Life Style Refugee – The Ajijic Blog

Whoooo hoo! Oh, how have I not known about the DVD table? When I think of how I’ve suffered over not being able to see Dreamgirls, and there it was all along on Tio Miguel’s table at the weekly tiangui.

Impossible, you say? Dreamgirls hasn’t even been released on video yet? Au contraire, amigo, if you live in Mexico, it has indeed.

Of course I’ve been aware of the bootleg video table. It’s not the kind of thing to escape the notice of your sharp eyed cub reporter.

I just assumed that bootleg meant that someone had carried a handicam into the Loew’s Megaplex up in McAllen and that the result was for sale. I imagined a grainy knock off with frequent interruptions of people getting up to go fetch more popcorn and the picture bouncing around whenever the videographer got jostled.

So wrong! These are real live movies, in English with subtitles. Oh, okay, I admit that ribbon of text at the bottom of the picture announcing that “this is the property of the academy, not for distribution,  blah, blah, blah…” is a little disconcerting at first, but you get used to it.

Not only are these pirated DVD’s of the very best quality, the movie man presiding over the table stands behind his product. If for any reason you are not happy with the quality of your illegal film, he will cheerfully exchange it! Like Nordstroms! Mexico rocks.

The show (Lakeside Little Theatre’s Cage aux Folles) closed last night. The play ran for 10 days, and by the end of it, all the hetero guys who have been dressing up like dames in the chorus had turned into complete cats about their make-up.

Every one of them had an opinion about what gave him the best cheekbones and what lipstick brought out the color of his eyes. The very few gay guys in the kickline were much more sangfroid about dressing up, an example of familiarity breeding contempt, perhaps.

Anyway, it was a singularly rewarding experience to volunteer with the rest of the cast and crew and I made so many new friends.

For instance, there’s Belle, who is one of those daft blondes that seem to be made entirely of fuzzy sweater material, and for whom the years that transpire between bombshell and grandmother are most often a big waste of everybody’s time.

Dizzy bombshells can be underestimated however, as your blogger well knows. (bat bat go my eyelashes)

Thus was I delighted the other night, as we sat, each holding a false lash to be glued onto an actor during his rapid backstage transformation into high drag, for Belle to lean over, batting her own long lashes, and coo, “Gosh, this is ever so much more fun than the Miss America pageants. Those girls don’t ever wear any underwear. It’s all double stick tape and bitch, bitch, bitch.”

That’s a line I’ll be quoting for some time to come, I can assure you. Thanks Belle.

Today we had “set strike,” when all the magic is dismantled, and it’s fascinating to see how much they do with how little. Once all the paper and fabric was taken down and folded away, there was nothing left of the glamorous living room  set but cardboard. Amazing. Go buy a season ticket right away.

We are still celebrating Easter in these parts, or at least I think we are. The poor archbishop of Guadalajara seems a little frustrated with the friskiness of his flock.

Under the headline “Nation Closes up shop for Easter” in last week’s Guad Reporter, we were told that “Despite constant rebukes from Guadalajara’s strict Catholic archbishop that Easter should be a time for reflection and not excess, millions of Mexicans ignore his recommendations and depart the urban jungle for hedonistic beach resorts.”

Well, I think that archbishop just needs to lighten up. After all, didn’t everyone pour into Ajijic Plaza after Mass on Saturday night to applaud the effigies of Judas being blown up with fire crackers? If that doesn’t say “Yay Jesus,” I don’t know what does.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

Mexico Rocks.