Every Friday, as I've mentioned before, Hidden Shores has a session called "picking and grinning," where musicians from the park gather to do an open microphone-style jam. I have participated, mostly at the urging of Buster and a few others, but it's pretty clear that I don't belong in the broader sense of the word. First, there's the issue of "performance." I play guitar for any number of reasons, but I am not a performer.
I remember, way back, when I had first met Lora. She lived off-base, downtown in Kunsan in a small upstairs apartment. That apartment is etched vividly in my mind, perhaps because the most significant turning point in my life occurred there. I was spending more time there than my own room, and I do remember especially sitting in her papa-san chair, waiting for her to come home, playing the guitar. Even then it must have been clear that I had no interest in replicating the pop-playlist. There had been a brief foray into classical music, enough that I learned some of the techniques of classical playing, but ultimately classical music required an even more precise replication. In both cases I lost interest quickly in building a repertoire of the replicated, though I didn't lose interest in the guitar. My guitars at home didn't fit within my luggage for deployment to Korea, so I had bought one there. Very cheap, horrible tone, but it did play in tune, and I was playing that guitar when Lora returned to her apartment and caught me playing the guitar.
I am almost always embarrassed when people catch me playing the guitar, almost as though I had been caught doing that thing everyone does in the utmost privacy, but that no one admits. She must have sensed my embarrassment, or something, because she asked me asked a question to which I responded, "playing is a way of letting the universe pass through me." OK, first of all, I know how new-age pretentious that sounds, and it wasn't then and isn't now the sort of thing one says to impress Lora. Still and all, though, it was an honest response. I knew then vaguely of John Fahey and that other John, John Renbourn, but so-called "fingerstyle" guitar wasn't really a "thing" unto itself, at least not in my limited musical universe. I listened mostly to singer-songwriter types, and Dylan figured prominently in that bunch, but I wasn't really interested in replicating Dylan, either in the Dylan-ness of Dylan or in becoming a "troubadour" singer songwriter like him. I really was more interested in my "thing," which for the longest time I thought was relatively unique.
Let me explain. I am almost always embarrassed when people catch me playing the guitar, in part because almost everyone asks "do you know ..." and then they'd mention a particular song. My answer was almost always "no," with a hidden "yes." I didn't know the particular song, but I also knew that, given ten minutes, I could get the chord progression down, and ten minutes more, I could add some nuance. At the pickin' and grinning, for example,' I can follow most of the playing after the first verse and chorus. There are a few "modal" songs, those written outside of major scales, that present a challenge, and are more interesting, but even those I can usually follow given the song's chart. I didn't need to "know" the song, because, in a sense, I "already" knew it. Then too, there's the matter of singing. Unless one is in a crowded Irish bar or a church, singing is a way of drawing attention to one's self, a more adult version of the four-year old's "mommy! daddy! look at me." The open mic format of the 'picking' and grinnin' reinforces this inceptual narcissism. With children, we can fawn with complete adoration over the most mundane achievements, but with adults, only in the rarest instances is the "look at me!" merited, particularly in this age of digital reproduction, when the "original" is everywhere and nowhere as a point of comparison. Then too again, there's the matter of the lyrics, without which the song would not be a song. Although sometimes catchy, rarely are they really worth memorizing.
Besides, "letting the universe pass through me" is a form of prayer, and prayer should be a "private" matter, along with other things. I'm not one for quoting the Bible, but as Matthew 6:6 points out, "when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." The current infestation of political Bible thumpers have, perhaps, over-looked this verse, but be that as it may, it strikes me that the first requirement of "letting the universe pass through me" is the "letting." Though it's easier in private -- singing in the shower, so to speak -- it's not just a matter of letting go of one's fears and inhibitions -- any half-way decent performer is capable of letting go of stage fright and doing whatever it is they do without inhibition. It is rather a letting go of the "self" itself, which is, by definition, not an exhibition of the self. It seems rather lame to say "I lose myself in my playing," but then most authentic religious expression end up being rather lame in comparison to the experience itself. Suffice it to say, to use another lame expression, "my playing is best when I'm just playing." Then too, there's the matter of "just playing," which implies that I am not running my mouth, expressing myself, or "feeling" another's expression as my own. If there's no self to worry over, then there's no self to express first hand or second hand. Then too again, there's the matter of "the universe." I could have said "let God pass through me," but I didn't, partly because we have so thoroughly succeeded in trivializing our whole understanding of God into a disco-ball reflection of our own inadequacies and prejudices. If God is God, then there is nothing I need express to God that God doesn't already know. The language that most defines us as human gets in the way and throws up border walls that keeps God from passing through me.
