at the thrift store today in Madera outside a mexican was selling some vegetables. I strolled up to the stand with my hands in my pocket as he approached me kind of waddling. He was kind of short wearing a button up shirt , a big belt buckle with a sleek white cowboy hat on and some shit kickin boots.
"you want something amigo"
"como mucho" i pointed to the chilis
"chili?s" 1 dollar"
"para 50 cents?"
"1 dollar"
i gave in and gave him 1.25 buz after i started digging in my pocket i could see he hadnt sold much today.
a giant ass grocery bag full of black market dirt cheap chiles that looks straight off the vine though a little cooked from being in the hot hot sun all day. I wonder if some of these guy get paid in vegetables. Like they pick them all day and then have to sell em to get their money or if they steal em. I dunno but its a shitload and dirt cheap so...
Guy I'm aqauinted with at the market said once that "when I first came here I worked in da field. It made me want to take the medicine that makes you die" "another mexican looked at him funny whom he was talking to. "the medicine?". "yea you know the medicine that makes you die." That guy has always got a shitload of classic horror and old 60s b fliks and such. I've given him a lot of my money. We've talked politics before just killing time while the woman shopped. I tried to explain to him that it was Truman that dropped the bomb but he insisted he thought it was Eisenhower. He's a good guy he's always nice and good conversation and is nice to my gal pal so we always like to see him when he's at the market. He's an avid baseball card collector so I have an automatic relation with the guy. AMericas past time ya know?,,
earlier today I was in LA and I saw a mexican selling mangos on sunset blvd. he ran a box full up to an SUV in front of us stopped at a red light. He made the guy take one mango back and pick out a good one from the stack up against the screen fence. So the guy ran back grabbed a good one and ran back to the SUV , got his few dollars, and ran back to the sidewalk where he stashed the bad mango back into where he got the good one from . turning it so the sore wouldnt be noticeable at first glance.
the light turned green and we drove ahead.
the guy sitting behind us on the train was mexican. He talked on his celphone most the trip behind us in spanish so it was actually less annoying that it wasn't in english because it made it easier to ignore being that we couldn't understand him.
awhile ago I was wearing my alamo t shirt that I got at the painted bird on valencia st. in SF. while sitting on the porch watching my cat eat grass a short mexican with a cookie duster stache came strolling by with a big smile on his face walking two big fun loving dogs on a leash. as he came past my front yard he raised his hand in friendship and said "hows it goin" I raised my hand with a lazy piece sign in a "sup" fashion and nodded my chin. there's a post that abstructed his view for a moment but once he got close enough to read my t shirt and see the building printed on it on black t shirt he sharply jerked his head straight and sneered as he stepped past my bushes and out of view. I sort of chuckled a little finished my cigarette and went inside to tel my girl what just happened.
few weeks before that I was at the farmers market and I saw a kid probly 17 or so wearing a black t shirt that in gold letters spelled out "AZTLAN" and he was looking around like with a proud cocky look on his face. I was eating at the chinese food tent and was lookin him over from a distance and I didn't really find it that amusing.
while I was down in san diego I watched this guy and a friend bust their ass shoveling gravel into the front decor where some plant lied on the outside of this coffee shop from where I was staying.He was lookin up takin a breather from shoveling all that gravel out from the barrel and he noticed me watching him work. I waved politely and lazily and he gave me a real warm wave back that was sincere and cheerful. he did some excellent work all within a day. I'm sure he didn't get paid much.
If anyones seen that movie "a day without a mexican" that whole movie is basically a clever way of saying "don't want to pay what Americans ask, get a mexican to do it"
california...
