Guadalajara 2025

TL;DR the author and his family visit Mexico - this may be edited later

With the kid in dual-language Spanish immersion and myself desperately needing to (1) practice Spanish and (2) see the sunshine before July, we decided to treat ourselves to a trip to Guadalajara. Why not. The flights were relatively cheap and it looked exciting.

The flight (our kid's first ever, and JL's first ever trip outside the US!) was pretty calm, thank goodness. We weren't sure. We had shown him some "Flying on an Airplane!" type DVDs from the library and brought the Steam Deck so he could play endless Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip on the plane. 

Layover in LAX - I had forgotten how crazy it is (the boy kept saying "why is this airport a shopping mall?!"). We eventually make our way to the Aeroméxico gate at the farthest end of the airport where we realize we are among the only English speakers there. All right, party's on!

Airport hotel shuttle. I am immediately glad I did not rent a car - I'm too timid a driver, I'd get smushed. We get hotel food and I realize I should have boned up on how to do things like ask for the bill, how to tip, etc. Oh well. The waitress is gracious and helps me with some of the lingo. Our room overlooks a trucking yard, which is endlessly fascinating to the boy the next day.

The next day we take an endless Üüüüüüber to our fancypants Colonia Americana Erbenb. The neighborhoods slowly change before our eyes from bonfires-at-night to building supplies to coffee shops and boutiques. The view from the Erbenb is nuts. Crazy sunsets and sunrises. There's a brunch restaurant on the block that only serves black food.

We walk and walk and walk. Chilaquiles every day. Coffee. Bookstores. New flowers and hand-painted signs at every corner. Great design on every brunch menu. Flyers on every corner for desaparecidos. Men's names called out in spray paint as an abusador. 

Friday we go to the zoo. It's a great zoo and the kid is a great age to take to the zoo. The heat is a problem for boyo and Oregon-bred spouse, so we head back to the Erbnb and they rest in the AC. I head out on a MiBici and ride around looking for a restaurant. The restaurant is not there, but I ride more and make notes of new places to check out. Biking here is fun. I lurch through intersections, assert my place in the street. It feels awesome.

I fail to get dinner and bring back potato chips. Oh well.

Saturday is a rest day because I get the dreaded traveler's dyuhryuh. It takes me out pretty bad but I recover quickly. I may never eat potato chips again. The Erbnb host's description of the suite mentioned "small gatherings on the roof" on weekends, but it turns out this small gathering was a high-volume dance party that shook the ceilings until 1 am. Fortunately, I was totally spent and passed out at 10.

Sunday we get more great chilaquiles in a candy-colored hole in the wall and I hurry back to catch the last hour or so of the Vía Recreactiva, in which the city closes down a bunch of major thoroughfares and people actively transport themselves through the city. It feels spectacular to be part of a huge crowd, from hipsters and goths on rollerblades to kids popping wheelies on BMX bikes for blocks.

We only brought two books for the boy, Garfield: Fat Cat 3-Pack Vol. 16 and My Cat Is Such a Weirdo Vol. 5. He has read each of them about a trillion times and has started reenacting scenes from both. The kid dresses up as a chef and pretends that My Cat Is Such a Weirdo is the menu, so we end up ordering a lot of "THUD-OOF!" and other delicacies.

So many little cars.

Monday we take the bus to Centro and walk around the cathedral, the central plazas, the grid of narrow shopping streets. The boy is mesmerized by a barrel organ. We take the last ride on the carousel before it closes for siesta.

MORE TO COME

Luxury middle age second-hand item alert

I bought two larger newer things to replace two smaller older things:

(1) We bought an electric vehicle, a Nissan Ariya. Second-hand, of course, but with very little use. Massive depreciation and the tax credit finally brought this cushy crossover into our price range. It is massive compared to my previous subcompact gas vehicles, but my kid calls it the "comfy-mobile" and is not incorrect. We're closer to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels in the household - just need to replace our gas water heater. 

(2) My old cheapo second-hand exercise bike finally started making horrendous sounds after a little over a year of frequent use, so I drove said electric vehicle up the mountain into Happy Valley to buy an open-box exercise bike off Craigslist. After much effort*, I assembled the thing, and while it, too, feels massive compared to the previous model, it is smooooooth, and I am less worried about waking the kid, who somehow slept through the incredible racket of the old one. While riding it, I've been playing Ys games (this time Memories of Celceta) and they are good cheerful low-brain action for keeping the legs moving. If you do Steam, most of them are on sale right now.

 *Said effort largely due to a Z-tier translation of the assembly instructions (naming and shaming: Xterra SB600), in which the various parts are referred to by a number of different part numbers, never consistent. My day-job mind struggles to imagine what would have led to this sort of error.

Cosmonox @ Firkin Tavern Portland 2/28/25

I'll be playing the squeaky card reader thingy plus a couple actual instruments this Friday at the Firkin Tavern in the rainy city of Portland, Oregon, USA. We open up the evening, hooray! Our musical brothers and sisters in the Vardaman Ensemble will be showing their latest evolution. (I'm not sure they've actually changed since the last time I saw them, but I think it's fair to assume.) I don't know Water Shrews yet, but they do have good taste in opening and closing bands.

