Chris Walker Vs. Surviving Mexico, Part 2

Anyhow, our Cancun hotel package was all inclusive which meant from 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM beer, hard alcohol, and mixed drinks were absolutely free. Allow me to repeat: ABSOLUTELY FREE. We were three beers deep when we started setting up the display booth for the diesel show – the reason we were in Cancun – and one of us would periodically leave the exhibit hall to grab everyone a beer. This was recovery drinking: a means to dull out the physically devastating, high-anxiety feel of my hangover. Puritans would call that the behavior of an alcoholic. I call it Surviving Mexico. Unfortunately, all the beer in the world couldn’t save me by that point, my body was too thrashed.

After set-up I went to my room and sulked. I was lonely, hung over, missed friends and family, and really wanted to go home. I was in the middle of this:

with all the free alcohol I could reasonably desire, and all I could think about was going back to Reno. I was in the grips of depression, this close to “giving up” and crying in a pillow. I was like, “I’m 23 years old, I’m an asshole, I drink too much, what the fuck am I doing with my life?” As John Mayer and a hot chick from MTV’s 8^th & Ocean like to say, I was having a “quarter-life crisis.”

Regardless, I had a responsibility to my job so I sucked it up and attended the opening of the exhibit hall. I did my best to be sociable; I mingled, used my freshly-learned Spanish, and avoided alcohol at all cost. I can’t tell you how many times I declined a drink. Then Martin arrived. Martin (pronounced Mar-teen) is mid-thirties, single, a hard-drinker, and a customer of my Mexican Distributor. He speaks zero English but tequila is the same in every language so we understood each other well. He kept coming up to me at the show saying, “Coco Bongo, va?” which roughly means, “You going to Coco Bongo?” and pointing at me saying, “Tequila?”

Coco Bong is a club in Cancun they’d planned on going to after the show and tequila is an alcoholic beverage. Clearly. Martin was relentlessly persistant about the tequila; eventually, I broke down and indulged him, having one shot. It went down hard. After the shot Martin asked me, “Uno mas?” which means “one more,” of course. With the fire of Jose Cuervo flowing through me I thought, “Who am I to deny this man?” So, we had another. And another. And another. Then we had a beer. Then another shot of tequila. Before long we were sitting down, speaking Spanish to one another. Then we had another shot of tequila.

Before long, Martin had his head in his lap, mildly swaying, drooling onto the carpet. He was trashed. I periodically asked him, “Coco Bongo, va?” and he would mumble something incoherent. I had to laugh. Then it hit me: the depression was gone; the overwhelming vacancy in my chest had dissipated; I was back. All it took was putting a Mexican under the table. If making the most of the trip meant destroying Mexicans with my uncanny drinking ability, so be it. I served Martin a deathblow, giving him one more shot of tequila. The show ended. I helped Martin out of the exhibit hall and my Mexican Distributors carried him to his room. He wasn’t seen until the following afternoon. The rest of us continued the festivities in the hotel bar, throwing back more beer until I stumbled off to bed around 11:00 PM, victorious.

The next night a large crew of guys, including my Mexican Distributors and Martin went to Senior Frogs for dinner. We got thoroughly loaded beforehand, drinking in the hotel bar since it was free. Our alcohol intake was so ridiculous at one point the waitress just brought out a tray full of beers and left them on our table. They were quickly consumed. Senior Frogs was a madhouse full of Spring Breakers sans the Spring Break. Think Thunderdome with a rap soundtrack. Before we could even open our menus the first pair of, what would be several, large buckets full of Sol arrived on our table. Food was quickly becoming an afterthought. Everyone was getting drunk and belligerent and the longer we stayed the better (or worse, depending on whom you ask) it got. I did my best to destroy Martin again, bringing him and I shots of tequila, but the man just wasn’t the same. He was somber and reserved; in one night I had ruined him for the rest of the trip.

Martin’s friends, on the other hand, were hilarious and took full advantage of being in the middle of a party, surrounded by American Super Whores. They were taking pictures, joining congo lines. This one Mega Super Whore stood out above the rest, mainly because she was sloppy and not attractive yet scantily clad and obviously devoid of morals. The guys, both Mexican and American, loved it. At one point Mega Super Whore:

The Mega Super Whore in her natural habitat.

and her Jumbo Slut Sidekick jumped behind the bar and started serving drinks and flashing their tits, which were not good.

On a bathroom trip my Mexican Distributor and I watched a guy puke all over himself while he peed in a urinal. My Mexican Distributor turned to me and said, “What a fucking emo.” The rest of the trip held to the same pattern until Thursday when I finally got on a plane and headed back to Reno. It was strategic, alcoholic, warfare and wholehearted attempts at destroying Mexicans through their own intoxicating concoctions (i.e. tequila). Was anything gained or solved by doing this? Not really. But then again, whatever is? The main point was I had to survive Mexico in the midst of Hardcore Mexicans and I did it the only way I knew how: by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and making everyone around me do the same. I also learned a valuable lesson: when you’re feeling depressed, like you can’t go on being who you are, just get a Mexican drunk and all will be right with the world.

We never made it to Coco Bongo.

