Send good thoughts to the American music icon Levon Helm

By Mona Goldwater, Jack Brummet, and Pablo Fanque

ATIT sends love and prayers to Levon Helm, a great drummer, singer, mandolin player, writer, and spirit, whose music deeply moved us and carried us through many happy and not so happy times, and who helped transform our music, all for the good. 


From Levonhelm.com:

"Dear Friends, 


"Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey. 


"Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration... he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage...


"We appreciate all the love and support and concern. 


"From his daughter Amy, and wife Sandy" 

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A Broken Bone: a Donald Rumsfeld poem created from an interview with Bob Woodward

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Editor

A Broken Bone [1]
By Donald Rumsfeld


[1] I created this  poem from an interview between Rummy and Bob Woodward on July, 2006.

Click on Rummy and President Ford to enlarge

If you don't set it,
Everything grows around the break
And you end up with that abnormality.

I used the phrase it's like teaching
A youngster how to ride a bicycle.
You run behind them with your hand in the seat.

At some point you've got to take some fingers off,
And then you've got to let go,
And they might fall.

You help pick them up and put them back on it.
But if you don't take your hand off,
You end up with a 40-year-old who can't ride a bike.

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Woman in sumo wrestler's suit assaulted her ex-girlfriend in gay pub after she waved at man dressed as a Snickers bar

Via The Old 97's. . .

All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).

Shell shock

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Back!

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor

image via http://www.friendlyanarchist.com/

As always, it's so great to be home--and enjoy my house, clean water, my (fairly simple and cheap) toys, and 'Merkun foods.  More daunting, however, was to begin a new job, ten hours after landing, and after four months of artistic freedom, contemplation, writing, reading, and best of all, idleness.  Being back in the saddle has its merits, but it's going to take a couple of says to soak in and make the proper course adjustments.

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Public address trucks in Bucerias

By Jack Brummet, North America Travel Editor

I always love the public address trucks in Mexico.  These days, sound systems have far better fidelity and tend to be carried around in vehicles more appropriate to the size of the loudspeaker.  In earlier years, it was not uncommon to see a 1970 Volkswagen with a gigantic speaker duct taped and shock corded to the roof of the car.  The speaker was often almost as tall again as the car itself and wobbled precariously on each pothole and turn. You could not always decipher the message being blared because the speaker was so overdriven that you heard more distortion than words (and the words were often laid on top of blaring banda music).

You don't hear them nearly so often now, and when you do, it is a little more professionally put together sound system.  I suspect if this was mid-election cycle, you would see and hear far more of them.

Walking up the hill to Billy's Gym today, I did bump into this one:

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The street next to my casa in Bucerias

I have loved tromping up and down these streets these last two weeks. It has been wonderful to be utterly on foot here. Since we arrived, the only time we have not moved via our shoes was a day this week when we took a bus to PV to see my friend Pegeen. . .
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The best bus driver ever - a wacky ride from P.V. to Bucerias

By Jack Brummet, Bus, Plane, Ferry, Taxi, Autorickshaw, and Train Editor

Today we went to visit our long lost friend Pegeen White who lives in Puerta Vallarta. We had a great time as she showed us the parts of PV a native sees (the parts we had never seen before as tourists visiting from Bucerias for one day). It was a fantastic day of hours of walking, poking around, saying hello to various of Pegeen's friends in restaurants, on the street, and in doorways, and exploring, climbing hills and visiting shops, parks, the river, and la playa.

The fun continued on the bus back to Bucerias. We took one bus from her neighborhood and caught a Bucerias bus on the highway out of PV. You often see sleek, modern, air-conditioned buses along that route. But they are generally not destined for Bucerias/Punta del Mita/Sayulita. The bus for Bucerias is almost always a bus that has seen better days--not dangerously malfunctioning or hideously tattered, but a bus whose best days lie sometime long in the past. Other buses have clearly legible analog destination signs that the driver can flip by turning a lever. Some even have slick digital signs. The buses headed headed north from PV generally use an analog white shoe polish destination system (see illustration below).




As soon as we mounted the worn steps, I knew it was going to be a great ride. The bus driver dug around in his wooden box to hand me a few pesos in change, and at the same time swung the bus around a water truck taking a left turn. As soon as he cleared this objective hazard, he fumbled with, and answered his cell phone. As he chatted briefly with whoever was on the other end of the line, he violently veered the bus back over to the right lane and onto the parking strip as he handed me my change. A woman was flagging the bus down. Probably one of the sweetest things about buses here is that, while you can catch them at officially designated bus stops, you can also catch them anywhere else. In short, the entire road is a twelve mile long ad hoc bus stop. This is one of the most charming things about Mexican buses, and one of the most maddening when you are in a hurry, or tired. . .

