Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

We converted our money to pesos, hopefully the value won’t deflate too much before we get back. We left about half our cash in U.S. Dollars because I have a feeling they will work better than pesos in most places anyway. Also bribes seem to work better with American money if it ever comes to that, better to be prepared than clueless. I got as stoned as I could but still had to ditch about half a sack of weed a mile before the border, some hitchhiker, illegal alien or street sweeper will be happy I suppose. The land of milk, honey and weed. I was fairly certain we wouldn’t be searched going IN to Mexico, I mean what is there to smuggle that they don’t already have? I just wanted to make sure there was no trouble, so except for the couple of joints I hid in my hat (don’t carry more than you can eat), I’m dope free. It’s not a bad thing, just ironic to me. Mexico is cool.

We haven’t gone too far yet, but the American bastard that is Tijuana is now behind us. We’ll stop and do our shopping there on the way back, but for now it’s outlaw country and Tecate beer signs for us. We’ve eaten at a couple of Mexican food places that were very good but also very tailored to American tastes. I’m going to stop writing now and live in the experience for a bit. Adios!

Cheap Motel:

Cheap motel, cheap motel, makes my eyes burn like hell. Oh cheap motel, cheap motel, I hope your owners have to sell, And the whole damn place falls in a well.

Stayed in a cheap motel in San Quintin (not the prison) last night. Not Motel 6 cheap, Mexico cheap. Their main selling point was that they had a bed and a half shower area with running water! We ate some badass tacos from a street vendor last night and washed them down with Tecate beer, which is cheaper (and safer) than the water. Fucking great. The motel was on a dirt road, a turn off the “highway” and we almost got our feet stuck in the mud trying to get in and out of the dank room.

This morning I got pissed because the shower was so cold that I froze my nuts off, then it cut out right in the middle of my bathing so I had to get most of the soap off my body with a cold wet rag. I went out and looked at the shower pump for the entire Motel and it looked like only it had about a five-gallon tank on it. Ooh I’m just being a surly bastard now but I hope some emotional friction will create warmth. After getting nice and muddy pushing the car back to the road, totally negating any value I might have received from the hellishly cold shower experience, we ate at this café that serves only breakfast and lunch that our guidebook highly recommended and was probably the only reason we stayed in this little village of a town to begin with. The café is actually a room with a couple of picnic tables in this old lady’s house and she cooks the food for people in her kitchen. While we were there my clumsiness finally got a good laugh out of Jenifer. I accidentally knocked over a gigantic pot of salsa that was brought to our table and I tried to overcome my language barrier to explain what had happened to the lady in the kitchen so I could get a rag and clean it up for her. Jenifer’s masochistic streak kept her from helping me so I was getting more and more frustrated and embarrassed trying to tell Rosa about the “queso”. “Queso” means “cheese” but I got confused and thought it meant salsa for some reason. So I’m standing in the door to Rosa’s kitchen saying “cheese, cheese” over and over waving my arms in a circular fashion making what I think are the universal “please give me a rag so I can clean up the mess” motions. Jenifer’s rolling on the floor laughing at this point while I’m trying to play international charades and pantomime a pot of salsa falling off the table using simulated explosive sound effects and yelling “Queso!” Poor Rosa was just standing there cooking our eggs, smiling and nodding like she understood exactly what I was saying the whole time. I guess that’s what you do when a six-foot tall, unshaven white man with soap in his hair, covered in mud comes into your house and starts yelling “Cheese” at the top of his lungs.

I fucking suck at Spanish! The breakfast was incredible though.

Oh If I could just tame Jenifer’s free spirit and only dress her in the finest designer couture she should be wearing, force the underlying sense of style on her that we both shun, if only to help her conquer the world. It’s as if she was purposefully living in the raw awaiting my discovery. My treasure. My girlfriend. Damn I love her so much. She’s a ravished and beautiful outlaw woman, cruising the badlands of the notorious old West with her gringo companion.

This is amazing country, mostly untamed, seemingly an unlimited wasteland unaffected by the people who manage to eke out an existence here. It’s warm during the day and cool throughout the night but during the summer the heat must be unbearable, a mirage of warbling watery heat patterns reflecting off the mirrored sand. There are lots of cool cacti here too, standing straight and tall. Very phallic. Their deep green gives an illusion of abundant life that might lay just under the harsh surface of the desert. Jenifer and I saw about fifty buzzards sitting on the rocks just outside of town. It was an eerie scene, watching a gathering of all these scavengers in their off time. It appeared as if the vultures were waiting for a catastrophe to rain down meat from the sky or perhaps they would converge on the town later awaiting a yet unknown disaster to befall the villagers. The scavengers didn’t seem to have any particularly ruthless agenda at the moment though, so I took some pictures and we moved off down the ill-repaired Mexican highway.

I may have mentioned before that I don’t find the desert a particularly pleasant place to be, but I am happy to be here with Jenifer. It’s been a hard trip but the adventure is oozing with romance. I get such a good feeling cruising through the crisp evening air, snuggling against her dirty flannel shirt, listening to her warm breath and the lingering smell of Marlboros in the car. It’s never felt so nice to feel so small, like I’m hanging onto the coattails of a Nordic sex goddess as she tears off on some mission involving the fate of the world. Whoops! There go my ‘want to be dominated’ feelings again. In actual reality I’m scared that my bad attitude about some physical problems is turning the notion of “us” off for her. I shouldn’t be frightened though; I’m acting under the impression that she compensates for my surly attitude times the way I’ve learned to adjust to hers. The way we’re so damn evenly matched is sometimes scary.

Tourism has yet to rape the best parts of the beach but there are occasional signs of hotels being planned or built. It’s so hard to believe its December already and so hard to write down every detail of life that I want to keep preserved…

God is telling us to take a look at this, and God, we are looking. So much to see, so much to explore. My God takes care of his fools and his children, Jenifer and I qualify as a little of both. Old people seem to like consoling themselves by watching tragedy, maybe believing that the world will fall apart after they are gone. Jen and I both seem to be intelligent enough see the world falling apart today and we’re trying to enjoy it while we’re still here and in control of most of our faculties. Who knows, maybe enlightenment with a more worldy perspective will be of aid to our conscience when we finally have to grow up and sell out, and how about a little bit more sassy wickedness until that conscience is called into play then.

Our love for each other could only be more intensified if it was forbidden. Ours will be a love of legends. I feel so fortunate just to be here now, knowing that most people search the world for a lifetime looking for half the intimacy we share. We take pleasure because it’s not recognized as fleeting, but because it exists at all. “Jen, for better or worse, we are not mere insects .” (She just looked at me like I was crazy just then. It’s hard to belt out random quotes based on a whole thought process and then have people look at you crazy.) We are better because we abhor monotony and are not satisfied by daily drudgery, I believe there is a flaccid resigned happiness that comes with being satisfied by mere sustenance. I’m just thankful for the chance to write down the events in my life.