All posts by WilliamLawson

About WilliamLawson

Canadian Ex-Pat who has lived in the Yucatan for 20-plus years now. Occasionally neurotic, observant and trying to document everything I see.

Cold Cuts and Sound Systems – Supermarket Promotions

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan

Enough of the political comments! What does a Canadian living in Mexico have to do with US politics anyway, you ask. Well as a citizen of the countries immediately to the north and south of the rogue elephant, it would behoove everyone to take an interest.

But of much greater significance is what I really want to ask in this post:

What is the relationship between sausages and sound systems?

If you have lived in Merida for a while, you have probably gone shopping at some point in one of the major supermarket chains like Comercial Mexicana, Chedraui, Carrefour (now extinct), SuperMaz, San Francisco, Bodega Aurrera and, most recently, Walmart de Mexico. And on one of those forays into the mazes of aisles and products, you have probably come upon that section of the store dedicated to the ever-popular cheeses and cold cuts.

These are special areas of the store that sell everything from the plastic, fluorescent orange queso americano to dubious (non lactose) versions of Oaxaca and Manchego cheese from brands with names like Deisi and Meli (OK I made that last one up). They also sell sausages – hot dogs made with the cheapest filler are extremely popular and show up in everything from wienie salads to paella – as well as salami and ham, another HUGE seller.

Now – and I am getting to my point at last – whenever there is a promotion on any of these products, the companies like Fud, San Rafael and Dubi (I did not make that last one up) decide that the best – and only – way to promote fake meat is through a direct assault on all your senses more or less as follows:

  • Sense of sight – they will have scantily-clad hostesses showing off their belly buttons, legs and cleavage, holding trays of pre-cut samples which obviously appeal to your
  • Sense of taste, which will detect mostly salt and fat but that is just the product; nothing can be done there.
  • Your sense of touch will be employed here when your fingers scrabble around on the aluminum-foil wrapped tray trying to grab a piece of fatty hot dog or ham
  • And finally, your sense of hearing will be attacked by a full out, blaring sound system, playing the latest tunes in the reggaeton, cumbia and salsa genre. In addition to the music, one of the hostesses or a host dressed in bright blue and yellow polyester will act as a DJ or MC, announcing the fabulous deals on wienies right now, and all the goodness that corn starch, pigs feet and salt can provide when ground up and shoved into a semi-edible sausage casing. He will be yelling into the mike, the music blaring, perhaps even delighting his oblivious audience with a few dance moves, and generally just creating a real exciting ambiance in which to purchase ham and cheese.

Why is this? What is the relationship with loud tropical music and cold cuts? Certainly an important question that deserves some thought.

Chili’s Altabrisa

Casual Restaurant Critic

The Casual Restaurant Critic is deeply aware of the fact that no one wants to read reviews of this American chain restaurant. But since it is the only restaurant visited lately and something must be said about all the available options in Merida, here goes.

Chili’s Altabrisa (in the new Altabrisa mall) is a notch above the Chili’s located in Liverpool, where the Critic was amazed at how bad the service was. Here, in the sparkling new mall and across from the already reviewed Fogoncito taqueria, the service is a little better while the food is the same gringo fare found at the other locations.

The Critic’s better half ordered her usual hamburger which was good enough (Carls Jr. is better), the MiniCritic ordered her favorite, cream of broccoli soup which she enjoys, and the curmudgeonly Critic ordered baby back ribs. All the food arrived without utensils of any sort and the party had to resort to hissing and whistling and finally just grabbing a bus person walking by to get some forks n knives. The burger was good, the soup was good, the ribs were OK (Friday’s has better ribs). Basically they were dry and the extra sauce asked for when the food was brought to the table took an eternity to arrive.

An on the rocks “Top Shelf” Margarita was served without any of the problems and difficulties encountered at the Liverpool location and was delicious and refreshing as usual.

The bill was asked for and once the money had been placed in the little bill-thingie, it took another eternity to get the change back. Finally the party’s waiter approached the table with the bill holder tucked under his armpit. However, he was distracted by the bus station and stopped to help roll up cutlery elegantly in wrinkled paper napkins (do not use the wrapping napkin to wipe your mouth – trust the Critic on this one). The Critic assumed he was going to do two or three to take to a table, but after watching him complete his seventh roll, he realized that the waiter had forgotten the change and bill holder in his armpit and so the waiter was called by name and he promptly came over with the bill at that point.

Please keep in mind that a Chili’s hostess will attempt to sell you a ‘membership card’ that is good for 10% off your bill at any of the participating restaurants. There are about 8-10 listed of which one is in Merida. The rest are in the D.F. You decide if it is worth your while.

