San Diego

I've only been gone 4 days, but it feels much longer than that. Intense couple days, speaking Spanish, feeling my way around a world that was not absolutely alien, but demanding in its own ways.

Didn't go to CECUT & entijuanarte on Sunday as I had planned because I was exhausted. We had heavy rains overnight & throughout the day, & I was a little sleep deprived ... Avenida Revolucion on a Saturday night is disco hell ... sat in a coffee shop, writing up my notes when the guy sitting across from me sat down at my table & said, "I've been watching you. Tell me, how do you write? Can you teach me to write?" He was an engineering student from Saudi Arabia, living near Palm Springs, struggling with writing in English & we proceeded to have a fun, all-over-the-map conversation about Tijuana, Middle Eastern history, Arabic. I had a second cup of coffee & suddenly felt like I had poisoned myself with caffeine ... later, I stopped at Tijuana Tilley's, an old restaurant & ate too much & now I was miserable ... I checked out of the Villagran & got myself to Rosarito, to discover no one home on Calle Higo & no electricity ... talked with the neighbors, got some cold drinks & a flashlight & settled down, to write a little more, play the ukulele & turn in early ...

Today, wandered all over Playa de Tijuana in the rain, at one point negotiating my way through a street market, all the time trying to find Antonio Escalante's house ... I kept saying to myself, maintain your spirit of adventure ... finally, got some good direction's from Juan, Antonio's partner, & there we were, after a month's worth of emails, finally talking face-to-face. In 2010, Antonio, working with a loose team of artist-collaborators, helped revive Pasaje Rodriguez & conducted the artists' call that brought muralists in to fill the old market corridor with wonderful murals ... the murals, in fact, got me going on a research binge on the role the two pasajes, Gomez & Rodriguez, played in the revitalization of Tijuana via art & culture ... Antonio's story was too involved to get into here, but essentially he described the classic conflict between artists & property owners, & differences of opinions over art between an older generation of artists & younger artists, & an indifference towards art in the general public ... he was philosophical about the current situation in the pasaje:  while the murals remain, all of the first wave of galleries are gone, replaced by very small venues for young artists & lots of used - book stores ... "We had our movement & now other people are doing what they believe in. It's a different generation."

I gave Juan a ride across the border, good company as we inched our way towards the custom booths ... he had even more stories about the ups & downs in the pasajes ... I dropped him off where he could catch a bus to LA & I got myself back to Ocean Beach ... sitting on my cot, finishing this up & heading for bed ... what an adventure - my first solo jaunt to Tijuana. More to come!