Entijuanarte Art Festival

EntijuanArte is happening in Tijuana this weekend, Oct. 4-5.  It’ll be a good chance to see local Tijuana art and bands, plus scope out the new El Cubo addition to CECUT. More info below:

Maquilapolis

I wrote about Maquilapolis a few years ago, and even though one of the directors, Sergio de la Torre, hated the story because he thought I shouldn’t have talked to the owners of the maquilas (he was afraid of a lawsuit at the time) and has been a complete dick to me ever since, I support the film in every way.  It’s a beautiful piece of work and, for those out there who have never thought of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) , or any other NAFTA-like agreement that’s gone through since, this is a must-see film.  It’s screening this week in San Diego, the full info is below:

Tonight: The public opening of La Casa del Tunel in Tijuana!

Gerda Govine of COFAC

Eco Verde: La Casa del Tunel's rooftop cafe

La Casa del Tunel's main gallery

The entrance to La Casa del Tunel

Directions to La Casa del Tunel in Tijuana

La Casa del Tunel: Art Center

Park at UETA on the US side.

Walk through first turnstile gate.

Stay to the right.

Walk through second turnstile gate.

Yay.  You’re in Mexico.

Turn right.

Walk down road to your right (heading back north).

Keep walking until you literally come to the border fence (it’s just a few blocks from the turnstile gate).

Follow the dirt road to your left for 10 yards.

You should see that building pictured above.

Adapta Project’s latest conquest

"Saturday Morning Sign-off" by Robert L. Nelson

Let’s just say I think our next show is frightening, fucking awesome and muy, muy bonita, all rolled into one.

Tijuana gallery

An excellent show is opening up at Name Gallery tonight in Tijuana at 8 p.m.  The artists include some of my favorites from Tijuana: Sebastian Beltran, Ingrid Hernandez, Aldo Guerra and others.

Border-related crime?

So, while places like The Tunel are opening and struggling to bring arts, culture and awareness to the border community on a shoestring budget, the San Diego County Sheriffs Department is getting $5.5 million to help fight “border-related” crime. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The San Diego Board of Supervisors today authorized the receipt of the Stonegarden Grant, which focuses crime prevention, detection, and suppression along the underserved, rural areas of East County and on the busy South Bay areas impacted by border-related crime.

This money will enhance our efforts to prevent, interdict, and arrest those involved in border-related crimes.  New equipment acquisitions will consist of ‘high tech’ items that will enhance our abilities to observe criminal activity associated with the border.  Items such as surveillance cameras and license plate readers will act as force multipliers, maximizing prevention and enforcement efforts by providing operational intelligence.

The residents of San Diego County, particularly in the remote, rural East County and in the South Bay border area will enjoy an increased law enforcement presence as law enforcement institutes additional high visibility, proactive patrols.  These will also include increased flights by Sheriff’s helicopters.  Deputies and officers will actively be looking for criminals and criminal activities. The focus will be on reducing border-related crimes and on helping secure our borders by a strong, visible proactive presence in local communities impacted by the border.

The grant also covers costs, such as fuel and maintenance, associated with the increased enforcement.

One question: What exactly is border-related crime?

Festival de la Ciudad en Tijuana

El Cubo

The Festival de la Ciudad is kicking off this weekend, Sept. 23 through Sept. 28.  There’s tons of stuff going on, including the grand opening of El Tunel and an opening at Lui Velazquez.  Below is more info on the public celebration of El Cubo, the new exhibition space at CECUT.

Bostich + Fussible turn TJ + San Diego into sound

From Daniel Hernandez's blog

The red glow of the giant neon star welcomes dancers to La Estrella. The illumination from the “Dancing Hall” sign lights the cement on Sixth Street, just around the corner from Avenida Revolución in downtown Tijuana. Where the glow ends, the dark, narrow entrance to Dandy Del Sur begins. The two bars face each other like old friends, and indeed, both have been on the block for some time. But over the years, Dandy has become trendier and trendier—thanks in part to Nortec Collective’s track “Dandy Del Sur”—while La Estrella remains in some sort of impenetrable time capsule. On the old wooden floor of Estrella, middle-aged patrons dance until 6 a.m. to cumbia, banda and norteño. Meanwhile, over at Dandy, a younger, hip set sips Bohemia while a jukebox blasts Depeche Mode and Devo, with an occasional Mexican pop song thrown in for fun.

