Til the end part tres

A brief installment of the continuing journey through the East Side:

The New England Revolution are defending their title in the SuperLiga, a sort of champions league for North American soccer teams, but basically the US and Mexico. Games are broadcast on TV on the Spanish-language Telefutura. Last Wednesday, for a rare opportunity to see my team on TV down here, figured I'd venture to the East Side, where half the bars are Mexican-owned, and you some times have to order tacos in Spanish.

Walked from work at 17th and Congress down to 5th and I-35 to meet Phil. Sort of weakened by a combination of hitting the climax of my cold and walking in semi-oppressive heat (though really, I can't (and rarely do) complain - I wanted the opposite of winter in northeast, and I got it), trudged east of the highway, Phil walking his bike. First, to the bar on the left of Hotel Vegas. Walked in to see a family crowded around a Mexican soap opera. They asked how they could help - basically, a friendly way of wondering what the hell we were looking for - and through a translator, we surfed the channels looking for the game. No luck, and awkward enough that we left straight away, though they were nice. Then - and apparently what I thought was one big bar surrounding Vegas is actually two separate ones - to the bar on the right of the Hotel, "Texas Bar." Another dark interior, more Mexican soaps. But the bartender was totally cool, and found the game right away. The clientele was Phil and I, and about five Mexican women, all dressed up on this Wednesday night, their purses all hung on a peg over the sink next to the bar. They'd go to the sink to get money for a water or Coke. Game started, and the bartender talked to us a bit about the U.S.-Spain match from earlier. Didn't even ask us if we wanted drinks - not cause he was uncooperative, but because he wasn't presumptuous. Seriously, we could've watched the whole game without buying anything; he was happy to sit back and watch the game with us. No forcing us to spend money, no fishing for tips, just at our service. But we got beers, of course, out of courtesy and our own thirsty desire.

Just before the half ended, the Revs, down a man due to a red card, scored. Hell yes. Out to look for food, but no taco wagons open for supper. Something I just don't understand. They're open for breakfast, lunch, and late at night, but not dinner. So, to a convenience store, and back to Texas Bar. Bartender clued us in to a taco wagon that would be open, and erroneously thinking the game hadn't started yet, we went. Phil did well to get the wagon to actually open, and order en espanol, and we got tacos al pastor. Back to the bar, where it turned out the game was almost over anyway, and then Kansas City scored to tie it up. Well... that sucks. But the tacos were muy bueno.

Walking back on 6th Street, west of 35, much more oppressive than the heat. People decked out in designer clothes, cheesy music emanating from silly-named bars, doormen barking out drink specials... some times it just doesn't resonate. A week before saw a Thursday night crew-cut convention (i.e. probably military base leave or what have you) drunkenly tar the streets with dudes alternatively trying to pick fights and hold each other up. These things linger....

Then again, Phil, Laura, and I came back to 6th the following Thursday for our now weekly Jackalope happy hour, and had a marvelous night. Post-Jackalope, wandered over to Beauty Bar, on Laura's inkling, and stumbled upon a graphic design convention party. I asked about drink specials, and bartender replied, "As far as I know, it's open bar." Say no more, my bartender - round of gin and tonics, whiskey and cokes - because I know you ain't making martinis. It's okay, we'll get by, at the open bar everything is tasty....

Then Friday I came back to 6th to see Leftover Crack at Red 7, a club on Red River Street, which as I walked up and down, I realized is a bastion of great clubs hosting great bands on any given night - punk, rock, doo-wop, mash-up, trance, '80s covers - revel in it, it's all in the perspective: 6th street hits me dead wrong some times (but still better to be hit psychogeographically than hit by a drunken soldier who hasn't left the base in months), and some times it gels. As a wise person once said, if you start off a journey in a good frame of mind, you'll end up in a good place.

And in that spirit, the weekend continued: to the library, to the supermarket, to the house with my companeros, and between 2 and 8am: to two different pools, Stacey and Barton Springs, to swim and watch the sun come up with a bottle of Pinot Noir, while avoiding territorial gun nuts ("You wanna get shot?" No, we're just gonna swiftly walk away, thank you) and playing our part in the initiatory acid trips of others. And Sunday, though the US lost to Brazil in the Confederations Cup, the Revs won another SuperLiga match and move on. And I'll move on - to the East Side, to 6th Street, to the library, to the pools (away from the guns), into others' hallucinations, into bed, and out again. All a matter of perspective, you short-haired knuckleheads... I'm on permanent leave.

J'ai besoin d'aide

As the great Canadian punk band SNFU puts it, "Reality is a ride on the bus." It's true that a bus ride is a glimpse into the rainbow of humanity, and the more rides one takes, the more shades one can see. From an afternoon on the job hunt:

Riding the bus in the afternoon
Where are we all going?
With fast food lunches in tow
Pangs for the group of misifts
Rushing to the other curb
Young and old, all tones of skin
With tank tops or hard hats
Or bags too heavy, too bulky to carry
Some even without limbs -
Where are we all going?
If we work, we're in the shit
Whether for Capital or the State
Only the degrees of compliance vary
Others, the "lucky" ones...
Live off the trans fat of the land

Now that I have a job, I see the same people every morning on the #5 bus - something I never experienced with the subway in Boston. (That's not a diss; they're just different.) So I try to make up back stories for these people: the cute strawberry blonde with hip glasses who always looks straight ahead while listening to her Ipod before getting off at 14th and Lavaca, the older woman who often wears a skirt and sneakers and some times talks to other older regulars before getting off at 4th and Congress, the guy with the mutton chops and baseball cap and cargo shorts who some times smells of body odor and often seems to be studying diagrams of a sort and gets on at 8th and Congress... where he gets off, I don't know. I'm off at 18th and Lavaca.

The ride home is always different. Some times I wait for the 5, some times not. Two days in a row last week, I broke my iron rule of not giving out change (the principle is that if you give it out to everyone, you'll be broke, and it's too complicated to make evaluative decisions on the spot), while waiting at 17th and Guadalupe, because I felt some kind of urge. The first guy, a mid-30s dude with a shaved head and baseball cap, asked for 65 cents. At first, I said I didn't have it, but then I had that strange change of mind. Obviously feeling like he needed to entertain me, he told me about his high school club lacrosse team, who played against other schools, but weren't officially sanctioned, so they could drink and smoke on the sidelines, and host keg parties as fundraisers. Then he told me about going to his senior prom full of 10 beers and codeine (for lacrosse pains), how his date had to drive, and he couldn't remember where he'd made reservations. On Tuesday, the order reversed: a middle aged guy started asking me about this camera he had found, since he wasn't good with electronics. I realized it was, in fact, not a digital camera, and the roll of film had already been shot. We decided he should go develop it and see what was shot. Then talk turned to punk rock, and the old clubs on the strip, shows with the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, etc. Then he asked me for 56 cents. I only had 55, but he seemed okay with that. Since then, I've either needed to walk further downtown first, or have felt too antisocial to give out change and hear stories, and have been going to other bus stops.

Today I wait at 14th and Guadalupe. Sit down on the grass, let the smell of recently cut green waft into the inviting proboscis. Wait for the #5 to come and end this hell-forsaken work day. Honey, I'm coming home... please have either a fruit and cheese platter or an apple pie waiting for me on the kitchen table. Workeatsleep. Dreams of putting documents in order and endless trips to the copy machine. No time to play. On the contrary, the alarm on my internal clock goes off every day at 6pm - like a foghorn - and the hours between 6 and whenever are quite happy, happy hours. Apple pie is a metaphor, you see. Fruit and cheese platters are not.