C. Hannibal cinema culture

Google Video pick of the week #012

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I´ve never been an extreme dog lover, but last night I gave Beba (feminine form of ¨baby¨) a bath. Beba is one of Mexico  City´s street dogs. She lives in Colonia Roma, on a busy calle dotted with hotels, taco stands and upscale restaurants. She´s not a comedienne, but she can be wildly entertaining, especially when she´s hungry. She´s finicky, though: ham, cheese, sausages or chicken for this perra.

If you´ve traveled around South America, maybe you´ve seen roving packs of dogs. I know I did on trips to Chile and Colombia in the past. Dog populations seem out of control in some places, and I´m always curious about things local governments do to control them.

In Mexico City, I don´t see that problem, maybe in the ¨Establo¨.  There are groups here that look out for these animals. The only reason Beba, whose only consistent home is the patch of sidewalk in front of the garage where she ¨works¨, hasn´t been scooped up by canine enforcement is because she has an i.d. tag on her collar. It reads ¨RAMBO  Beba¨. Either ¨Rambo¨ was her former name, or someone wanted to save a few pesos on a dog tag and reused RAMBO´s.

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C. Hannibal buildings, mexican culture, visually speaking

Corrupt edifice

There´s an abandoned 2-story building on the Roma Sur side of Viaducto Miguel Alemán. Too bad I couldn´t climb in, it´s all gated up. Didn´t stop some painters from getting down. The walls were covered with portraits.

This was the front of the building.

This was an athletic facility on the edge of a field in Bosques del Valle. Spent a Saturday afternoon at a band practice across the street.

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C. Hannibal cultural history, mexican culture

Tepito Owl

Around this time last year on a Sunday, late summer, I made a trip to Tepito with the homie Mazaki from Japon. Strolling through this legendary, chaotic, historical, and powerful black market, one thing ( in the mountains of sneakers, clothes, DVDs and .99 Store  musthaves) grabbed my eye . The Tepito owl.

There was a young street kid, hustler, with a bird cage strapped around his neck. I disregarded the other exotic birds sitting in the cage as regular parrots, which they probably weren’t. The thing that seemed unreal to me for the first minute, was the miniaturized owl perched on the edge of the cage. No way. I snapped a quick flick with my BlackBerry , slick as can be.

Or so I thought. Photos are prohibited in this (black) market area. About an hour later the same kid walks up to me. Was he tracking me down? I thought he might try to get his Education of Sonny Carson (1974) on, really step on my line. But he basically told me off for taking his picture while he was illegally pushing exotic animals. It was cool to see the baby owl again, though.

I just told him that was a dope owl and it needed its picture taken. He understood, I think. And no one was cut.

Makes me marvel at the market savvy of these Tepito hustlers. I’m thinking they were building off the popularity of Harry Potter. How serious would that be for a kid if her dad brings her home a pet owl, just like the characters in the book?

Well, now you know where to go America.

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C. Hannibal buildings, cinema culture, cultural history, mexican culture, visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #011

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In my neighborhood, when the jack hammers and tractors get rolling at 2 a.m. you know they won’t stop until well after 5a.m.  I try to ignore it, just bury my head under my pillow a little deeper, until I muffle all the sound. I’m not too light of a sleeper, but some nights these past two months, it got hard to sleep. Here’s why. And for that, I’m not trippin.

That is to say … I know that sound.

It’s not  just an annoying 10 ton clatter that makes its way up and down Cuauhtémoc Ave. It’s more than that.

It’s the sound of progress. Road infrastructure, public transit, just .38 cents and you’re home.

It’s that Westside extension putting a hole in Beverly Boulevard.  And it’s something like the Metro Rapid in the Valley, except out here you MUST pay to get on.

It’s also the extension of the Metrobús in Mexico City.

Which brings me to this week’s GVP. I picked the documentary, Bogotá: building a sustainable city, not because Brad Pitt narrates it, but because it’s about Bogotá, Colombia. Maternal lands.

You see, Colombia, along with Brazil were the forebearers to the style of bus service called BRT that Mexico has been recently using. It started out as a model of sustainable design, and now is a way of life that’s growing and costing lots of money.  Colombia’s Transmilenio was the first BRT I ever rode on back in 2006, when I visited.

So, check out the video, below, and learn what Bogotá can be like.  I’ll be fighting mucho ruido trying to hold on to at least a few hours of REM sleep. All in the name of progress.

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C. Hannibal mexican culture, visually speaking

Ad sequence: Benicio, the Ice Cream Man

benicio del toro advertising

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Benicio Del Toro´s Magnum campaign kicked off earlier this year. It´s been Mexican bus stop signage since at least April. I kept seeing this ad, and wondering to myself what this means when an actor does these kinds of moves. I can´t imagine an Oscar winner doing this for the U.S. market (Eva Longoria was the Magnum spokesperson just before).

Reminds me that huge stars do ads in Japan for the types of products you´ll never see them shill for in their home market.  What´s the public reaction in Mexico to this ad? I guess the goal is to get people to eat more overly sweet dairy bars. I just hope Benicio knows that Mexico is already one of the countries (along with the U.S.)  where diabetes and obesity are increasing.

basketball ads in mexico

Basketball and football have a lot of fans in Mexico City. Doesn´t compare with soccer or wrestling, however, that´s slowly changing.