I am aware of the ironies of writing a self-reflective (and a bit sanctimonious) blog about letting go of the self. Lately, I've also been castigating myself for not being a better guitarist in the conventional sense. I've learned some instrumental versions of recognizable songs and committed them to memory. Although they're "jam killers," as Bob of brief acquaintance put it, I've played them at the pickin' and grinnin' (nervously) and received some compliments because they provide some relief from the amplified and pitchy boom-chuck versions of country songs. Yesterday, at the last pickin' and grinnin' I intentionally made a spectacle of myself. The first couple of go-rounds for the open mic, I passed and didn't play, but reserved a spot "next to last." I had spent about a week learning "Amazing Grace," a simple version that let the melody ring out clearly. I had played around with Tommy Emmanuel's version of the song, but his is a virtuoso's show piece, and even when he performs it, the most beautiful aspect of the song is obscured, that reaching, aching melody. The song is so familiar that one can't help hearing the lyrics, but the song also is so beautiful in its simplicity that it transcends anything resembling dogma and opens a path for the divine. Still, it was a hymn, and I didn't want it to be a "jam killer," but I wanted to play it, and I wanted to dedicate it to the victims and families of those killed in our latest mass shooting, our latest school massacre. So, when it came round to my turn, I did just that.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Friday, February 16, 2018
The Craft Room
The craft room was one of the reasons for moving off the raw desert into Hidden Shores. Normally, the craft room is a female preserve, filled with women who mostly do quilting. I know little of quilting, per se, but it seems to be three things at once --aesthetic, exacting, and social. There are women who have an eye for it, and one can see their quilts come together with a blend of color and pattern that is quite lovely, while others are just patch works. Lora would excel at the aesthetics of quilting, but I'm not sure she would excel at the exacting aspect, the sort of tedious patience it takes to cut all those little pieces of cloth and then to get all their "points" or corners to align. She has trouble, self-confessedly, doing the same thing over and over again, which quilting would not only require, but would also demand precision in the repetition. Then too, I'm not sure how she would do with the social aspect. We discussed "friendships" on the way into town yesterday. Neither one of us is gregarious, and we find that "friends" often demand more than they give in return. This may be just a matter of perspective, and others may likewise feel we demand more than we give in return, but we do feel the imbalance. At any rate, the craft room is filled with female voices travelling back and forth, and when they are not discussing the finer points of quilting, they are gossiping, usually about the one who for whatever reason isn't present. Though this would seem an opportunity for malicious commentary, I have to admit I haven't heard it, and the gossip revolves mostly about kids, grandkids, plans for the summer, and health -- how quickly the maladies of aging can up-end plans and become the sole focus of living.
We had gone into town for quick stop at Walmart, but mostly to check mail. I was expecting a book of guitar exercises. I have been trying to learn the alternating bass method, pioneered by the likes of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins, but extended with great virtuosity by the likes of Tommy Emanuel. There's something counter intuitive about it, at least for me, and I'm hoping that the exercises would help me develop some muscle memory around the alternating bass line. When we returned, I played around with some of the exercises, while Lora walked down to the craft room, leaving me with one instruction. She has been preparing things for a craft sale coming up this Saturday, and she wanted to price some of her jewelry and needle-felting. The last two days have been rainy, and she left me with two instructions, one (close the blinds on the camper) I forgot, but the other I remembered. The last few days have been overcast and rainy, and it was misting when she left. She wanted me to drive down to the craft room and retrieve her if it actually started raining. Not long after she left, it actually started raining, so I did drive down to the craft room so she wouldn't have to walk back in the rain. I remembered, no doubt, because I had an ulterior motive.
A corner alcove of the craft room has been relegated to us males. The other occupant does painting. He won't set the gallery world of NY aflame, mostly because he attempts to replicate photographs of picturesque landscapes in a painting. His current painting is of a river near his home in Colorado. The aspen are just beginning to show the gold of fall, and it appeals to me because I can imagine myself standing there with a fly rod, the air crisp and cool, scoping out the pocket water. Fishing for me is fly fishing, and fly fishing is a small cold river winding through the mountains, and he was capturing the look of a small mountain river.
I had been out fishing the day before. While the fishing here isn't what it is in the Rockies, it nevertheless has its own beauties, and the shores of Hidden Shores are the reservoir waters of the Colorado River where it collects behind Imperial Dam. It isn't quite what one would normally associate with a reservoir -- no big wide open lake -- but a series of back waters and channels winding through tall reeds and the occasional palm. It's a warm water fishery, and the predominant fish are blue gill, small mouth bass, and stripers. Lora caught a striper the other day, and she's still marveling at it -- the solidity of its muscle mass and its sleek, silvery, almost machine like beauty. I haven't caught one. When I was out last, I did catch several small bass. I was using a particular fly trailing behind a dark olive wooley bugger. I made a mistake on the last fish I had on my line --a good one, probably a striper -- and tried to horse it in too quickly. It broke the tippet between the bugger and fly, which, as it turned out -- crap! crap! crap! -- was my last one. I did catch one more fish, on an articulated streamer, but the fishing slowed down considerably after I lost that particular fly.
