Sunday, March 29, 2009

Palenque

The next stop on the the southern Mexico hippie love train is invariably Palenque, the Mayan ruin site in the jungles of Chiapas, and who was I to deviate?
But, what do you do if you are trapped in a hippie bungalow village in the jungle on a rainy day? Nothing to do but get drunk with Mariana in the middle of the afternoon. Note the bleary look in our eyes.We were at a place called El Mono Blanco, which i thought was a good sign, because, as you know, a Mono Blanco is just one kind of Animal Blanco.That night we saw our first performance of El Gato Negro and his Argentine band playing silly cumbias and reggae wearing the goofiest clothing possible. More from El Gato soon..Finally after several days in the hippie vortex I made it out to the actual ruins.Nearby, my friend Jeff and I found a sweet waterfall.

That night was the full moon, and a bunch of us went to a "Psycho-trance" festival nearby.The crowd was not as crunchy as I would have imagined- it was mostly a lot of rich Mexican kids from Tobasco and Verscruz, wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night and dancing like total goofballs. Some the DJs early on were not so bad, playing trance that leaned toward happy hardcore or even bassline house. One guy even played a remix of "Milkshake" that I thought was hilarious. But, by the time the 4AM headliners from Israel, Inner Action got up there, I was ready to gouge my ears out. Psycho trance is so execrable. There will be the same atonal beat for 5 minutes, punctuated by some digital gurgles and vocal samples from B movies about "Forgotten worlds" or "ancient secrets". Then they will have this huge buildup, hands in the air, spotlights on the crowd and the music will break into the exact same beat. And the crowd will cheer! Like "Thak god, there's that good ol' beat agian." Not to mention the beats have to hit on every single measure so that you can dance any goofy way you want to it. None of that confusing rythm that other forms of dance music can have.
OMG! This is the best photo I have ever posted to any blog, ever. This is a Mexican trance hippie, photographed at 5AM wearing a Dropdead shirt and a big fluffy hat at a rave. He had no idea who Dropdead are. My Rhode Island heads realize how amazing this sighting truly was.















1 comment:

  1. is that the same zombie face on that old blue jacket that i do believe belonged to jay lawrence?

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