Arte en Tijuana tonight!

Estacion Tijuana

Tijuana conceptual artist ERRE and his wife Coco hosted a pretty phenomenal art show in their studio last Saturday night.

You can see pictures of the show here.

My favorite part of the show?  The mixed-media works of Jaime Ruiz Otis, the puzzle works by Gabriel Boils and the creepy blue gnome installation upstairs (I hate to admit it, but I’m not really sure which artist was responsible for the gnome).

Alfredo Gutiérrez @ ICBC

Alfredo’s work pretty much speaks for itself.  His solo exhibition opens tonight at the ICBC, Palacio Gobierno in Tijuana from 8 to 10 p.m.

You can check out more of Alfredo’s work on his MySpace page.

Again. Really?

This time, the Reader’s cover story isn’t about violence in Tijuana, it’s about drugs.  There are no official stats in the story, just a book and an author who assumes tons and tons of people are crossing the border to buy pentobarbital, a drug used to commit suicide.

The journalist did go to two pharmacies, so it must be a trend worth writing about, right?

Sept. 27 — put the date in your calendar

Inside La Casa del Tunel

As an official member of the media, I’m not supposed to get personally involved with things that are going on in the city.  Thank Jebus I don’t work for one of those old-school dinosaur papers who don’t understand!  On my weekends, I’ve been meeting with COFAC discussing the opening of a new art center in my old ‘hood, Colonia Federal.

The official public discourse is below.  Please plan on coming to the public opening on Saturday, Sept. 27!

COFAC Opens La Casa del Tunel: Art Center Sept. 26-28 in Tijuana, Mex.

From Sept. 26-28, 2008, Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura (COFAC) will open La Casa del Tunel: Art Center, an international community center dedicated to promoting and facilitating borderless arts, culture and environmental investigation and awareness. The Center is located 75 feet from the U.S./Mexico Border with a panoramic view of Tijuana and San Ysidro.

The diesel drone

Saturday night, at around 8 p.m., the streets of downtown Tijuana were taken over by a parade of semi trucks protesting the high cost of diesel fuel.

The wailing horns of the trucks could be heard across the city.  It was so loud and constant that, at first, I thought it was a train.  An hour later, I realized that even the longest train in the world doesn’t have a whistle that lasts that long.

In many of the trucks I passed, the truck driver’s family was riding along — the small children had huge smiles on their faces because, finally, they were allowed to pull the good ol’ diesel horn. The drivers, however, were not smiling, likely because they’re worried about feeding those kids while diesel prices soar to $2.50 a gallon.  They blame the government, which owns and operates PEMEX, the only petroleum company in the country.

The deisel convoys are happening in cities across the world.  Just last month, there was a protest in Melbourne.

A new space for arts and culture in Tijuana

La Casa del Tunel: Art Center

It’s coming soon, my friends.  Stay tuned.

Tijuana dumps

Sister Teresa is a nun who works at a preschool and women-run community center in a recently closed municipal dump in Tijuana.  She just got back from my hometown of Durango, Colo. where she spoke to a packed room about her life’s work and how people can get involved.

When I talked to Sister T for a story I did about the Tijuana landfills, one of the most memorable things I took with me was her advice to the many ministry groups who pay the dumps annual visits:  Give money, give your personal time, but DO NOT bring bags filled with old clothes, toys and candy.  The kids can find that crap in the dumps.

Fuck you, too, Reader

Talk about the ultimate fake-out.  When I first saw the cover of last week’s San Diego Reader, I got excited.

“Wow, are those assholes over at the Reader actually going to do something positive on my city?” I wondered.

Alas, it was a false alarm.  As I should have expected, Michael Hemmingson played the roll of laptop journalist and simply rounded up old reports about Tijuana’s history of violence.  Good job, Hemmingson, way to be completely unoriginal, lazy and predictable.  Did you even step foot in the city before you published this piece?  In fact, have you EVER been to Tijuana?  Who, cares, right?  You weren’t really going for truth here, you were looking for the ole’ shock-and-awe factor, quoting pro-Mintuemen websites in your lead graphs, quoting other people’s year-old journalism ( From Hemmingson’s third paragraph: “What affects one side affects the other,” Mayor Jerry Sanders tells USA Today on February 5, 2007. “We’re literally one region with a fence down the middle.”) and ultimately presenting a portrait of Tijuana that could be a portrait of any other city in the United States if you were bored enough to round up every reported case of violence since 1994.

So, from my friends in Tijuana to Hemmingson and the Reader for publishing 30-something pages of diarrhea, here’s a resounding “fuck you.”  Learn how to do some real journalism, jerk, and give us a call or ask for a tour next time you decide to write about our city.

And for those of you as offended by Hemmingson’s attempt at journalism as I am, write his editor at sdredit@nethere.com.

Federales raid farmacias on Revolucion

I just went down to my farmacia on Revolution in downtown Tijuana to get some burn cream and was met by at least 100 federales in full riot gear. They had closed Third Avenue down and were raiding farmacias, making sure they had their papers in order.  My guy, of course, was in the middle of being investigated, so needless to say, I didn’t get the burn cream. Instead, I got suspicious looks from the young officers who undoubtedly thought I was there to buy Ritalin or Vicodin.

Gringos still come down to Tijuana en mass to buy illegal drugs.  The number one seller?  My drug man says Viagra is still coming in at a strong first.  He says college kids looking for Ritalin (the perfect study drug) are his No. 2 customers.

UPDATE: Here’s a piece by fellow Tijuana-living journalist Sandra Dibble, which came out a day after this little post.