After admiring my neighbor's progress on his painting, I began breaking out my tying gear. I'm sure the fly has a name, and I'm not the first to tie it, but I might as well be because I tied it up without a pattern. For the aficionado, however, I tie it with red thread like an all purpose nymph on a size 10 to 14 1XL hook with a fluorescent pink bead head. It's tail is gold flashabou, its body is composed of touching wraps of dark olive polar chenille, and its thorax is pearl ice dub. It was a "what the hell" fly, tied, as one outdoor writer put it, to resemble a Vegas showgirl -- flashy with a lot of movement. I'm not sure what it resembles in the bass food chain, probably nothing, but it certainly touches off a response.
Fly tying is a repetitive business. After the first couple, I'm going through the motions, concentrating enough to maintain consistency while half listening to the ladies gossip. It's background noise, like a television on low volume, and I really wasn't paying attention. I was just tying my fly, grateful that I did not have the assistance of our camper kitty, Jade. One piece of gossip did, however, catch my attention. I hadn't watched the news, or read the papers that morning, so when one of them brought up the latest school shooting, I had heard or read nothing about it. They didn't discuss it much, and even so I only caught half their conversation, but I do remember one woman expressing sympathy for the parents of the kids killed, along with the siblings and grandparents, all of whom would have their lives changed forever in a muzzle flash. Another woman began an odd digression about having eaten not only venison and elk, but also bear and bobcat -- with an extended story about how they had once served bear without telling the kids on the assumption that they wouldn't eat if they had known it was bear. She did come back to the point that she knew a lot of people who do a lot of hunting, and they would be upset if they "took away the guns." Lora did not contribute to the conversation, and that was it, or at least all I had heard, and for those two ladies at least, the news cycle had ended.
I finished up my flies, and Lora finished up a bracelet. She showed it to me, and I commented (yes, with honesty) that I thought it was "very nice" or something of the sort. It's the same sort of response she gives me when I show her one of my flies, the most typical being "oh, that's pretty." The response was appropriate for the particular fly I was tying -- it had no natural materials in it, no bobcat or bear fur, no chicken or partridge feathers, nothing but manufactured synthetics, so it was rather sparkly and pretty, not the normal "buggy." I suppose its one of the perineal disconnects between genders, but I'm never quite sure what she wants as a response. If I were to say, "oh! that's beautiful! a stunning achievement!" she would know it was over-the-top sarcasm, so "very nice" will have to suffice, and I'll take the "is that all you have to say?" with a grain of salt.
On the ride back, Lora expressed interest in watching the news, but there was nothing unusual in that. She likes the evening news with that "sweetie" David Muir. For me, the evening news is about like reading the headlines on USA Today, the topics without discussion or depth, but for Lora it's enough. I'll grant her that. Trolling the news for more discussion and depth usually drives me half mad, in both senses of the word, and my usual comment on hearing the evening news, or at least the political news -- my god, what a clown show -- is about all that's possible at the moment. We'd no more returned to the trailer, however, when the phone rang. It was our son calling to reassure us that the shooting had not taken place at Bella's school, but a neighboring school and so we weren't to worry. The phone call had its intended effect. When we watched the news, she knew immediately that the "Florida school" wasn't our grand daughter's school, and that she was "safe." It had another effect, however, on Lora. She would quibble with my metaphor (she always does) but I believe she felt the way one feels when a horrible crash is averted, swerving panic, then nothing. It could have happened, it almost happened, but didn't. Jay's phone call made the possibility more real, along with the anguish of those for whom it did happen. The effect lingered through the remainder of the evening and through the next day.
The chief clown offered, as is usual, prayers and condolences, and went on to emphasize the insanity of the shooter. Of course, normal people don't shoot up high schools, and so the shooter is, by definition, abnormal, insane. The tautology explains nothing, certainly not the shooter's felt need to wreck havoc on a school, and to offer only prayers and condolences, as one victim's frantic parent made abundantly clear, is to offer next to nothing. There is one thing we can do, and it seems fairly obvious, and reasonably easy -- limit access to the guns that do so much to facilitate high body counts. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to feel. It seems the shooter went about the business as a craftsman might go about planning his next project, studying past shootings, planning his own shooting with the intent of "improving" on the body count, purchasing the right tools, and choosing the day, Valentine's Day, so it would, be forever known as the Valentine's Day Massacre. He was characterized as isolated, a loner, a young man who had trouble connecting with others, particularly girls, a characterization which makes every introvert "suspect." Still, though, it seems clear that he hoped the shooing would bring him notoriety, and affirmation, and one can altogether too easily imagine other potential shooters enviously studying his stunning achievements as they plan their own path to fame. The shooter might be abnormal, insane, but he is not terribly unusual. Mass shootings are happening with numbing frequency, and the shooters are choosing venues where, as the saying goes, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Fly tying is a repetitive business. After the first couple, I'm going through the motions, concentrating enough to maintain consistency while half listening to the ladies gossip. It's background noise, like a television on low volume, and I really wasn't paying attention. I was just tying my fly, grateful that I did not have the assistance of our camper kitty, Jade. One piece of gossip did, however, catch my attention. I hadn't watched the news, or read the papers that morning, so when one of them brought up the latest school shooting, I had heard or read nothing about it. They didn't discuss it much, and even so I only caught half their conversation, but I do remember one woman expressing sympathy for the parents of the kids killed, along with the siblings and grandparents, all of whom would have their lives changed forever in a muzzle flash. Another woman began an odd digression about having eaten not only venison and elk, but also bear and bobcat -- with an extended story about how they had once served bear without telling the kids on the assumption that they wouldn't eat if they had known it was bear. She did come back to the point that she knew a lot of people who do a lot of hunting, and they would be upset if they "took away the guns." Lora did not contribute to the conversation, and that was it, or at least all I had heard, and for those two ladies at least, the news cycle had ended.
