab testing and disease surveillance, or so I was informed.
A Wetback in Reverse Page 2