Chris Walker Vs. Surviving Mexico, Part 1

My recent outing to Mexico was not a vacation or business trip, it was a battle. It was a war waged upon my mental health, physical well-being, and most importantly: my liver. Mexicans (the ones I was with, anyhow) are no joke when it comes to drinking. They are dangerous. My body and emotional state were so ravaged by their alcoholic fortitude I almost relinquished my Hardcore title. It’s true. I was this close. That was, of course, until I remembered how I got the Hardcore title in the first place, enabling me to pull through, barely intact.

The mêlée started when my Mexican Distributor came to visit me in Reno. For three days he and I were either working or drinking. Usually, drinking. There was no recovery time after he left because I immediately followed him to Guadalajara. The journey to Guadalajara was hellish: I arrived in San Francisco at 6:30 PM, the afternoon of the 11^th; I departed from San Francisco at 1:50 AM, the morning of the 12^th, I arrived in Guadalajara at 6:30 AM, the morning of the 12^th, emerged from customs around 8:30 AM, and from there went straight to breakfast; spent the day at my Mexican Distributor’s offices, and finally started drinking locally made tequila at 6:00 PM here:

Then, my Mexican Distributors (there’s two of them, brothers) took me to a local cantina. The place was so old it had a trough around the bar where men could relieve themselves. This practice took place before women were allowed into bars. Men aren’t supposed to urinate in the trough nowadays but I’m sure things happen. Aside from the urine trench, this cantina had it all: a little Mariachi band, a hustler selling watches and sunglasses, and a guy who would shine your shoes for a couple pesos. I tried a strange, green concoction that was explained to me as “the cousin of the mojito”. I’m still alive. I bought my friend Dong Wang a fake Rolex for ten American dollars.

The neighborhood we were in became unsafe after the sun goes down so we departed for dinner. The alcohol was still flowing at a rapid pace; I think we each had about five or six beers before the meal was done. With dinner finished – our bellies full, our palettes satiated – we moved to the restaurant’s bar to watch the end of a futbol match. We drank there until the game was over and a band of old timers took the stage. It was our cue to leave.

At that point I assumed the night’s drinking was over; it was late and my Mexican Distributors work on Saturdays. I was wrong. I was their excuse to go home drunk to their wives at inappropriate hours of the night. Not that they really needed me to do this but they were ready to go big. It reminded me of the part of Frank Kelly Rich’s The Modern Drunkard that gives you a celebration on every day of the year thus, giving you an excuse to drink every day of the year. Excuse number 52: the white boy comes to Mexico.

We ventured over to the Hard Rock Café where my Mexican Distributor ordered three gigantic plastic guitars full of Corona. It took every ounce of power I had left in me to finish the guitar beer while we talked over the sounds of a Latino Depeche Mode cover band. (If you haven’t seen a Latino Depeche Mode cover band you aren’t living. Make it happen; it’s phenomenal. Kind of.) Forcing down the last of it I assumed we could finally end the night. Then I heard the most evil phrase ever: Two for one. Typically, the words “two for one” are magical, like open bar. But after being up for almost two days straight, at the end of a week-long drink-a-thon, I just wanted to get some sleep. I’m rarely one to tap out, though, so I stomached down the second guitar beer and maintained my manliness. Finally, day one of surviving Mexico was complete.

Day two in Guadalajara was tamer although just as draining. I woke up with a mild hangover, more dehydrated than anything. After a couple hours in the office my Mexican Distributor took me to a touristy shopping district of Guadalajara where we had a light lunch and started drinking again. On top of three Sol’s I drank this thing:

which is like a fruit stand mixed with tequila. Then we went to a gigantic mall where we had a beer in a Hooter’s. Yeah, there’s a Hooter’s in Guadalajara. Who knew? I don’t even go to Hooter’s in America but whatever, I didn’t care; I was just trying to stay alive and not projectile vomit. I needed Gatorade or something but it just wasn’t happening so I kept myself intact by drinking beer. Finally, we made it to dinner where I was subjected to two bottles of wine. I say ‘subjected’ because I didn’t want to drink two bottles of wine but hey, if I’ll eat three boiled chicken feet in Hong Kong out of courtesy, I’ll put down two bottles of wine just the same. The perils of foreign travel.

With this, phase one of the Surviving Mexico campaign was over. Technically, I was still alive.

Chris Walker Vs. Cinco De Mayo

Homosexual innuendo provided by Mr. Dong Wang

Learning Spanish all week has got me in the mood for a Mexican fiesta. I don’t know what I’m doing or who I’m doing it with but I’m down to engage in retarded activities I’ll hate myself in the morning for. By the way, you like the picture above? Dong Wang made it for me using Photoshop, Microsoft paint, or something. I thought I’d share it to bring laughter and amusement on this glorious, celebratory day.

Contrary to belief, today is not Mexican Independence Day. Mexican Independence Day actually falls on September 16^th. Mexicans celebrate Cinco de Mayo because on May 5, 1862, four thousand Mexican soldiers defeated the French and traitor Mexican army (composed of approximately eight thousand soldiers) at Puebla, Mexico. Personally, I’m down to celebrate any day where the French got their ass handed to them. Actually, I’ll celebrate pretty much anything. What day did women start voting? I’ll drink to that, too.