Standing between the two bars is a lot like listening to Nortec Collective. Since the late-’90s, the foursome has been mixing traditional norteño with electronic music, and to anyone who’s spent time in Tijuana, the result sounds almost as if Nortec walked around the city with recorders and added an electronic beat. It’s chaotic, melodic, a little wacky and a hell of a lot of fun.

Tijuana Sound Machine, the newest album by Nortec Collective’s Bostich + Fussible (Ramon Amezcua and Pepe Mogt, respectively), is, as Mogt describes it, an audible trip from Tijuana to San Diego and back again. Fresh from a sold-out show in Mexico City—where the duo played with a small crew of norteño musicians (made up of accordion, trumpet and tuba) and visuals guy Ernesto Aello, who uses a live feed and animated computer graphics to give the live shows extra oomph—Mogt paces his Tijuana apartment clarifying the albums’ concept.

“When you listen from the beginning to the end,” he explains, “the album has to do with living on the border. We arranged the songs so that this car—the car pictured on the album—is driving in Tijuana, crossing to the U.S., then coming back to Tijuana. Ramon is living in San Diego now; he’s been living there since two years ago, so doing this album, we were crossing back and forth, and the album reflects that.”

The track “Reten,” for one, uses samples of radio signals Mogt captured while driving around TJ. It was around the same time 13 people died in a gun battle, and Mogt picked up all kinds of police communications.

“There were a lot of checkpoints around the city,” he recalls. “Soldiers would come to your car with a 15-milimeter machine gun, and everyone was more worried about the soldier—that he’s going to mess up and fire the gun. It’s a very stressful situation. The idea was that if you’re going to be at a checkpoint, you just put on that track and relax.”

Another track on the album, “Jacinto,” uses samples of interviews Mogt did with kids in Tijuana. When asked what color would describe the city, most kids answered red, purple or black. When asked why, most answers related to the violence. Needless to say, Mogt describes it as a “very sad song.”

But then there’s “Mi_Casita,” a track written and produced by Amezcua. The happy-go-lucky song likely reflects Amezcua’s less-stressful life in the States. While Mogt acknowledges that things can be easier stateside, don’t expect him to move across the border anytime soon.

“I’d miss the liberty you have” in Tijuana, he said. “It still seems like it’s a city that has no rules. In some situations, it’s good. When I cross the border back into Mexico, I feel free, but if you saw me in the U.S. driving, I make my stop for three seconds, and I’m very careful. When I come back down here, everybody’s free—it’s still like the Old West. Sometimes, though, it’s not good, because things can get out of control. But I’d miss the trivial things, too, like good tacos and good cantinas.”

First published in San Diego CityBeat.

Hey Allstate

Good hands my ass!   I spent hours trying to reach a real person — we’re all familiar with that totally inhumane, infuriating experience when dealing with huge corporations that would rather spend 10 million dollars developing a complicated automated phone system that doesn’t even fucking work than spend 1 second talking to you — and when I finally did reach a real-live person, that person was useless. The company overcharged me by a lot (so much for the security of automated payments, right?) and my account over-drafted but there was nothing, according to the agent, she or the company could do aside from refund the money — when they got around to it.  Awesome.  Thanks a lot Allstate.

I decided the aggression would not stand and asked to speak to a manager.  He assured me the money would be transferred back, but when I pushed him and asked him who’d pay for the transfer charges I’d incur, he gave me the runaround and said I’d have to print out some papers, fax it over to him and then he’d “investigate.”  Yeah, like I want to waste anymore of my time paying for their stupid mistake. He had me right where he wanted me.

I was so infuriated by the end of it all, I was close to canceling my car insurance.  Problem is, Allstate is the only company I know that will insure my car within 25 miles south of the international border.  So unless anyone has any suggestions, I’m stuck with the corporate assholes who still, by the way, have not refunded my goddamn money.

Fuck you Allstate.  You suck.