Wednesday, September 13, 2006



There was an article in today’s Westword about cock fighting in Colorado. It seems it’s hard to prove that the cocks are for fighting. Just look at a fighting cock! Hard to prove? Anyway, it all boils down to culture. Mexicans have no problem with cock fighting and don’t find it cruel at all. It was the same way in Ecuador. I went to my first and last cockfight a cock stadium in Otavalo, Ecuador. I never could stand chickens so I didn’t think it would bother me. It did. I left. The Ecuadorian equivalent of 4-H was there and the boys were putting their cocks in the ring. Men were gambling like crazy.
My friend Mario took me to a 4-H event at an auditorium in Quito. Outside a young girl was showing off the still she had made and was selling bottles of aguardiente. Aguardiente is definitely an acquired taste!
It’s hard to give up aspects of culture. Just look at how foreigners dress! There are these Russian women that ride my bus and work as maids in a hotel downtown. To say they have child bearing hips would be an understatement. They could give birth to an adult! They wear these hideous scarves on their heads and…ball gowns! I fucking kid you not. Do they really clean rooms wearing ball gowns? I’ll take a picture next week. And the gold teeth! But then you stand them next to an all American teenager and who looks the strangest. Ecuadorians sometimes stared at me like my hair was on fire. Culture. Most are interesting or amusing, but Muslim women are scary. If they want to appear unattractive so men won’t lose control and do them in aisle 12 of King Soopers, they’ve succeeded.
My friend, Trang Gotbux, has a theory that the young men of today wear baggy pants and clothing that do not show off their bodies, because we’re living in the age of AIDS. Hmmm.

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