Again, nothing that Chili’s did here made the Critic change his mind about the fact that this chain should be – with the notable exception of their great margaritas – near the bottom of your out-to-dinner list when in Merida.

Golf?

Nada que Ver, Politics,

As a show of respect for the sacrifices made in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by the 4000 men and women in the US Army (screw the Iraqis, they’re evil after all) who have died and the many more wounded, President George W. Bush has declared that he is giving up golf.

I would like to ask people in the US – where is the outrage? I see Olberman and others ranting but by this time, with all this lying and all this deceit, why hasn’t the vast majority American public simply stood up and said: Enough!

Someone please explain.

NotTheNews Commentary on US Presidential Candidates

Nada que Ver, Politics

That NotTheNews occasionally dabbles in foreign affairs is not new; this particular entry takes a glimpse at the contenders for the US presidential race, the results of which will assuredly affect everyone around the globe, as much as George W. Bush has negatively affected the world in the eight years he has been undermining any chance of international goodwill towards the United States by the rest of the citizens of the beleaguered planet.

Talk about your run-on sentences. And I write this knowing full well that there will be at least one reader who disagrees with me on some of this.

For purposes of clarification: NotTheNews is atheist, does not support the Republicans at any time and is generally wary of all American foreign policy; military, economic or political, seeing that for the most part, they have proven to be destructive and poorly thought out.

Barack H. Obama – The official candidate of the NotTheNews editorial team; his recent declarations deploring the Reverend Jeremiah Wright for ‘inflammatory’ statements selected carefully and with malicious intent from by the US corporate media are, in the opinion of the afore-mentioned NotTheNews editorial team, a blatant sellout to the brainless sector of American society that cannot think for themselves beyond the 5 second sound bite and take offense at the Reverend’s words.

In the humble and completely irrelevant opinion of this writer, the fact that Sen. Obama has to pander to the ignorant instead of standing up for free speech and perhaps even inviting the American public to take a closer look at what the Reverend said, in what context and how much of it may be – however remotely and however unpopular – close to the view held by many of the citizens of the world. The truth hurts, the American public in general can not face it (there’s another sale at Macy’s!!!) and Obama has cheapened his position in siding with the sheep in this case.

Hillary R. Clinton – The second choice of the NotTheNews team, the senator from New York who never lived there much has blown her chance of any endorsement by this website by declaring recently that if Israel was attacked by Iran, she would ‘obliterate’ the latter. To make such an irresponsible statement when you have two unpopular presidents – el loco Bush in the US and el loco Ahmadinejad in Iran – rattling those proverbial sabers, is pandering to the macho element in American society who still believe that a woman cannot be strong militarily. Being as ignorant as many are of international politics, perhaps they have never heard of Margaret Thatcher. In any case, more than for reasons of pandering to the thick-necked, thick skulled, NRA membership, the comment by la Hillary is downright dangerous and will surely make Americans even more popular abroad. It also reinforces this writer’s idea that Hillary is just another old, white American business-as-usual politician who will continue with the same America First policies, the rest of the world be damned, that have characterized American foreign policy since the Spanish-American war.

John McCain – While the Democrats fight amongst themselves, this Republican former ‘maverick’ who ran against Bush in 2000 has, in some sort of Frankenstein-sells-off-parts-of-himself process, become another person altogether, completely at odds with his former, thinking self. Where he was once against torture (having endured it as a POW himself) he now supports all those delightful tactics that Rumsfeld, Cheney et al have come to call ‘aggressive interrogation’ methods, including the charming activity known as water-boarding or simulated drowning. He is all for the war and has declared that the US could be in Iraq for the next 100 years. Back in 2000, he openly opposed the idiots on the fundamentalist religious right; now he has pandered (there’s that word again) to them by seeking and obtaining – among other lunatics in that vein – the Rev. Hageys endorsement.
In short, McCain is now a Bush/Cheney clone, has seen the light ($$) and has sold out big time.

The conclusion is that so far, in order to reach as many possible voters as possible, all the candidates have taken positions that they were perhaps originally less than eager to embrace, all in the name of getting more votes. And the common denominator seems to be the lack of intelligence among the majority of the American electorate who have been shielded from any real discussion about the effect of US policy on the rest of the world, or indeed, of their own history. And so, each candidate ‘dumbs down’ his position, watering it down, chewing and re-chewing until it becomes palatable and digestible to the infants charged with electing their next glorious leader.

All the rest of the world can do is watch. And hope.