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C. Hannibal cinema culture

3 Day Weekend

It was a rough week. Working for an online sweatshop isn’t good for a guy like me. Rent has got to get paid. I mean, the allure of the gig rests in the fact I get paid on time, and in a super convenient manner. Not feeling those extra charges, though.

Well, who doesn’t complain about his job?

For those of you who hate your jobs, and have this Memorial Day off, let your 3 Day Weekend give you all the rest you need to tackle the beast again on Tuesday. Remember: we gotta pay rent.

I did’t drop a GVP this week, so to make up for it, here’s 3 ways to kill some time this weekend. As always, courtesy of Google Video.

My pops is a fan of this movie. It’s a French neo-urban-noir flick that uses physical expertise at a martial art as its centerpiece. The scenes of Parkour get a little corny in places, but some of those moves are crazy.  District B13 aka Banlieue 13 (2004).

Find a good copy, here.

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C. Hannibal mexican culture, music

Breaking Borders in Neza York

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It’s actually really hard for a young Mexican man to get a visa to visit the U.S. these days. Doesn’t matter if you have a job, or if your parents are decent people. More people who go to the immigration office here get told NO, instead of YES.

But if your 3-man b-boy crew wins the Neza City Breaker’s 25th Anniversary dance-off next weekend, you can get a spot competing in Las Vegas in July. Visa included.

Neza, a part of town that I mention a lot here, is home to B-Boy Manolo and his Neza City Breakers. For reasons that I’m still trying to figure out myself, breaking in Mexico is older than MCing, or rapping.

There’s about a 10 year gap in between the time Mexicans took to backspinning, versus the time they’ve spent making MC tapes and cds. Of course, if I’m wrong, I hope someone will shoot me an email. I’ve talked to a lot of people and signs seem to point to a later start for rhyming on the mic, here.

In interviews, B-Boy Manolo has said it was the exporting of Flashdance (1983) that brought breaking to Mexico City. A key scene featuring the late Frosty Freeze of the Rock Steady Crew, is largely credited with pushing the lifestyle outside of N.Y.

R.S.C‘s Servin Ervin is scheduled to be a judge at the Neza event, set for next Saturday and Sunday.

For a list of whose coming to the anniversary event, which will also feature graffiti workshops and plenty of rappers, check out the flyer after the jump.

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C. Hannibal cultural history, mexican culture, music

San Judas and Reggaeton

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What started out as just wanting to share a mini documentary called “San Juditas…Power!” (2008),  above, turned into an encounter with fan sites, and forums, focused on big-time hate for reggaeton.

*add (5/20): According to the video, the San Judas “cult” is a transnational phenomenon that started in Chicago,  and later made its way to Mexico. As the director tells me, “Es el santo para los ladrones.” He’s the thief’s saint.

I haven’t paid too much attention to the San Judas followers, since moving to Mexico City. But it’s obvious that most of the young people you see on the train, toting their horned Jude statues, and heading for Templo de San Hipólito every 28th day of month, are from the outskirts, and some of the roughest areas of the D.F. metro area.

According to Catholic.org, San Judas Tadeo, or Saint Jude Thaddeus

…is invoked in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them. Therefore, he is the patron saint of desperate cases and his feast day is October 28.

The anti-reggaeton sentiment, I think, is more classist than anything. The reggaetoneros are viewed as thugs and neardowells, when in fact, most are just young kids among the desperate and needy whom San Judas is supposed to protect. Albeit with airbrushed and rhinestone caps.

One Facebook fan site, is filled with pictures tagged with racist and mean captions and comments.  Odiamos a todos los reggaetoneros ke van a la iglesia de San Judas los 28’s (We hate the reggaeton fans who go to the San Judas church on the 28ths) has over 4,000 fans.

You can see a few of its mocking portraits below, and after the jump. There tends to be special distaste for reggaeton’s doggy dance or perreo that the kids do.

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There’s a last.fm group called “Anti-Reggaeton”.

Below, an undated, partial newspaper clip about the subgroup that makes up so many San Judas followers.

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C. Hannibal cinema culture, cultural history, music, Racially Speaking

Cotton Club Legend

Hand me a late pass, but I would’ve felt remiss if I didn’t dedicate a few blog lines and Youtube clips to this month’s passing of the great Lena Horne.

L.A. culture crit, Ernest Hardy, dedicated a moving and quote-filled post to the lady on his blog, Blood Beats.

For me, she was a face I was most familiar with in the late 70s and early 80s, via episodes of the Muppet Show and the Cosby Show (I was one of those kiddies raised in front of the tube). I figured why not share that cultural memory, while these clips are still available.

The Cosby Show (1985) “Cliff’s Birthday”

Muppet Show Season 1, Episode 11-Lena Horne

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C. Hannibal visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #010

As a  tattoo artist named Sol, from Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl recently told me at a party, “You need a higher degree to understand Jodorowsky. He’s not for the working man. Too abstract.”   While that may be true, Alejandro Jodorowsky is still a mythical multidisciplinary talent, best known in the U.S. as one of the progenitors of midnight cinema.

Above is La Montaña Sagrada, or Sacred Mountain (1973), a film that followed his breakout El Topo, and was bankrolled by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The film, which at times can seem like one long perverted commercial, is actually a dense meditation on his belief in the tarot and mysticism. Definitely one that went over a lot of people’s heads. For more on Jodorowsky, check out this excellent BBC documentary.
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