Somewhere else

When life is predictable the smallest aberration can fuel a brilliant story. A new trick for peddling made-in-china-flashlights on the metro from a man missing at least one limb or the guy selling you cigarettes insinuating that you are a hooker (working early today, aren't we?). You know, for example. But things are now so shaken up and I cannot see the start. 

I guess it was Berlin. Within a week of looking, I had a bite for an interview. I had never focused on a city so intensely and it paid. I did not go to Berlin, no, but Berlin taught me that one can push one's agenda easier than I, for one, realized. Though loath to leave D.F. and harboring the fear I would sink, I knew sooner rather than later change would come or else I would drown in a stagnate puddle.

So I left, stored my record collection with a friend, gave away decorative skulls and clothes with horses stitched on the front and packed almost 5 years into 2 suitcases destined for the coast.

I arrived less than a week ago. The taxi brought me to a stripped down, large house with heart-shaped-bars on the windows and a tetras-shaped swimming pool in the front yard. A friend and an unidentified Mexican guy sat with their feet in the semi-chlorinated water, which they tracked on the concrete in human paw shaped prints but that evaporated before we got my bags out of the airport cab. When I told the cabbie in D.F. I had lived in Texcoco and Mexico City, he asked if I had put chunks of the two in my luggage. 

Upon entering, I found a mostly white, mostly empty, mostly tiled narco-style-mini-mansion. Nic came down the staircase and the first thing out of his mouth was about how he had been sick and shitting everywhere. Mexican food. I found the information somewhat secondary. We went for a walk to pick up his giant puppy Machete, an Irish Wolfhound with a mow-hawk and a penchant it turns out for tackling nude females along the coast line. The walk gave us a chance to talk about the project and expectations. Everything had happened so quickly that, well, we only touched on the latter tangentially  The main focus was getting down there. Now I was Oaxaca, Nic on one side, the Pacific ocean on the other. So I dove right in. What was his timeline? Goals? Budget?

It was 5 p.m. and I had scrambled some eggs around 8 a.m., so we stopped for some food. Nic knew the guy. (Of course). I ate a quesodilla as he explain how the progress was going to build his dream. I wanted to jot down quotes and ideas but was without paper and had slept very little in the week leading up to that moment due to a post-wisdom-teeth-extraction-infection.*

I was pounding some agua del dia hard when he told me his main goal is to create and host Burning Man Mexico from December 27th 2013 to January 4th 2014. I chuckled inside. I should have guessed. This coming from the guy who explained buying an $800 fur coat for his (first) despedida by rationalizing that, "it will be great for Burning Man." †

Nic was quitting his job for the month of February so that he could oversee and participate in a "work party" on the land. About an hour outside of Puerto, he now owned the site for his utopia after two years of searching and fighting with the Mexican bureaucratic system.‡ 

We drove out Friday night to greet the first volunteers from the website HelpX, which connects people willing to work for accommodation and food. And that is fascinating. These people will break their backs for a few tortas. But I think/know there is more to it than that. I tried to lead one of the girls, a Canadian, down the road of (my) enlightenment as to why she chose this project. Did she grow up on a farm? Did she remember when she first realized she wanted an alternative lifestyle? Had she seen an example of this type of community when she was younger? § I gave up as she her answer to 87.33333% of my questions was, "to live off the grid" (even though when pressed she could not explain what that meant or why she wanted it). I decided to put interviews on hold until we had more volunteers.

I took some good test footage, in both the day and night, as it was my camera's maiden voyage and I wanted to see how she handled different lighting. I also tested out my new audio system, composed of an h4n and Rode Mic with Plural Eyes in post. Needless to say I was super eager to check out the results, to learn my new workflow and to do this with coffee and a chocolate croissant on the porch of Cafecito.

I put on the old rucksack, grabbed my gear and hitched a ride with Nic and his cousin Dagen to the main road. From there, I started walking towards Puerto until I could catch a passing convi. I want to get this system down before official filming begins later this month. 

/////f o o t n o t e s//////

* Firmly excruciating pain that leads to eating sub-recreational painkillers like Tic Tacs ®
† Throughout the time I knew Nic in Mexico City Burning Man was a recurring theme in conversations  He once bought a dark purple leather vest with 4 huge pockets on the front from the used clothing market in Pino Suarez for the sole purpose of wearing it at Burning Man, which at the time was approximately 8 months down the road. Affectionally known as "Burners," people like Nic see the world tinted by their memories of the art festival deep in the Nevada desert. While the roots are unequivocally non-commercial, some feel that the festival has grown too much and is becoming too corporate. That is why across the States, many have already started mini-Burning Man events. Read more here.
‡ I always says the wheels of Mexican bureaucracy move slowly. Nic says they move backwards.
§ Nic himself grew up on in the backwoods of Arkansas in a back-to-the-earth-type-project.