People. If you know me at all, you know that I have a weird love for hanging out in shopping malls. I think it's because I grew up in a small, midwestern town where you pretty much only had a handful of options for how to spend your time.
Some examples of popular "hangs" for my high school classmates, circa 1995:
a. Hanging out in the parking lot of BP, bumpin' Bone Thugs and trying to get people to buy you beer b. Hanging out in the parking lot of Little Caesar's on Main St, blasting Sublime and going WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO c. Hanging out in Flushing Park, blasting The Dead and pounding Natty Ices d. Tokin' on Phat Doobz in a wooded area outside of town known as "Van Halen" e. Fingering/getting fingered in a car on a dirt road somewhere g. Hanging out at Denny's on Pierson Road at 12:30 am, singing showtunes, drinking coffee and pissing off the waitstaff (for teetotalling drama-club nerds like myself) h. Streaking through the Elms Elementary playground at night (seriously, if you don't drink you have to come up with more creative ways to pass the time)
Ok obviously Flushing, Michigan has a pretty awesome nightlife scene, but what do you do at 6:30 pm on a Saturday when you've already blazed through the entire Horror section at Family Video and you feel the need to head to the big city? (Flint)
You go to the mall, that's what.
I spent half my teenagerdom hanging out at Genesee Valley Center with my friends Pam, Erik and Mike. Especially Pam. We would hit the Taco Bell in the food court and fill up on Mexican Pizzas, and then spend the next few hours walking a loop around the mall's 125 or so stores. We'd go try on puffy Knott's Landing dresses at Jean Nicole and sneak pictures in the dressing room. Maybe after that we'd go shoplift some shit from Hudson's Department Store and then go hit up Hot Topic and make fun of some freshly-minted goths, but then sheepishly buy Smiths pins. Then we'd loiter around Record Town, Tape World and Suncoast Motion Picture company for awhile before ending up at the best mall store of all time, Spencer's Gifts.
Seriously. I have such a deep and passionate love for Spencer's. Look at the shit you can buy there!
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C: (WHAT IS THIS??!?!?!?! I am intrigued)
Exhibit D:
Exhibit E: (Wow)
This lives in my kitchen, and was purchased at the Serramonte Spencer's. Best $40 ever spent.
Don't even get me started on their stellar selection of Insane Clown Posse t-shirts, pot leaf hats, tit mugs and edible thongs! They should actually change the name of the store to Spencer's Gifts For Stoners and Juggalos.
I love San Francisco and all, but it sucks that you have to travel to Serramonte Mall in Daly City to go to a real mall. Downtown Plaza is all fancy and full of useless stores like Jacadi and Reiss - fuck that shit! A mall is just not a mall without Spencer's, or at LEAST a Frederick's of Hollywood. Even Stonestown knows where it's at.
As I've mentioned a lot in recent weeks, I'm really milking this whole funemployment thing for all it's worth. Pretty much as soon as I was laid off, I booked a trip to Tijuana because I knew it would be cheap and beachy, and my friend Jason moved there a few months ago and has been talking about how it's the new NY/London/SF/Berlin/Barcelona/Buenos Aires/Whatever.
I wasn't sure of what to expect. When I lived in San Diego years ago, my boyfriend and I took the trolley down a few times to do the typical shit one thinks of Americans doing in TJ - doing hella shots, getting our picture taken with a zebra donkey, eating tacos, vomiting in the streets and buying bootleg pharmaceuticals. Basically TJ back then was a playground for frat boys, sailors on leave and San Diego high school kids. In the past couple of years that has completely changed. Swine flu, drug-related violence and the fact that you need a passport to cross back into the US has pretty much wiped out TJ's tourist industry. Most of the Senor Frog-type bars lining Avenida Revolucion that used to be full of U.S. Assholes are shuttered and dark. According to Jason, only 2 out of 25 are still open. Surprisingly, in the entire 9 days I spent there, I hardly saw any gringos. In fact, one afternoon we were pulled over by the police just because the fact that two young Americans were walking through a residential neighborhood looked suspicious. After searching through all of our belongings for guns and/or drugs and making us wait 45 minutes on the sidewalk while they called in our id's to make sure we weren't on the lam, they thankfully let us go without incident.
From the moment I crossed the border in to Tijuana, I fell in love. It truly is one of the most charming cities I've visited. Downtown at night is loud, bustling and fun almost every night of the week, there's so much amazing (and cheap!) food to be eaten, the people are friendly and warm, and the beaches are amazing. Jason's lives in a neighborhood called La Cacho high up on a hill, and it offers an amazing view of all the diverse parts of the city.
I definitely plan on going back as soon as I can find some adventurous friends to go down and further explore the city with me. I promise, Jason and all the friends I made while I was down there are excellent tour guides and a whole mess of fun.
