Go gringos!

Those who have read "Winners," the chapter in my book First Stop in the New World about soccer fans in Mexico City, understand that I basically know nothing about the sport, and could hardly care less, which makes me quite the anomaly here. Last Wednesday night at about 8 pm, I got into a taxi and, as I often do, asked the driver how life was treating him.

"De la chingada," he said, which could be loosely translated as ... let's just say I'm sparing the children here, if any of them read this blog.

"Why?" I asked. "What's the matter?"

"We lost against the United States," he said. "Two to nothing." It had been a qualifying match for next year's World Cup.

I feigned surprise. "How could that happen?" I asked. "Aren't the Mexicans much better players than the gringos?"

"You're from Europe, right?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "I'm French." Immediately I started to release the letter "R" from the back of my throat, and stress the last syllables of most words. (I wasn't trying to be a smartass. Mexicans tend to take soccer very seriously, even moreso when the U.S. is involved. I didn't want him to make me get out and walk if he found out I was a gringo.)

However, he went into a rant that had nothing to do with the gringos. Instead he complained about how badly the Mexicans play; about how there are too many foreigners on the national team; about how Sven-Goran Eriksson, the team's Nordic coach, doesn't know what he is doing; about the absence of teamwork among the players.

The driver, in fact, said that the U.S. was playing better than ever. Perhaps because he had a "Frenchman" in his taxi, he added that this was because there are so many Europeans on the team. He waxed rhapsodic about Zidaine.

He sighed and said what they always say around here when Mexico screws up a game: "We played like never before and lost like we always do."

The only martini in Mexico City

Although I wouldn’t go out of my way to dine at the San Ángel Inn, the patio of the restaurant is one of the loveliest places to have a drink in the world – at least in the parts of the world I have visited. It is located in an ex-hacienda from the late 18^th century, and when the weather is warm, sitting there among the hummingbirds and bougainvillea is enchanting.

 

People who drink margaritas swear by the San Angel Inn’s version of them. (I try to avoid them because sweet drinks are deceptive – they go to my head before I notice.)

 

I like martinis but tend to be impossibly picky about them. The San Ángel Inn is the only bar in Mexico City where I will drink one. Or two. (The city is crowded with trendy joints that make chocolate, vanilla and strawberry martinis. That these drinks are called “martinis” at all strikes me as sacrilege.)

 

Aside from knowing how to mix them, the best thing about the martinis here is their presentation – in miniature silver pitchers within miniature silver ice buckets. This is not just an aesthetic consideration. The ice assures that they are freezing cold, and temperature is the most important thing about a martini. The potato chips served alongside are made at the restaurant. Drinking doesn't get much better than this.

Can it

William Booth, who covers Mexico for the Washington Post, recently contacted me and asked if I would be willing to talk trash with him. He was preparing a story about garbage in Mexico City. The amusing and informative results can be found if you click here.

I told him that when foreigners arrive in the city, one of the first idiosyncrasies we observe is how few trash cans there are. I have walked for what feels like forever with a used Kleenex or toothpick in my hand, fruitlessly searching for a place in which to get rid of it. I have taken to putting them in my pockets until I get home.

However, Booth told me about a pilot project in which 1,200 trash cans had been installed on the streets of the Centro Histórico. I told him I was skeptical of such a high number. But a couple of days later, while walking in that neighborhood, I noticed that there were suddenly as many as three garbage cans on a single side of a street.

Then I realized that they are popping up in other neighborhoods as well -- in well-to-do areas, in any case. They look like the photo above – double-barreled, for organic and inorganic materials. (Sorry for the poor quality of the image.)

Some of them, like this one, seem to have been installed improperly and have slipped from their moorings.

In other parts of the city, old-fashioned mores still flourish.

Sweet potato

Some people in Mexico City – mostly European immigrants – from time to time twist their mouths into a Gallic moue and complain about how this place has become agringada – “gringofied,” or Americanized. Without a doubt, in well to do neighborhoods Starbucks has become ubiquitous, and Wal Mart Mexico is now the largest private employee in the country. There are also the predictable outposts of McDonald’s, Burger King, and most omnipresently, KFC. In ritzy areas, shopping malls, of the mega and strip variety, are becoming ever-present.

However, despite these perhaps inevitable indicators of “progress,” Mexico City remains an emphatically Mexican city. Each evening, an hour or two after sunset, I hear a shrill steam whistle that tips me off that a vendor of baked sweet potatoes is passing by. He will sell them plain (the way I like them), or dress them with condensed milk, sugar and/or honey. Another whistle lets me know that the knife sharpener is on the block. The gas man cries out when he passes by, as does the guy who repairs curtains and the other who buys old newspapers. This is the way business was transacted centuries ago, and has nothing to do with the contemporary U.S. I wonder where the Europeans are when all these guys appear.

Chicken King, part three

In the past 25 years or so, while on the job, Gregg Lucas has broken four ribs, both hands, both legs, dislocated his left shoulder and hurt his back so badly that he needed to wear a neck brace for eight months. Nevertheless, he says he loves his work – he’s an actor, model and stunt man – so much that he would never think of leaving show business.

Perhaps, however, he was thinking of hedging his bets when a couple of years ago he bought PIN Pollos, a chicken shack in the Colonia Roma on Calle Campeche, almost at the corner of Monterrey. The birds are marinated and grilled over a wood fire. You can have them delivered to your home if you live in the area, by calling 5574 6349. Sometimes the actor will bring them to your doorstep himself.

Lucas grew up in the U.S. but has lived in Mexico for the last 15 years. Here, he has modeled for Eagle Eye sunglasses, a brand of milk marketed to people over 40, and has even been the Marlboro Man. He’s appeared in various Mexican soap operas, and was “the first guy to get killed” in Matador, a Pierce Brosnan vehicle that was shot here.

He hopes to combine his two professions at some point. “I have an idea for a TV commercial,” he says, “where, to deliver a chicken, I get on a motorcycle, then a paraglide, then a jeep and finally on a horse.”