As we made our way along the road, we not only stopped at the official stops, but at twenty more unofficial stops.


a picture of just about every bus driver in Mexico's co-pilot

Our bus driver was in his early 20's, and seemed like a great guy. At almost every official and unscheduled stop, a friend or acquaintance would come up the steps and chat him up. These exchanges often involved small sums of money given to the friend. These sums came out of the wooden transit fare box. At one stop, another guy walked up the steps of the bus.  He and the driver had an amusing conversation that ended with the bus driver handing him a few pesos. The young man walked off, and returned in a couple of minutes, trying to cadge a few more pesos. The bus driver said something like, "get me a few more passengers, and yeah, I'll give you some money. " The young man rounded up a few more Bucerias and Punta del Mita riders. The bus driver handed him more pesos from the transit kitty. I just read this to Keelin and she said the kid told the driver he would not get off the bus until he got some more money, nor would he step on the bus and actually pay. He would just linger at the entrance and block anyone from getting on. It was a good natured hold-up with lots of joshing and smiling. It was a game. And it was hilarious. Then the guy said he'd ride along to the next stop, where he also rounded up additional passengers for one more payout. We were back on the road for another minute or so and picked up a cute twenty-something woman. She may have handed him a transfer, but it looked like she rode gratis.

As we continued, every mile or so, the driver would make a wild turn around a turning vehicle, usually cradling a phone on his shoulder, and trying to make change for the latest passenger.

Back on the highway, we headed away from Puerta Vallarta, and there were fewer people not at the official stops. However, at almost every official stop from here on, a guy with a clipboard—apparently some low-level transit system functionary/apparatchik—would step on board, do a fist bump with the driver and chat back and forth for a few minutes, after which the driver would dig back in the box and hand the clipboard guy some coins. There was always a lot of good natured chatter and best wishes. This happened five or six times before we got to Bucerias and stepped off onto the highway's shoulder to cross the street.

As we exited, there were four people working the cars on the highway stopped at the light. One person was selling bouquets of local flowers; another had a bucket of water and soft drinks; one person sold soccer jerseys; and another was performing various tricks with a flaming stick.  And then we stepped onto the calm, quiet, verdant side streets of Bucerias.

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Bucerias street sign, illustrated (Faces No. 284)

By Jack Brummet
[sharpie on street sign found in trash heap, 11" x 28"]

click to enlarge

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Signs around Bucerias, Part 2

By Jack Brummet

Mexico Travel Editor

As I was shopping for dinner and walking to the gym, I shot a bunch of signs around town...

Click signs to enlarge.

Some of the street signs around town are sponsored.  This calle is brought to you by Corono Extra.

The front wall of a courtyard along Calle de Lazaro Cardenas (the street we live on)

A funny (and sad due to the content) sign at a fish taco joint.  A day later, they put up a corrected one.  I liked this version better.

The best beauty parlor sign ever.

The dumpoy Marilyn in front of Billy's gym.  It is about 22-25 feet tall.

The address sign in front of our house.

The back doctor.

Now that looks like a fun day care center.

A motivational conference poster.   Wow.

A mural at the Sal y Fuego Hotel

another mural at the Sal y Fuego Hotel

Politics.  Es hora de cambiar!

The Calcetin Solitario (Lonely Sock) Laundry

Telephone ad.  Don't know what the palm means...

Because there are so many dirt roads, most cars here are dusty.  Many have dust writings.

Mega Fria!

There are few franchises here, but Curves is one.  With a hand painted sign.

We couldn't figure out if this is a joke, or a warning sign saying "don't do this."

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Drawing: Obit

By Jack Brummet
(with my embarrassing Spanish, and assistance on the teeth by my nephew Otis)

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Easter Dinner in Bucerias at the Trini and Ishmael Lopez home

By Jack Brummet, Mexico Travel Editor

We went to Easter dinner at our friends Trini and Ishamel Lopez's house today.  The live across the arroyo on the hill above Bucerias.  We brought along our entire crew--Keelin, Dave Hokit, Maureen Roberts, Eric and Megan Sanchez, and their two kids, Otis and Olivia.  The Sanchez's departed for the airport and San Francisco after dinner.

On Thursday, the Lopez extended family (eight of them) comes to our house for dinner (I'm cooking).    And on Friday The Ericksen-Curran family arrives (and we depart for Seattle on Sunday). 

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