Link: Bill Moyers on Rev J. Wright

After a long absence…

Life in the Yucatan

Another month goes by and there is nothing to write about?

To tell you the truth, my dear readers, I have been absorbed in other things that have taken me away from the NotTheNews blog site and therefore my writing has been somewhat nonexistent. Of course, the fact that there were no more updates on the Chabelo case really put a damper on my inspiration.

There is of course, always something to write about when you are a neurotic foreigner. Although I am coming up to the point where I will have lived as long here as I have elsewhere growing up! 20 and 20 (years).

There is an interesting development regarding the hospital in Alta Brisa. My last post was on the IMSS so here is another health-related note: it seems that the Hospital de Alta Especialidad which was touted as the largest and most advanced medical center in the southeast of Mexico – if not Latin America, oh hell, in the world – has never been opened or inaugurated.

Apparently former President Fox did come to snip some ribbons, but the place was never really opened. It sits there, completely finished (at least from the outside) complete with landscaping and security… EMPTY.

Now a branch of some medical workers labor union has overrun the facility, declaring that they want half the jobs in the hospital to be alloted to their union people and the resignation of the guy running the operation. The local paper Diario de Yucatan shows some of these folks eating tacos and sleeping in the hallways of this brand-spanking new hospital that could be already helping people, but is mired in conflict in true third world fashion.

There was another narco-shooting in Merida this past week, when several men in a vehicle tried to make off with someone and that someone managed to escape the vehicle but not the bullet of a 45 caliber pistol that mangled his forearm. This happened in Mérida’s hallowed ‘norte‘ (where the ‘nice’ people live) and the local papers made the most of it.

Mostly this violence is not affecting anyone outside the sphere of
the business that these folks are in, so nothing to worry about yet. I will be sure to keep you posted.

That about wraps it up this morning, thanks for checking in and hopefully you found something interesting.

Credits: Special thanks to:

  • La Rosita for their unwilling and unknowing participation this morning by providing me with the photo of their rather simple salbutes.
  • Theresa for sending me this link: http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-insider28oct28.pg,0,2826129.photogallery?index=1 which highlights the top places for Americans to get arrested. In the world! You live in Mexico? Well read it! Thanks Theresa: you kick started by lazy butt this morning.
  • My dear wife, for making this damn fine coffee that I am drinking as I write.

Walk the Wok

Casual Restaurant Critic

Merida has a new restaurant that you might want to check out if you are in ‘el Norte‘, that part of town where all the action is.

The Casual Restaurant Critic first heard of this place in Plan B, that information-packed, Thursdays-only supplement in the local Diario de Yucatan newspaper. There was a catchy ad, and lo and behold, a whole page dedicated to the restaurant, which has, apparently, two locations on the entire planet: the first one, located in Amsterdam (Holland aka Netherlands for those geography-challenged, Left Behind readers) and now Mérida.

Amsterdam and Mérida share little else (understatement of the year, perhaps?) but now they share this cute little restaurant idea where the signage is funny, the food is interesting and they even have those little oriental food take out boxes complete with chopsticks.

It works like this – you pick your base, which can be rice or noodles, the latter of the rice or egg variety, which come with a bean sprout-y mix of basic veggies. Then, you add ingredients according to the contents of your wallet, the size of your appetite or your delusional thinking that you are a great chef and will invent something new. There is everything from shrimp to peanuts to choose from, each with it’s own price. Finally, you have a choice of about 7 salsas or sauces to bind it all together. Black bean garlic, Thai curry and coconut, that sort of thing. The cashier takes your money while the cooks whip up your concoction right there and then in one of two enormous woks being slaved over behind a protective sheet of glass.

The result? Before you can finish a cigarette outside, your little boxes are ready to go. The
food itself, the Critic found a little bland. Of the three combinations ordered, the Shanghai sauce was the only one with enough kick to make it tasty. The other two were rather bland, in the Critic’s humble opinion.

What about price you ask? Well, since you add your choice of ingredients and the prices are all over the map, you could probably eat cheap. The Critics meal, three orders for three people, two with shrimp and shiitake mushrooms, ran $250.00. Pesos of course.

On a scale of 1-5, the Critic rates this one a 3 for now. Take it or leave it.

…and in other news…

Life in the Yucatan

There is, along with the exciting details of the back and forth between Chabelo and our state government, an article on the IMSS. For the uninitiated, that stands for either Importa Madre Su Salud or Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, depending on whether you are an official of the instution or someone who has had to use their services.