I finished up my flies, and Lora finished up a bracelet. She showed it to me, and I commented (yes, with honesty) that I thought it was "very nice" or something of the sort. It's the same sort of response she gives me when I show her one of my flies, the most typical being "oh, that's pretty." The response was appropriate for the particular fly I was tying -- it had no natural materials in it, no bobcat or bear fur, no chicken or partridge feathers, nothing but manufactured synthetics, so it was rather sparkly and pretty, not the normal "buggy." I suppose its one of the perineal disconnects between genders, but I'm never quite sure what she wants as a response. If I were to say, "oh! that's beautiful! a stunning achievement!" she would know it was over-the-top sarcasm, so "very nice" will have to suffice, and I'll take the "is that all you have to say?" with a grain of salt.
On the ride back, Lora expressed interest in watching the news, but there was nothing unusual in that. She likes the evening news with that "sweetie" David Muir. For me, the evening news is about like reading the headlines on USA Today, the topics without discussion or depth, but for Lora it's enough. I'll grant her that. Trolling the news for more discussion and depth usually drives me half mad, in both senses of the word, and my usual comment on hearing the evening news, or at least the political news -- my god, what a clown show -- is about all that's possible at the moment. We'd no more returned to the trailer, however, when the phone rang. It was our son calling to reassure us that the shooting had not taken place at Bella's school, but a neighboring school and so we weren't to worry. The phone call had its intended effect. When we watched the news, she knew immediately that the "Florida school" wasn't our grand daughter's school, and that she was "safe." It had another effect, however, on Lora. She would quibble with my metaphor (she always does) but I believe she felt the way one feels when a horrible crash is averted, swerving panic, then nothing. It could have happened, it almost happened, but didn't. Jay's phone call made the possibility more real, along with the anguish of those for whom it did happen. The effect lingered through the remainder of the evening and through the next day.
The chief clown offered, as is usual, prayers and condolences, and went on to emphasize the insanity of the shooter. Of course, normal people don't shoot up high schools, and so the shooter is, by definition, abnormal, insane. The tautology explains nothing, certainly not the shooter's felt need to wreck havoc on a school, and to offer only prayers and condolences, as one victim's frantic parent made abundantly clear, is to offer next to nothing. There is one thing we can do, and it seems fairly obvious, and reasonably easy -- limit access to the guns that do so much to facilitate high body counts. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to feel. It seems the shooter went about the business as a craftsman might go about planning his next project, studying past shootings, planning his own shooting with the intent of "improving" on the body count, purchasing the right tools, and choosing the day, Valentine's Day, so it would, be forever known as the Valentine's Day Massacre. He was characterized as isolated, a loner, a young man who had trouble connecting with others, particularly girls, a characterization which makes every introvert "suspect." Still, though, it seems clear that he hoped the shooing would bring him notoriety, and affirmation, and one can altogether too easily imagine other potential shooters enviously studying his stunning achievements as they plan their own path to fame. The shooter might be abnormal, insane, but he is not terribly unusual. Mass shootings are happening with numbing frequency, and the shooters are choosing venues where, as the saying goes, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Mexico I -- Dentist
Lora and I have been to Mexico a number of times now, so we are rather seasoned border crossers now. As with most things in my life, my feelings toward Mexico are ambivalent. I am neither a Mexiphile nor Mexiphobe. Ambivalence could be a positive good for one who sets out to be an observer, just an observer with an objective eye, but the attitude seems suspicious in a culture where, more and more, one is expected to cultivate the commitments of a partisan for or against -- where neither/nor is just conceals, whether with conscious cynicism or with subconscious naïvete, a more real either/or.
