Guest Columnist

My buddy Joe sent this out under the title: "If I had a Blog I would post this, but..." So I decided to do him the fovor of posting it in a blog for him. I figured I needed to update the site since my last drunken rambling (which I refuse to actually read) and this was a lot more entertaining than anything I could drum up in between real estate construction finance documents. So without further ado, here's Joe.

I am getting old. I came to this realization this past week because a) It dawned upon me that I am a month away from turning 28 (28!), b) I inexplicably and unknowingly have been getting food all over my face every time I eat, like the 72 year old man who sits by himself in the corner booth at the diner and has a spec of coleslaw on his chin the entire time and, c) when I saw Paris Hilton (more on this later).



I spent the past week down in beautiful Cancun, Mexico as Naomi had won an all-expense paid trip down there at her company Christmas party. This week was to be an interesting social experiment with me being 6 (6!) years removed from college and my last jaunt down to the bawdiest place on earth (excluding Rio). Would old habits die hard? I checked into the hotel, walked into my $1,071 (11,781 peso) a night penthouse suite overlooking the water, complete with Jacuzzi, California-king sized bed and balcony the size of my old NYC apartment, and could not help but think how this was the best spring break room EVER! Thoughts of orgies, freshman girls, Jerry, innertubes and friends passed out on the floor (complete with other friends sticking inanimate objects up their anuses) ran through my head. I was already pouring the champagne they so lovingly provided all over nubile young white trash when I snapped back to reality by the shout of “can you help me with this?” (which was apparently already uttered 3 times before I heard it). I soon realized that my latest trip to Cancun would be slightly different from my prior one.



Some observations from Cancun:

* It is 10 times more ‘wild and crazy’ than 6 years ago – This is not to say that it wasn’t wild and crazy when we were last there insomuch as the party culture that is Cancun and spring break has risen to levels heretofore unforeseen. At first I thought that this was just my “new” perception because I was old and all, however Pat Webster (or P-Webb as he asked to be called), a 25 year old University of Oklahoma senior, veteran of 8 Cancun spring breaks (including the last 6 consecutively), and proud owner of an Eazy-E tattoo on his back, confirmed that spring break now is different from even 3 years ago, never mind 6 years ago. “5 years ago it was rad, now it’s off the hiz-ook!” (in retrospect I think he may have said ‘mad’ but it sounded like ‘rad’ and I thought ‘rad’ was much funnier mostly because I haven’t heard that term since 1988.) Anyway, I tend to believe him. This got me thinking, how can spring break get wilder? I think this because of two factors. First, is what pop-writer (and personal favorite) Chuck Klosterman so eloquently put as the “Real World-ification” of today’s youth. By that he means that everyone under 25 can be put into one of the prototypical Real World characters, (i.e., the Black Militant, the naïve virgin, the drunk one, the gay one etc.) Anyway, in Cancun, everyone puts on their Trishelle and Steven from Real World Las Vegas personas, a.k.a, Slut and Playa persona. I think this is directly related to the McDonaldization of Cancun or what I’ll call…
* La Boom is dead – Cancun has become incredibly more commercialized. This is actually a disturbing trend I’ve noticed every time I revisit a place with fond memories (Key West, Ann Arbor, all of lower Manhattan (a Whole Foods on Houston!)). Anyway, Cancun has sort of become a bad cartoon of itself. As I said earlier, everyone goes down looking for a good time (which in and of itself is not a bad thing) but businesses now cater themselves to these wannabee Trishelles and Stevens and these capitalist fucks eliminated the original places that made Cancun Cancun. There are now 2 “citywalk” type places (one cleverly called “The City”), Senor Frogs now has a merchandise store attached to the restaurant/bar that is bigger than the restaurant/bar itself, and Coco Bongo has remodeled itself after a Vegas club/cabaret. But at least Coco Bongo is still there/relevant. Gone is the little place by the Melia Turquesa where Mexican waitresses first poured those pitchers of red liquor down our throats. Gone is Pasha. I drove past La Boom at 11 pm and nary a soul was in sight (I never realized what a poor location they had, that is probably because there were too many chemicals in my body to realize anything). The new places were all cookie-cutter, stereotypical, Americanized clubs blasting rap music with bikini-clad 18 year olds with fake tits and tattoos on the small of their backs dancing on the speakers. Again, this in and of itself is not such a bad thing, but I AM nostalgic for the old Cancun, and that is what made me realize I was old. It won’t be too long before I reminisce about having to hike 4 miles in 0 degree weather and 12 inches of snow (Informer, a licky boom-boom down). Anyway, These clubs perpetuate the MTV personas the kids come down with, and then the kids perpetuate the clubs because the clubs are blood-sucking capitalists… it is a vicious cycle, and so every year, Cancun gets more “off the hiz-ook” and MTV is all too blame. Which brings me back to …
* When I Saw Paris Hilton – I was walking back from the Mexican 7-11 to get a large bottle of water past the little Mexicans selling chiclets, past the vagabond women carrying their children in an over-the-shoulder satchel (paige), and past the women braiding the hair of over-weight, pale, bikini clad women from Iowa, when I was approached by a young attractive women wearing a t-shirt that said MTV casting. She selected me to be in the audience of show MTV was about to tape entitled “VIP with Paris Hilton”. Feeling that maybe I still looked young or was perhaps even, young, I accepted. I was suddenly backstage at MTV spring break headquarters in Cancun Mexico, walking the various c-list MTV personalities (hi Quddus!) and hot bikini clad models MTV hires to dance at these things. I took my place in the audience and waited for the show to begin. These shows are even more fabricated than I could have imagined. They filmed the intro “everybody scream and wave your hands wildly” shot 3 (3!) times. How any of these looked different from the others I have no idea. Anyway, if you happen to catch the show (which turned out to be a hot or not contest as judged by Paris Hilton) you may see me in the audience. I should be recognizable by the fact that a) I am wearing a Mets cap and b) I am the only one who does not look like he has ever taken the cream (or the clear) and doesn’t have his arms covered in tacky tattoos. It was then, looking around, surveying the crowd, hearing that bitch say in her sheepish, dunce-like voice “that’s hot,” I realized it was indeed true. I am getting old. I just didn’t fit in, nor did I care about the show, or that is was spring break all around me. So I wandered off the set and onto the rest of the MTV grounds, thinking about how much I would have enjoyed being here 6 years ago, but now it just wasn’t for me. I was past my spring break prime. I did start talking to this one MTV staffer who looked to be my age and started talking to him about MTV spring break. After waxing poetic about MTV, she offered me tickets to that evening’s 50 cent concert at “The City” which she promised to be “off the hook” (what is up with this term). I took them with no plans to go (I’ve seen too many good hip hop acts perform bad concerts to want to see a bad rap act perform a bad show) and was comforted by my decision when in passing by “The City” that night I saw a line longer than at the welfare office in the Bronx on the first of the month. Apparently, all of Cancun had tickets the show and they filled the place up on first come first serve. This is undoubtedly the greatest scam of all time. Sell unlimited tickets to a popular concert, and then only let in 1/100th of them. Ticketmaster will undeniably be in on this scam within 5 years. (Surprisingly the lines the next 2 nights for Ludacris and The Game, were much shorter, yet still incredible long.)

Anyway, my return visit to Cancun was decidedly more relaxing. I was more than happy spending my vacation lying by the pool, sipping fruity cocktails, reading 2 books and various magazines, going to a decent dinner and getting a massage. And of course, I reminisced about the Glory Days, because after all, I am old and that’s what old folks do.