Apparently, according to the newspaper ( must be true – salió en el Diario) under a headline titled ‘Sensibilizacion en el IMSS‘ the IMSS announced a campaign in which they are encouraging their staff (nurses, receptionists, doctors, etc) to be more efficient and nicer to patients. Apparently, and this must be a recent problem since gosh, no on has ever mentioned this before, a few folks have been complaining that the IMSS staff is a little less than professional or courteous in their dealings with patients.

I wish them all the best in their quest and look forward to positive declarations by the fine people running the IMSS in next week’s newspapers.

Chabelo Continues to be News

Life in the Yucatan

The local paper, el Diario de Yucatan, continues its exciting coverage of the Chabelo affair with the zeal normally reserved for real news and political reporting. If you don’t know what Chabelo is, read yesterdays post or visit his website.

Yesterday, Sunday, the paper had more info on ‘what happened’ during Chabelo’s truncated performance as a guest of the state government. The report included exciting details of the state government officials (paid by our tax pesos) went on a Chabelo hunt looking for the ‘artist’ after he left the stage and found him in the Liverpool parking lot, waiting for a taxi. The heart-stopping events that followed were also reported, indicating that the government officials convinced Chabelo not to take the taxi (even though it had already arrived and was sent away) and they managed to get Chabelo to get into the official, tax payer funded, vehicle. What they did after that is unclear, since the show did not go on and Chabelo appeared in Mexico City the next day to do his Sunday show.

Today, there is even more news. Hard to believe but thank goodness for this breath of fresh air, because if not, we would be reading news only about the never-ending problems between the PAN, PRI and PRD political factions, narco executions in Sinaloa and the latest man (it’s always men, never a woman) to fall down a well, leaving behind children and a distraught wife. The latest report is not really news of course, but a rehash of previous reports and the addition of new ‘facts’ to the case.

It seems that Chabelo offered a public apology to the people of Yucatan, who he professed to ‘love very much’ and that the problem was with the ‘organizers’ (the state government of Yucatan, whom we are supporting with our taxes). He apparently didn’t love them enough to continue with some kind of show, though.

Pedro Borges, the local empresario who rented the sound equipment to the government (with our tax pesos of course) to the Chabelo technical crew, and who handed control over to them for the actual performance, indicated that he had noted a feedback problem and commented to the
audio guy working the controls that the problem was with the monitors and that the audio guy took offense at this, closed his laptop containing the Chabelo program and walked away, leaving the suspender and shorts-clad, falsetto-speaking 60 year old ‘amigo de los niños‘ on stage with no tech support.

From a purely Yucatecan POV, this is yet another typical demonstration of why the waches are so hated in the Yucatan. The wach technician (he must have been a wach; I am sure that if you ask people who were there, they will tell you that at least he had an aspecto fuereño) got offended that some country bumpkin from here would tell him, the knowledgeable expert from the big city, about a problem he might or might not be having. And to actually dare to suggest a solution; well, that would be just too much for the ego of this wach and this is why he walked away in disgust at the preposterousness of the mere implication of him not knowing that a) he had a problem and b) that he might not know how to correct said problem. That’s what I suspect will be the typical Yucatecan POV, and it’s probably correct.

Personally, I am enjoying seeing how our tax pesos are being spent on this ridiculous show, and all the government resources – vehicles, staff, the governor of the state herself taking the stage to apologize for a hissy fit by a self important fossil that could only call himself an artist in a third world culture – alloted not only to the planning of, but also the damage control surrounding the program and it’s spectacular failure.

Chabelo Has A Fit

Life in the Yucatan, Nada que Ver

In this morning’s newspaper, I read with great interest, after checking out the photos in the Sociales pages, all about Chabelo’s latest visit to Yucatan to appear in a state-government program to celebrate El Día del Niño (Kids Day) that was held at the Siglo XXI Convention Center.

Mommy Government is always concerned with the well-being of whomever it is that is being celebrated; there are similar festivals for Moms on Mothers Day where hundreds of hipil-clad moms from the pueblos around Merida are piled onto buses and carted to the Convention Center (the official state government building for hosting ‘popular‘ events) and given a show, some food and a photo op with an Official from Mommy Government. On this occasion, for the kids, the powers that be invited (with your tax pesos of course) Chabelo to come to entertain the masses.

For those of you not familiar with Chabelo, he is a much-loved television show host, who dresses up in children’s clothing and talks in a falsetto voice like a little kid. A little wach kid; that is, and many, many Mexicans think he is an icon. During his show, which I confess to having watched on one occasion, I was amazed at how he pushes all kinds of crappy candy and toys and is a complete sell-out to his corporate sponsors. Did I mention that he is 60-plus years old? Yes, well, this wrinkled old man in shorts, suspenders and the falsetto came to the Yucatan – at the invitation of our governor – to entertain the kids on their special day.

