I Hear the Jazz Again
December 15, 2005
It was four o´clock and we were still in San Miguel. It was not the San Miguel de Allende I knew - where I came with my first love to listen to jazz on warm summer weekends - the town where Neal Cassady stumbled down the tracks to the death he had cheated so many times before. I didn´t know this place. I had to find its heart once again. Or leave, dejected and jaded. Robbed of something that I never owned.
Stopped in a cantina with my comrades for Pacificos y tapas to think it over. Didn´t know if we should make our way up the mountains outside of the city in search for salvation or beat down the line for Queretaro, this sacred place sullied forever in my mind. Time was getting short before I had to be in Mexcity and we decided to make for Queretaro.
Didn´t want to backtrack out of town so we pushed through the bumpy cobbled streets to the Mexican quarter of the now gentrified retirement community. The actual residents of this beautiful town are now being forced away from the Disneyland stage set festering at its once proud core. Come. Retire in beautiful San Miguel de Allende.
Where the streets are filled with cops and FEAR to make the pasty white trophy wives primped as poodles carrying poodles primped as trophy wives feel safe. It is the FEAR, ironically, that makes them feel safe in this place, now so divorced from reality. The plaza is no longer home to gentle old Mexican men bearing handlebar mustaches and gentle smiles clad in starched western shirts and cowboy hats, but frowning retired investment bankers from Connecticut clad in khaki "traveling" pants barely able to support the digital SLR cameras dangling from their fatty pink necks. These vultures and their accessories do not have any desire to see Mexico, or god forbid, any Mexicans who are not bringing them drinks or cleaning their winter home - so tastefully cluttered with as much "rustic" furniture and pottery as they can accumulate.
The cops now tirelessly guard this retirement community, vigilantly protecting the image of the town. As I rode past the plaza a Pinkerton on the take gave me the hairy eye ball and barked at me, sadly enough, in perfect English to "put a shirt on" lest I sully the view for the white people trying to take pictures of the cathedral and "quaint" Mexicans dutifully going about their lives in spite of the thousands of Nuveau-Maxmillians ruining their beautiful way of life.
I had to leave. Back on the bikes and plenty of sun to knock off some kilometers from mañana´s ride into Queretaro. Get directions out of town at the Pemex station. As it happened the careterra wound its way up the mountains overlooking the town I so desperately wanted to love again, and leave at the same time. Climbed to the top with an hour of sunlight left. As we reached the scenic overlook I saw the same mad look in Matt´s eyes that I must have displayed and we tore off of the road up the small dirt path to the top of the mountain. A group of old men in cowboy hats smile and gawk as if we were from some distant planet as the three unshaven gringos tear ass off the road and up the dusty mountainside.
The beauty of old San Miguel de Allende awaited us as we grinded our way to the top of the dusty mule track. The last 200 meters we were forced to walk the rigs up the loose gravel and broken glass. We were rewarded beyond our wildest expectations when the view of San Miguel was given to us at the crest. From here you could see the jagged blue mountains we crossed just days before bathed in the orange light of the setting sun bleeding into a long lonely plateau nestling the old town into the mountain where we stood in awe. This single moment redeemed everything.
All of the ugly tourists and retirees polluting the town were now gone from sight, reduced to nothing amidst the twinkling lights coming, one by one, to replace the setting sun. Broken bottles and broken hearts were scattered all about the ground at our feet where couples came to makeout and kids came to drink beer in the clouds above San Miguel. Here we decided to make camp, and bask in the splendor that lied before our eyes. It was here that I finally saw the town were Neal died and heard the jazz again. As if I were in love for the first time.
It was four o´clock and we were still in San Miguel. It was not the San Miguel de Allende I knew - where I came with my first love to listen to jazz on warm summer weekends - the town where Neal Cassady stumbled down the tracks to the death he had cheated so many times before. I didn´t know this place. I had to find its heart once again. Or leave, dejected and jaded. Robbed of something that I never owned.
Stopped in a cantina with my comrades for Pacificos y tapas to think it over. Didn´t know if we should make our way up the mountains outside of the city in search for salvation or beat down the line for Queretaro, this sacred place sullied forever in my mind. Time was getting short before I had to be in Mexcity and we decided to make for Queretaro.
Didn´t want to backtrack out of town so we pushed through the bumpy cobbled streets to the Mexican quarter of the now gentrified retirement community. The actual residents of this beautiful town are now being forced away from the Disneyland stage set festering at its once proud core. Come. Retire in beautiful San Miguel de Allende.
Where the streets are filled with cops and FEAR to make the pasty white trophy wives primped as poodles carrying poodles primped as trophy wives feel safe. It is the FEAR, ironically, that makes them feel safe in this place, now so divorced from reality. The plaza is no longer home to gentle old Mexican men bearing handlebar mustaches and gentle smiles clad in starched western shirts and cowboy hats, but frowning retired investment bankers from Connecticut clad in khaki "traveling" pants barely able to support the digital SLR cameras dangling from their fatty pink necks. These vultures and their accessories do not have any desire to see Mexico, or god forbid, any Mexicans who are not bringing them drinks or cleaning their winter home - so tastefully cluttered with as much "rustic" furniture and pottery as they can accumulate.
The cops now tirelessly guard this retirement community, vigilantly protecting the image of the town. As I rode past the plaza a Pinkerton on the take gave me the hairy eye ball and barked at me, sadly enough, in perfect English to "put a shirt on" lest I sully the view for the white people trying to take pictures of the cathedral and "quaint" Mexicans dutifully going about their lives in spite of the thousands of Nuveau-Maxmillians ruining their beautiful way of life.
I had to leave. Back on the bikes and plenty of sun to knock off some kilometers from mañana´s ride into Queretaro. Get directions out of town at the Pemex station. As it happened the careterra wound its way up the mountains overlooking the town I so desperately wanted to love again, and leave at the same time. Climbed to the top with an hour of sunlight left. As we reached the scenic overlook I saw the same mad look in Matt´s eyes that I must have displayed and we tore off of the road up the small dirt path to the top of the mountain. A group of old men in cowboy hats smile and gawk as if we were from some distant planet as the three unshaven gringos tear ass off the road and up the dusty mountainside.
The beauty of old San Miguel de Allende awaited us as we grinded our way to the top of the dusty mule track. The last 200 meters we were forced to walk the rigs up the loose gravel and broken glass. We were rewarded beyond our wildest expectations when the view of San Miguel was given to us at the crest. From here you could see the jagged blue mountains we crossed just days before bathed in the orange light of the setting sun bleeding into a long lonely plateau nestling the old town into the mountain where we stood in awe. This single moment redeemed everything.
All of the ugly tourists and retirees polluting the town were now gone from sight, reduced to nothing amidst the twinkling lights coming, one by one, to replace the setting sun. Broken bottles and broken hearts were scattered all about the ground at our feet where couples came to makeout and kids came to drink beer in the clouds above San Miguel. Here we decided to make camp, and bask in the splendor that lied before our eyes. It was here that I finally saw the town were Neal died and heard the jazz again. As if I were in love for the first time.
posted by Yonder Vittles at 6:15 PM
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