Sorry, no donkey shows though. You have to go further south for that, apparently.
Some highlights:
I forgot the name of this park, but it was sunny and cute and there were all kinds of families hanging out listening to dudes sing really badly into portable amps. Also, some kid kept kicking a soccer ball into my back. It smarted.
Jason and I had a killer breakfast inside this hat:
Abraham Lincoln is memorialized in the middle of a Hipodromo traffic circle, right next to an Office Max and a Domino's.
Jason is seen here on the left with his good friend (and now my good friend) Sergio Gonzales, co-owner of hotspot La Mezcalera, as well as restaurant Cielo. Sergio is coming to visit SF in 3 weeks! Can't wait!
Sergio invited us to go to the Festiva de Vimiento at the L.A. Cetto winery outisde of Ensenada that Saturday. We spent the day drinking lots (and lots...and lots) of different wines, eating amazing food, hobnobbing with rich fancy people and taking in the amazing scenery.
Here's me and Sergio relaxing in the shade and making fun of all the bitches who were already wasted at 3 pm.
The winery had its own bullring! We watched a couple matches, which were fascinating and somewhat beautiful, but brutal enough for me to be satisfied after watching two bulls meet their ends.
Jason after the bullfight, enjoying the scenery and feeling pretty fucking awesome:
Seriously, this place was so beautiful that it made me get all misty-eyed like a little baby faggot:
Jason, me and Sergio after dinner. This is the point of the night where Jason started to get wwaaassstteeeyyyyy.
The next day, Jason and I checked out the Pintura Animada exhibition at Centro Cultural Tijuana and then went to the Museo de Cero (wax museum) which is FUCKING BONKERS AMAZING.
The pope and some of his bros (Colin, is that you on the right?)
Me, Bill, and John:
Jason and the Ayatollah:
Luis Miguel and some rad dude who kind of looks like a mix between Slash and Kirk Hammett.
Not quite sure what Tom Cruise is doing hanging out with Jacko (RIP) and John Lennon.
Lurking Homicidal Harrison Ford and 60-Year Old Tranny Madonna:
Tea party with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes as "life partners" and Whoopie Goldberg mock-jacking off.
Lazy-eyed Bill Cosby fiending for pudding pops:
The Chamber of Horrors featured, among other horror movie villains, Disco Dancing White Man's Overbite Freddie Kruger (wearing a dishwashing glove over his knife hands?) When Baldur saw this picture he said "Oh! Actually he looks like he's waving like a friendly neighbor." OH HEY GUYYZZ YOU SIMPLY MUST TAKE A LOOK AT MY LOVELY DAFFODILS!
Um, who of my mans and womans friends wanna go here with me?
Bus drivers in TJ are allowed to decorate their vehicles any way they want! This jungle bus was my favorite.
Perfect Monday afternoon in Playas De Tijuana:
Perfect Tuesday afternoon in Baja Malibu:
Uh, thanks Jason.
On Wednesday night, I djed with Monica Munoz, aka LA CHICA COMETA at La Mezcalera. Monica played an awesome set (including Air Miami!!!) and people all over the bar were dancing.
Here's Monica and Sergio with their friend Carmen:
And here's me. Hi!
Cuuuuuute!
The next day I took the trolley up to San Diego and had dinner with my big brother Darrin. It was awesome getting to hang out and literally bro down.
When I got back, Sergio was at Jason's and the two below dudes showed up to watch Project Runway. Unfortunately, it wasn't on so we ended up watching Un Doble Shot De Amor instead. Their names are Luis and Emilio, but I will from now on refer to them as Las Gemelas Bisexuales.
I totally didn't wanna go out, but they convinced Jason and I to go have "a couple of quick drinks" at La Mezcalera.
"A couple of quick drinks" soon turned into a "long and totally ridiculous night."
On my last day we walked around and took dorky tourist scenic pics:
If you look really hard, you can see a fire raging in the hills across from Jason.
This is the outside of Jason's apartment complex. I call it "Mexrose Place." It's really cute!
That night we went to La Mezcalera one last time and then got pretty drunk across the street at Dandy Del Sur. I got really really really excited because the potato chips guy came by and Sergio and I scarfed down two bags covered in hot sauce. So good!
Emilio brought me a present! A silver chain with two sparkly shoe pendants. Perfect.
Buddies 4-ever!! (Seriously Jason, thanks so much for putting up with me for 9 days. Pretty amazing that we spent all that time together and never once got fought or got tired of each other. YOU RULE FRITZ!!!!!)
The next morning, I took the trolley back to San Diego and flew home to SF. I had the most amazing time in TJ, but I was so happy to get home and sleep in my own bed and take a nice, hot shower. (Jason, did you get your hot water issues fixed yet?)
Jason left me this comment on Facebook the next day:
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