These are kids, for the most part, from the so-called clases populares, which, if you have been reading these writings throughout the 14 years or so they have been appearing in front of you, you know means that they are brown, poor and travel in state-government-provided transportation and have been raised by their parents accompanied by a heavy daily diet of horrendously awful television that has stunted their imaginations to the point that they actually think Chabelo is entertainment and the sadly unfunny Popi Popi clown is Cirque du Soleil material.

OK, I am generalizing. Stop already. And it’s not their fault. It’s Mommy Government that screws these people over and over, generation after generation. I feel a rant coming on. Better stop. Now.

So here they are, these kids – having been bussed in from the dirt-poor marginalized pueblos around Merida that are visited by the well-off on only two occasions: political campaigns and the Misiones during holey week – waiting for up to 3 hours for this magical character from TV to appear on stage, thanks to the magnanimous effort of Mommy Government (and our tax money) who has of course, absolutely no interest in obtaining, from these bussed-in folks, any kind of political support.

Chabelo finally takes the stage! I am not there, but I can imagine the scene: the kids are happy, and the government officials, in their starched white guayabera shirts, beam with pride at their cultural accomplishment.

However, after about 10 minutes, according to the article, Chabelo wants to sing a song (yes, he sings and it is truly a cringe-inducing experience) but someone in the audio engineering area has not provided the backing track over which he will either sing or at least mouth, the song. The newspaper article goes on to say that he gets miffed – on stage – and asks where was the person he brought to look after his audio. Moments later, he declares that out of ‘respect for his audience’ he cannot continue with the show and abruptly leaves the stage, leaving his audience in a complete state of shock. The government officials, their beaming faces now reflecting worry and consternation at the thought of the angry mob scene that might result, scurry about trying to locate Chabelo and have him reconsider. Chabelo is nowhere to be found, however, and the restless crowd is becoming a little miffed itself.

Finally, the icing (IMHO) on this Mommy Government Moment cake – the governor herself (!) takes the stage to apologize for the disappointment suffered by all those little fans and their parents. The governor of the state, apologizing for Chabelo. Unbelievable.

Thou Shallt Not Speak Against the Hallowed Institutions or the Duly Elected Official

Life in the Yucatan, Politics

On Friday, March 28th there was a little article at the back of the Diario de Yucatán (page 10, sección Nacional) which reported on the declarations made by the Cuban-American mother and aunt of a Cuban man recently shot in Cancun.

I do not pretend to know the details of the shooting of this man, whether it was a narco thing or an immigration ring thing or just a random drive by. What I do know is that I actually laughed at the declarations made not by the obviously distraught Cuban-American mother of this individual, but at the lofty declarations made by the local assistant prosecutor, a one Luis Raimundo Canché Aquino.

Apparently the two women came to reclaim the body of their son and nephew, and made some declarations to the press in which they described the state authorities and their instalaciones (offices etc.) as dirty and and incompetent. They also said that Mexico is a country “lleno de miseria“. If you are the assistant prosecutor for the state of Quintana Roo, them’s fightin’ words.

This pompous ass of a public servant issued a statement himself, saying that he would be informing the Secretaria de Gobernación about these terrible things being said by these awful women. He also said that it is a crime for a foreigner to make declarations against ‘duly established authorities’ and that at the very least they should be declared ‘personas non grata‘ and that he would include a recording of the despicable things said by those two hysterical women.

I can only imagine the nightmarish mess of trying to recover the body of your son (whatever he may have done he is still your son) from a Quintana Roo government facility, with the added bonus of him and you being foreigners and the additional on-top-of-that bonus of having a crime investigation going on around the death.

Can you see the empathetic, professional government official walking the hysterical mother and aunt through the process and to the different departments, where they are greeted at every turn by more empathetic, professional and courteous government officials who move the case along in a clear, transparent, easy-to-follow process that is recorded for posterity on a several
sheets of clear, easy-to-read official documents. Come on, you can see it. Try harder!

Perhaps the idealistic Mr. Assistant State Prosecutor with far too much time on his hands is right. Us foreigners should shut our mouths if we don’t know what the hell we are talking about. Why, everyone knows that the state government officials could not possibly be inept and are a model of efficiency, transparency and several other ‘cy’ words. As for their instalaciones; why, they are the Swiss banks of police-dom and the envy of police departments around the world.

Overreaction! Hello?