At any rate, one notices first off that the border between our two countries is permeable, but it is much more permeable in one direction than another. Getting into Mexico is easy. Although one travels through a maze of chain link fencing, at least at the border crossing at Los Algedones, the only marker that one has crossed over is a turnstile gate that rotates only in one direction. The maze continues a bit past a public restroom, then deposits one in the center of town. I had expected someone to check an ID, or something, but only the turnstile gate, and it's relatively clear that the official policy of our two nations is asymmetrical. There are a few signs posted clearly warning that the transport of firearms into Mexico is illegal (for those who want to indulge a Pancho and Lefty fantasy) but no one checks. Getting back into the US, however, is not so easy. One must have a US passport, or a visa, and one must pass through a bureaucratic choke point where documents are checked and one must declare one's imports. It's very official, and the officials are the epitome of aloof. They never smile, and do not return pleasantries, and go through their motions with mechanical menace. Although Lora and I would pass a strip and cavity search, and we have little interest in the sorts of things that might interest the border patrol (particularly narcotics) there's still a sense of palpable relief when one has passed through. I have the same sense passing a state patrolman on the highway. I slow down and check my rearview mirror, and I can't help but feel relieved when he doesn't pull out, lights flashing.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first time Lora and I crossed the border, we walked past an elderly lady struggling with a recalcitrant walker. Perhaps it's my oblivious focus on other things or Lora's attentive kindness. I didn't really notice her, but Lora did and offered to help. As it turned out, she was crossing to finish some of the dental work she had begun earlier. In the natural course of conversation, we discovered several things about her, to include her desire to immigrate to Mexico where she could live more cheaply, that she was an author of books, that she had an estranged daughter, that she had had some dental work done previously and it had not gone well, and that she was very satisfied with her current dentist. Items of descending importance to her, but ascending importance to us. We had hoped that the gossip about Mexican dentist was true. It was said that many were ex-pat Americans practicing in Mexico because of the high cost of malpractice insurance and regulatory obfuscations. Without those obstacles, they were, ostensibly, cheaper. The purpose of our trip to Mexico that day, beyond simple curiosity, had been to "check things out" so far as dentists were concerned. It seemed fortuitous that we had happened upon someone with experience who was giving her current dentist high marks. For their returning customers, the dental offices provide a cab service to their offices. She offered, and we accepted a ride to her dentist.
The first thing one notices about the dental offices of Los Algedones (or at least her dental office) is the contrast to the surrounding shabbiness. One is beginning to see some of the same shabbiness in the US, particularly in the more impoverished rural areas, a sort of "make-do" shabbiness. Everything seems faded, worn, claptrap, and genuinely so, not in the freshly painted shabby chic imitation of the faded and worn. People who cannot afford the new are "making do" piecing together what they have at hand. Though there could be a certain sort of dignity and pride associated with "making do" (the imagination and skills to make a life out of less) one quickly gets a whiff of resentment, like background scents of cooking grease and sewage. One senses it particularly in the barkers stationed at the doorway to every pharmacia promising the "best prices" and the street merchants lining almost every sidewalk selling most cheap junk for "almost free." Their resentment of the gringos is just barely concealed beneath an almost menacing obsequiousness. The driver pulled up in front of the dental office, just outside a gate separating a small quiet courtyard from the obstreperous activity of street. There was barely room only for the one car. One thing I have noticed outside the US, at least below the longitude of our southern border, is the lack of parking. The narrow streets are clogged with cars, and as we weaved our way along I remember thinking it would have been a quicker walk, but there are no expansive parking lots, at least not the delineated asphalt expanse that you'd see surrounding every shabby strip mall in the US. Although one could easily imagine the desert surrounding Los Algedones being broad and empty, they had not spread out over it. If everything in Los Algedones seemed faded, worn, claptrap, it also seemed crowded, with every nook and cranny occupied by someone, usually someone selling something "cheap."
To step inside the dental office, however, was to enter another world. It was clean, well lit, comfortably furnished and fresh. The receptionist was pretty, efficient, and friendly in the aloof way of receptionists everywhere, somewhere between a studied avoidance of undue familiarity and a more genuine boredom. The old woman who had given us a lift was quickly processed ushered into a back room. After some dithering back and forth, we decided to go ahead and get our teeth cleaned, along with an exam. Lora was led back first, and so I spent some time in the reception area, flipping through magazines (oddly, mostly American women's magazines) and trying to follow the language on the television mounted on the wall. A ubiquitous feature of Mexican TV seems to be the "game show." Fox News must have taken some cue from them, because there is inevitably a clownish male host with bevy of buxom babes whose role, it seems, is to make the host appear at once enviable and ridiculous. Lora suggested once that they exploit their women -- true enough, the buxom babes are just barely this side of being strippers -- and given the current climate in the US, with the #metoo movement exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment, we might have some occasion to preen our moral superiority. I wonder though. Although the men who exploit positions of power are contemptible, and I'm making no excuses, watching some I can't help thinking they protest just a wee bit too much. As Lora points asks, "why didn't they protest at the time?" Too much of it seems exploitation with benefits, and too many it seems have their celebrity topped off with the moral indignation of a victim.
