I’d pork these fine swine flu mamacitas, the pandemic be damned
MONTERREY, MEXICO — I’ve been meaning to do a dispatch on the Swine Flu ever since the “epidemic” broke out, but I have been too busy working and scoring some good shit to smoke in my free time. The drought is on this time of year, and almost all the goddamn weed in the city is dry, dusty and tastes like shit. There is nothing worse for a true pothead than to have to smoke shitty weed.
As far as the Swine Flu goes, people will look back and remember the pandemic as a random memory, a wacky story for the grandchildren. Maybe you’ll see street vendors selling “I went to Mexico and all I got was influenza” t-shirts to drunken college students in Cancun. Pretty funny, but it ain’t true. I don’t know a single person who got the flu. In fact, I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone that got the flu. That’s pandemic for you.
Out here in Monterrey, opinion about the flu is very divided. A silent majority thinks that this was just a distraction to pass a couple of controversial laws unnoticed. But for the most part people think the flu is real, and the media and government are hyping it to as much as they can to gain something, the greedy assholes.
People have learned to “coexist” with the virus. That is what was recommended by Marcelo Ebrard, Governor of Mexico City. The man really cares.
You hardly see anyone anymore plastering paper onto their faces. These days, it’s mostly children and old people. But the surgical mask fashion was going strong during the first two or so weeks of the outbreak, with a lot of people profiting by selling them clandestinely at up to 20 times what they normally cost. Always trust a Mexican to profit from his fellowmen`s misfortunes.
There were many mask styles to choose from, too. You could buy ones with everything from Pancho Villa revolutionary mustaches to Rolling Stones’ lips painted on them, but they were cheap and looked real crappy.
Okay, well this lasted for about a week or so. But you hardly see anyone with the damn things anymore, people here started shifting their worries to more important things, like the possibility that a local soccer team of the “Primera Division,” the Tigres, was going to descend to the lower division, the very shitty “Primera A”.
So were people around here getting killed by the Swine Flu? Naah, we leave that to over-reacting Anglos ( or the Chinese). People here see things in through a lighthearted kinda lens, joking about it. A few Swine Flu inspired songs appeared on YouTube and even a rather good and funny corrido (folk drug ballad) started making the rounds. People also took advantage of the government-imposed suspension of work a few weeks ago to travel, go shopping, hang at the beach, get drunk and high—whatever your pleasure.
I really would like to avoid pointing fingers at where the outbreak originated, because this country and even Mexicans as individuals have been getting so much shit from the global media that it drove me fucking crazy. I saw a story about a group of Mexicans who traveled to Germany to visit some relatives, but when they arrived their cousins — their OWN FAMILY — avoided touching them. So the poor fuckers ended up taking the plane back home. What a vacation! That’s the power of the media for you, shifting the perspective of the masses to just about whatever it wants.
Of course you probably heard of the stories about the Chinese quarantining Mexicans in a shitty hotel outside Beijing, even though most were residents and hadn’t left the country in like a year or more. They weren’t related and hadn’t even been in contact with the infected person that arrived in Hong Kong. Shit, they weren’t even in the same region.
Read more: mexico, pandemic, swine flu, Pancho Montana, The Mexican Drug War
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12 Comments
Add your own1. dotor k | May 28th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
yeah its been disgusting lately the level to which people in the states have been able to ratchet up their level of racist garbage under the guise of giving a shit about the swine flu. add this to the similar garbage earlier about mexico being some sort of failed state and it’s been a solid year already for conservatives looking for excuses to declaim against brown people
2. mechagodzilla | May 28th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
yeah, but I think an important part of the tone of this article is that unlike crotchety WASPs Mexicans for the most part know how to chill out, smoke a bowl, and let it ride.
Man, I am really looking forward to the (maybe) eventual day when the current white culture is no longer the majority in the US. We are only impressed with our cultural diversity when it doesn’t cost anything–as soon as there is some perceived impact on social services (though we are seemingly proud of our independence from invasive government) or threat of disease, we fucking shrug that shit right off.
3. mechagodzilla | May 28th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
PS: those chicks on the top picture look pretty fine from over here.
4. Ivan | May 28th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Um. Mexico IS a failed state.
5. Naah | May 29th, 2009 at 3:16 am
I m starting to have worst suspictions that an exotic, 300% americanized ‘Panco M’ ranting about ‘Gringos’ is in fact a typical representative of slightly more known species of the North American continent – a US expat.
Maximum he lived in the land of sombreros is the last 3-5 years. Or write us the next column in Spanish senior Montana, we’ll translate it with google so it be.
6. Mx? | May 29th, 2009 at 5:54 am
where are you from Ivan? from what pinnacle of society are you coming to us from?
7. Mx? | May 29th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Im getting sick of goddamn gringos saying that Mexico is a failed state, its not like we tell you that America is a declining, rotting empire who sells their soul for a buck (think Saudis, think chinese).
Strange talk this is, If my memory doesnt fail me I think Mexico is considered as emerging power by a lot of European countries, both Zapatero from Spain and Sarkozy from France have made similar comments.
8. kris | May 29th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Hi Pancho Villa
Glad to hear you are alive and kicking!
Why are you Mexicans so defensive about the swine that flew? Maybe unlike us Chinese you still have to get used to these annual media pandemics about some new scary virus that “COULD possibly mutate” (as virus do several times a day) into something really scary? Here in China, although everybody knows it is 100% BS, authorities deploy the full arsenal of masked SWAT teams to play the game by the rules of those who launch these media attacks.
Either you show pics of everybody in masks or you take the risk of having your country banned for business trips and tourism…
9. Anton Lucii | June 1st, 2009 at 8:51 am
to #5.
Isn’t Montana an Italian (Jewish) last name?
10. Carlos | June 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am
Mexico is an emerging power like ketchup is a vegetable.
11. Thuggin | June 1st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Pancho, my man. You did it. (Finally wrote a readable article. And it’s real nice, too.) Mexico is grittier, crazier, and more fun than almost anywhere in the USA. When I’m drunk, wandering the streets, sometimes I even scream at people: Mexico is more American than America is. America is taking too much from Europe and not enough from the ROOTS.
12. Snarky | June 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
Well duh! The Anglos and Americanos are always massive media spinners. I mean come on, we think the Anglo army is actually good at something, except mass raping of civvies, and that the US is number one. It’d be interesting to see that tested in the US-China war over Taiwan. Or North Korea, that has nukz. Riiight. As for the flu, it originated from Gringo farms that relocated to Mexico. And even though Gringo managers set the standards, Mexicans got blamed. For those that are surprised or shocked by this, check out who got blamed in most Maquiadora cases.
And Ketchup is made from vegetables. Mexico too was made from emerging powers. As for Mexico becoming a power anytime time, nah. Still, it was a great place to chill before Bush decided on “reforms”.
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