Eternal Gormless Youth and Obscurity

The video for Snowy Band's "Looking Back" is very funny and a little poignant. Present-day Snowy discovers a video of himself in his tender years and copies the backgrounds and, um, choreography? I had some extreme feelings of recognition of myself in my gormless Guitar Vanity* years in my own nondescript suburban home. 

In a similar vein, I checked out Simon Hanselmann's Below Ambition from the library (yay libraries) and its depictions of self-indulgent patience-testing noise band squalor ring exceptionally true. His stuff has a strong flavor that I can't always take too much of, but I like this one.

The game Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip has been very popular with adult and youth alike in my household. It is sweetly anarchic and goofy. The writing is great. You smack everything in sight with a pipe. And importantly, it features a controller button solely devoted to having Terry make silly noises.

I plowed through Toni Tennille: A Memoir in a couple quick sittings. Not a great book necessarily, but earnest and readable. I now appreciate how much of a weirdo the Captain (RIP) was, and how difficult. The 70s were a weird time all right.

Is this a hot take? "Love Will Keep Us Together" > "Love Will Tear Us Apart." 

Also, I remember writing a blog post a couple decades ago about how it was comforting that you could always find a copy of Love Will Keep Us Together in the thrift bins, but I looked through the overpriced $3 records at my local Mormon thrift and didn't see it. The churning sea of thrift-store records does change eventually. Somehow I only seem to own a copy of the Spanish version Por Amor Viviremos.

I'm buying an Electrix Filter Factory from a friend and finally broke it out in Cosmonox Mode the other night. Holy mackerel that thing has the power. It will feature prominently at the show this Friday, hint hint, see next blog post.

* I need to put my album Eternal Youth and Obscurity up on Internet Archive

Cosmic Future Groove/Rose City Reads/Voice of Harold

Always interesting to see what sort of things the kid likes. Unexpected recent passion: Cosmic Future Groove Vol. 2. I did not expect my son to want to listen to 70s library disco over and over again, but I am not complaining. Today after the bath he mentioned that he would like to have a time machine so he could go to the 70s and listen to this music. He has been warned that the 70s also include "Muskrat Love." I think he thinks I'm joking about that being a real thing.

Because I cannot refuse a good segue: I had a chance to stop by the Friends of the Library's new book store Rose City Reads the other day. I picked up Toni Tennille: A Memoir because I had to. Will report back. Anyway: While the cheapskate in me misses the low low prices and beat-up library discards of the former Title Wave, the joy of discovery is still there, and a lot closer to me no less.

Sick boy. Lots of library Bluey DVDs. Sometimes things that are popular are good.

We've been reading old Childcraft stories at bedtime. One must tread carefully around some of the dated racial attitudes etc., including "The Five Chinese Brothers," yikes, but in any case that got the R.E.M. song of a similar name stuck in my head, quickly to be supplanted by the far superior "Voice of Harold," and my thanks go to rschreck for syncing up the song with its source material, the liner notes from the Revelaires' The Joy of Knowing Jesus:

Little stereos

At a Happy Valley yard sale last summer*, I picked up a very cute little vintage Realistic/Radio Shack stereo amplifier. I wasn't sure if I would have a USE for it, but it was only a couple bucks and it had the best aluminum knobs.** So I picked it up and found a place for it in my bike bags among my other finds.

Today I realized I wanted to give it a shot. Turns out it works super well (once I worked out all the dust from the potentiometers by sweeping them back and forth), and it looks pretty good. I picked up some super cheap speakers from the Mormon thrift store down the street, and for the price of a Costco pizza***, I'm in business.

I have set up so so many stereos over the years. Always a new apartment, always a new garage sale receiver, always fiddling with the speaker wires. Wires all over, my perpetual condition. Today I got out my wire strippers and triumphantly did some wire stripping. It is so satisfying. I could never be an electrician, but stripping speaker wire feels pretty good.

*Of course I went to a gazillion garage sales in this beautiful and bland suburb by e-bike, it was great, see my write-up from 2023
**I know, I'm a pervert for liking knobs and buttons so much
***RIP gluten, I miss you

Lines and rhymes 12/30/24

Lines that I've enjoyed in songs that are likewise great:

Aselefech Ashine and Getenesh Kebret "Meche Neow":
"Eager to see you return
I sleep facing in the direction you might be"
(just recently got this album from Mississippi Records, had known this song for nearly three decades ever since getting Ethiopian Groove: The Golden Seventies on tape from Merkato in LA before some G*ng W*z*rd show or other)

Cootie Catcher "Friend of a Friend":
"And you know that I could pick out your ears in a crowd"
(super catchy song, great video also, particularly with its awesome glitched-out closed-captioning):

I don't know any lyrics from this great post from Madrotter Treasure Hunt, but the second song is called "Badminton," and I'm trying to imagine what the lyrics might be about (great cover):