I start thinking too much when I get bored. When it was finally my turn, and I was led back to the exam room, I was struck by how clean it was in the way that high tech always seems clean. The tools of the dental trade were clearly "top of the line," with a glossy metallic sheen. I was already a data file in the computer, and the hygienist pulled up my name, tapped away for a second or two, then went about taking my x-rays, which, when done, had enlarged my file. She proceeded then to clean my teeth, stopping now and again to tap away at the computer. Not unlike the receptionist, she was pretty, efficient, and she spoke in clipped sentences to the other receptionists. To me she said only, "open wider" with an inimitable accent, and I spent most of the cleaning customarily uncomfortable as her gloved fingers poked and scraped around my teeth. Were it not for the occasional burst of Spanish, and the accent, I could have been in a dental office anywhere. I'm not sure what I was expecting -- something more primitive perhaps -- and perhaps I would have found it further south of the border, in a dentist that catered principally to Mexican teeth. This office, not unlike the score of other dental offices in Los Algedones, catered principally to American teeth.
Here's the thing, I know my teeth are not in the greatest of shape. They're not in the worst of shape either. One can tell from the number of crowns that I've spent thousands on them, and every dentist I have seen since my adolescence has suggested I spend thousands more. When this hygienist had finished her work, and the dentist had confirmed her preliminary exam, adding a few additional data points for the receptionist to tap into the computer, I wasn't surprised at the result of the exam. The dentist, not unlike the receptionist or the hygienist, was pretty, efficient, and she explained the work that needed to be done with the rushed seriousness endemic to professionals. Her diagnosis was similar to the one I had received a few years ago in Salt Lake. She wanted to replace my full set of teeth, not with false teeth. No, she wanted, to replace all my existing crowns and to crown the few teeth left over. In Salt Lake, I had insurance that would have covered part of the expense, here I had none, but the total "out of pocket" was about the same $10,000. She must have sensed that I wasn't biting (ha!) because her explanations of the work grew more perfunctory and finally petered out entirely. She advised me to talk it over with my wife, and seemed impatient, not unlike a waitress who hands over the check and says "take your time," when they really mean "pay up and move on."
We did, leaving with an over stout, over sized blue plastic bag of dental trinkets -- a cheap toothbrush, a yard of floss, and a tiny tube of toothpaste -- the same things my dentist in Salt Lake provided. As we left the dental office, Lora and I did discuss it, for about two minutes. At 64, I'm not putting $10K into my mouth, partly because I don't have the money, but partly because it seems, well, foolish. In the absence of an abscess and real pain, my current choppers will serve until they don't. I thought briefly of the woman who had recommended the dentist in the first place, because she had taken the bait once, been disappointed, and then had to have it done all over again. I wondered briefly what motivated her, and came to nothing conclusive.
We wandered among the street merchants for awhile -- I bought a belt that I didn't need -- until we began discussing where we wanted to eat. A tall skinny, and appropriately toothless man overheard us, and offered to (insisted on?) escorting us to a restaurant -- "the best." We wound around for a couple of blocks, until he deposited us in a café, then waited expectantly with his arms down and his hands clasped together. It took a second to realize that he was waiting for a tip. There must be some rule, written or unwritten, that prohibits a more aggressive tip seeking, because he just stood there, trying to look as pathetic as possible. I tipped him. He seemed to know the people working in the restaurant, but the relationship didn't seem overly cordial, suggesting what? family? I wondered briefly, but again came to nothing conclusive.
The restaurant was a stretch from "the best." There was a roof, but it was mostly open air, and open to the flies that gathered as well. The food was authentic, by definition. We were eating Mexican food in Mexico after all, but it wasn't great, and teetered on the border of being "not even good." As we ate, street vendors. We Americans tend to think of Mexico as homogenously Mexican, but if one is attentive, one can see the different ethnicities, and the class structure associated with it. The dentist and her crew were clearly mestizos, of predominantly white, European blood. I remember my son's first wife was Hispanic, and I remember her parents insisting that they were not "Mexican," but "Spanish," and I remember wondering "what the hell difference does it make?" It didn't so much in the US -- though clearly they thought it should -- perhaps because it apparently makes a difference in Mexico. The "shops" were also clearly owned by mestizos, while the "stalls" that lined sidewalks on the street side seemed mixed, partly mestizos, partly Amerindian, but those that approached us in the restaurant, with their trays of trinkets supported by a strap over the shoulder, were clearly indian. Most could be waved away, but one in particular, a short dark skinned little man with a stare straight out of a b-list horror movie sequel squatted about 10 feet away from our table, and just kept staring, fixated on us. Most likely he had nothing better to do. We were there early in the season, and there were few other Americans for him to fixate on. So far as the one or two other patrons of the restaurant and its staff were concerned, he was invisible. For us, however, he was definitely creepy, and between the bad food, and the atmosphere provided by the street vendor, we didn't linger, and made our way quickly back to the border.
At any rate, one notices first off that the border between our two countries is permeable, but it is much more permeable in one direction than another. Getting into Mexico is easy. Although one travels through a maze of chain link fencing, at least at the border crossing at Los Algedones, the only marker that one has crossed over is a turnstile gate that rotates only in one direction. The maze continues a bit past a public restroom, then deposits one in the center of town. I had expected someone to check an ID, or something, but only the turnstile gate, and it's relatively clear that the official policy of our two nations is asymmetrical. There are a few signs posted clearly warning that the transport of firearms into Mexico is illegal (for those who want to indulge a Pancho and Lefty fantasy) but no one checks. Getting back into the US, however, is not so easy. One must have a US passport, or a visa, and one must pass through a bureaucratic choke point where documents are checked and one must declare one's imports. It's very official, and the officials are the epitome of aloof. They never smile, and do not return pleasantries, and go through their motions with mechanical menace. Although Lora and I would pass a strip and cavity search, and we have little interest in the sorts of things that might interest the border patrol (particularly narcotics) there's still a sense of palpable relief when one has passed through. I have the same sense passing a state patrolman on the highway. I slow down and check my rearview mirror, and I can't help but feel relieved when he doesn't pull out, lights flashing.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first time Lora and I crossed the border, we walked past an elderly lady struggling with a recalcitrant walker. Perhaps it's my oblivious focus on other things or Lora's attentive kindness. I didn't really notice her, but Lora did and offered to help. As it turned out, she was crossing to finish some of the dental work she had begun earlier. In the natural course of conversation, we discovered several things about her, to include her desire to immigrate to Mexico where she could live more cheaply, that she was an author of books, that she had an estranged daughter, that she had had some dental work done previously and it had not gone well, and that she was very satisfied with her current dentist. Items of descending importance to her, but ascending importance to us. We had hoped that the gossip about Mexican dentist was true. It was said that many were ex-pat Americans practicing in Mexico because of the high cost of malpractice insurance and regulatory obfuscations. Without those obstacles, they were, ostensibly, cheaper. The purpose of our trip to Mexico that day, beyond simple curiosity, had been to "check things out" so far as dentists were concerned. It seemed fortuitous that we had happened upon someone with experience who was giving her current dentist high marks. For their returning customers, the dental offices provide a cab service to their offices. She offered, and we accepted a ride to her dentist.
The first thing one notices about the dental offices of Los Algedones (or at least her dental office) is the contrast to the surrounding shabbiness. One is beginning to see some of the same shabbiness in the US, particularly in the more impoverished rural areas, a sort of "make-do" shabbiness. Everything seems faded, worn, claptrap, and genuinely so, not in the freshly painted shabby chic imitation of the faded and worn. People who cannot afford the new are "making do" piecing together what they have at hand. Though there could be a certain sort of dignity and pride associated with "making do" (the imagination and skills to make a life out of less) one quickly gets a whiff of resentment, like background scents of cooking grease and sewage. One senses it particularly in the barkers stationed at the doorway to every pharmacia promising the "best prices" and the street merchants lining almost every sidewalk selling most cheap junk for "almost free." Their resentment of the gringos is just barely concealed beneath an almost menacing obsequiousness. The driver pulled up in front of the dental office, just outside a gate separating a small quiet courtyard from the obstreperous activity of street. There was barely room only for the one car. One thing I have noticed outside the US, at least below the longitude of our southern border, is the lack of parking. The narrow streets are clogged with cars, and as we weaved our way along I remember thinking it would have been a quicker walk, but there are no expansive parking lots, at least not the delineated asphalt expanse that you'd see surrounding every shabby strip mall in the US. Although one could easily imagine the desert surrounding Los Algedones being broad and empty, they had not spread out over it. If everything in Los Algedones seemed faded, worn, claptrap, it also seemed crowded, with every nook and cranny occupied by someone, usually someone selling something "cheap."
To step inside the dental office, however, was to enter another world. It was clean, well lit, comfortably furnished and fresh. The receptionist was pretty, efficient, and friendly in the aloof way of receptionists everywhere, somewhere between a studied avoidance of undue familiarity and a more genuine boredom. The old woman who had given us a lift was quickly processed ushered into a back room. After some dithering back and forth, we decided to go ahead and get our teeth cleaned, along with an exam. Lora was led back first, and so I spent some time in the reception area, flipping through magazines (oddly, mostly American women's magazines) and trying to follow the language on the television mounted on the wall. A ubiquitous feature of Mexican TV seems to be the "game show." Fox News must have taken some cue from them, because there is inevitably a clownish male host with bevy of buxom babes whose role, it seems, is to make the host appear at once enviable and ridiculous. Lora suggested once that they exploit their women -- true enough, the buxom babes are just barely this side of being strippers -- and given the current climate in the US, with the #metoo movement exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment, we might have some occasion to preen our moral superiority. I wonder though. Although the men who exploit positions of power are contemptible, and I'm making no excuses, watching some I can't help thinking they protest just a wee bit too much. As Lora points asks, "why didn't they protest at the time?" Too much of it seems exploitation with benefits, and too many it seems have their celebrity topped off with the moral indignation of a victim.
I start thinking too much when I get bored. When it was finally my turn, and I was led back to the exam room, I was struck by how clean it was in the way that high tech always seems clean. The tools of the dental trade were clearly "top of the line," with a glossy metallic sheen. I was already a data file in the computer, and the hygienist pulled up my name, tapped away for a second or two, then went about taking my x-rays, which, when done, had enlarged my file. She proceeded then to clean my teeth, stopping now and again to tap away at the computer. Not unlike the receptionist, she was pretty, efficient, and she spoke in clipped sentences to the other receptionists. To me she said only, "open wider" with an inimitable accent, and I spent most of the cleaning customarily uncomfortable as her gloved fingers poked and scraped around my teeth. Were it not for the occasional burst of Spanish, and the accent, I could have been in a dental office anywhere. I'm not sure what I was expecting -- something more primitive perhaps -- and perhaps I would have found it further south of the border, in a dentist that catered principally to Mexican teeth. This office, not unlike the score of other dental offices in Los Algedones, catered principally to American teeth.
Here's the thing, I know my teeth are not in the greatest of shape. They're not in the worst of shape either. One can tell from the number of crowns that I've spent thousands on them, and every dentist I have seen since my adolescence has suggested I spend thousands more. When this hygienist had finished her work, and the dentist had confirmed her preliminary exam, adding a few additional data points for the receptionist to tap into the computer, I wasn't surprised at the result of the exam. The dentist, not unlike the receptionist or the hygienist, was pretty, efficient, and she explained the work that needed to be done with the rushed seriousness endemic to professionals. Her diagnosis was similar to the one I had received a few years ago in Salt Lake. She wanted to replace my full set of teeth, not with false teeth. No, she wanted, to replace all my existing crowns and to crown the few teeth left over. In Salt Lake, I had insurance that would have covered part of the expense, here I had none, but the total "out of pocket" was about the same $10,000. She must have sensed that I wasn't biting (ha!) because her explanations of the work grew more perfunctory and finally petered out entirely. She advised me to talk it over with my wife, and seemed impatient, not unlike a waitress who hands over the check and says "take your time," when they really mean "pay up and move on."
We did, leaving with an over stout, over sized blue plastic bag of dental trinkets -- a cheap toothbrush, a yard of floss, and a tiny tube of toothpaste -- the same things my dentist in Salt Lake provided. As we left the dental office, Lora and I did discuss it, for about two minutes. At 64, I'm not putting $10K into my mouth, partly because I don't have the money, but partly because it seems, well, foolish. In the absence of an abscess and real pain, my current choppers will serve until they don't. I thought briefly of the woman who had recommended the dentist in the first place, because she had taken the bait once, been disappointed, and then had to have it done all over again. I wondered briefly what motivated her, and came to nothing conclusive.
We wandered among the street merchants for awhile -- I bought a belt that I didn't need -- until we began discussing where we wanted to eat. A tall skinny, and appropriately toothless man overheard us, and offered to (insisted on?) escorting us to a restaurant -- "the best." We wound around for a couple of blocks, until he deposited us in a café, then waited expectantly with his arms down and his hands clasped together. It took a second to realize that he was waiting for a tip. There must be some rule, written or unwritten, that prohibits a more aggressive tip seeking, because he just stood there, trying to look as pathetic as possible. I tipped him. He seemed to know the people working in the restaurant, but the relationship didn't seem overly cordial, suggesting what? family? I wondered briefly, but again came to nothing conclusive.
The restaurant was a stretch from "the best." There was a roof, but it was mostly open air, and open to the flies that gathered as well. The food was authentic, by definition. We were eating Mexican food in Mexico after all, but it wasn't great, and teetered on the border of being "not even good." As we ate, street vendors. We Americans tend to think of Mexico as homogenously Mexican, but if one is attentive, one can see the different ethnicities, and the class structure associated with it. The dentist and her crew were clearly mestizos, of predominantly white, European blood. I remember my son's first wife was Hispanic, and I remember her parents insisting that they were not "Mexican," but "Spanish," and I remember wondering "what the hell difference does it make?" It didn't so much in the US -- though clearly they thought it should -- perhaps because it apparently makes a difference in Mexico. The "shops" were also clearly owned by mestizos, while the "stalls" that lined sidewalks on the street side seemed mixed, partly mestizos, partly Amerindian, but those that approached us in the restaurant, with their trays of trinkets supported by a strap over the shoulder, were clearly indian. Most could be waved away, but one in particular, a short dark skinned little man with a stare straight out of a b-list horror movie sequel squatted about 10 feet away from our table, and just kept staring, fixated on us. Most likely he had nothing better to do. We were there early in the season, and there were few other Americans for him to fixate on. So far as the one or two other patrons of the restaurant and its staff were concerned, he was invisible. For us, however, he was definitely creepy, and between the bad food, and the atmosphere provided by the street vendor, we didn't linger, and made our way quickly back to the border.
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