I walked shirtless at 3 a.m. from the Zona Norte clubs to my apartment. Her fake name was Arianna and she was a Zelda fanatic. She came from Monterrey to make money as she finished her Master’s in nursing, or so she told me.
I was wearing my triforce shirt, matching my triforce tattoo. She kept observing me from the bar. She said that I was observing her. I was trying to not look her way. Curvy pretty latina wearing almost next to nothing just staring me down is hard to ignore.
After a few stares, I called her over to buy her a drink. She was the 5th girl that night I was buying drinks for. She talked nerdy to me. She knew all the Zeldas even the ones I haven’t played like The Minish Cap. I bought her several drinks. A bit too many. I was wasted. She liked my triforce shirt. She said she had a similar one but yellow. I took off my shirt off and gave it to her. She put it on and put my head under it so I could play with her tits.
This went on for a while. As I stared at her with drunk tunnel vision though surrounded by hundreds of other half-naked women.
It was more than a 14-hour tour. I left the club at 2:44 a.m. shirtless and walked home. But let’s backtrack.
My bachelor party tour video got much attention on TikTok. I don’t want to say it went viral because 150k+ views doesn’t qualify as viral anymore. You have to get more than a million to call it viral.
But it did well enough for a lot of people to get interested in my tours. Many people message me about it. I ignored a lot because they didn’t seem the type of people I wanted to tour. One messaged me with a simple: “I want a food and beer tour, it would be me and my cousin. We are coming from LA, my cousin has never been to Tijuana.”
It vibed with me. So I told him to message me on my Tijuana Adventure instagram. His instagram betrayed him as a young Asian American kid. Perhaps to young.
I was wrong. He was 40 and married and his cousin was 36 though he looked older. Both men with high level PhD of some sorts. The tour started Saturday morning.
But let’s backtrack more.
I quit my job! I talked about it in my previous entry.
I came back to the freelance life which can be scary. I’ve done a lot of posters of sorts with Canva to advertise my services. They look pro. They have given me a bit of work, but not much. Work has come from weird sources.
I told the editor of the magazine that I would finish a cover article by the end of the month. The end of the month was yesterday and I didn’t finish the article. I got busy with a lot of shit.
I sold a print. It’s sitting in my living room. I’m going to deliver it to my client soon. He bought it as a Mother’s Day present.
I miss you, mom.
Everyday.
I was going to rent a studio space in Pasaje Rodríguez. I still want it. The timing is just not right. It would be a studio and a store. Tijuana Adventure exit through the gift shop store. Do tours. At some point stop by my store. Sell more stuff in my tours. And it’s also a photo studio.
And a space for other artists to collaborate. That’s the idea about renting that space. But I don’t have the energy, the money, or the time to do everything that I’m doing and rent that.
I went to therapy. I tried selling my books and prints throughout the weekend in Pasaje Rodríguez. A lot of people congratulated me like always. But no one bought shit. The first weekend that I go without a sale.
I got worried. Maybe quitting my job was not the best of ideas.
I hung out with Karlha, my pseudo-agent a bunch. She’s great. She helps me to believe in myself. We were chatting about doing a podcast. And that grew.
It grew to a reality show.
We’re all going to meet to talk about a pilot and how to sell it to a network or online service. Not doing YouTube or TikTok. Serious television.
With me as a host.
That’s still on the works. But it’s something that might happen for real.
It will happen.
I’m oddly popular and at the same time I am not.
Just like everything in my life. I’m a very simple and complicated person who is introverted and extroverted at the same time and more…
Sometimes I think I have autism. Or at least part of the spectrum. I often say the wrong thing and don’t notice it. That’s just me being honest. But I don’t realize what I’m saying is hurtful or wrong until it’s too late.
The Reader ran a cover with a picture I took. It’s about sidewalks. I like the pictures I took for it. The first photo cover of 2023 besides the cover story I wrote and photographed. More cover photography and stories are to come soon.
Baba Commandant & the Mandingo Band came to Tijuana from Burkina Faso. I barely know anything about Burkina Faso. Barely had a chance to read the first few paragraphs of the Wikipedia to learn the capital and what languages are spoken there.
My friend Danger Dave, now Domesticated Dave, called me on Thursday. Baba and the band arrived one day early. I told him I would help him with anything, but I didn’t know I was going to help since Thursday.
That Thursday morning, I took Bisho to the vet. I found out he has diabetes. His whole diet has to change. I already began working on it. He already began to heal and seems better. He is just always hungry. He is on a diet though. He is going to lose weight. He wasn’t that fat, but hey… diabetes. I have a cat with diabetes. I never thought I would say that in my life. I plan to cook for him and buy him better food instead of just feeding him some of the cheapest dry food I can find. Chimba still loves dry food better than wet food…
I met Baba and the band at Margarita’s Village. I was already with Karlha. Karlha wanted to do a PodCast / concert of them in her apartment a la Tiny Desk. She was adamant about it and she made it happened. It went great, but not too much for her. Her vision didn’t go as well as she intended. And I understand why.
The rest of the tour with Baba and the band went great. I got along excellent with the manager of the US tour and also their French manager who brought them all the way from Burkina. The language barrier was there so I couldn’t say much to Baba or the band. I just kept giving them beers because they loved Tecate and other commercial bands. We took them to eat tacos. We gave them tequila. We gave them a lot of beer. It was overall great times.
The bass player was insanely talented (all of them were) but the bass player seemed to be the most interested in seeing other people play music.
We jammed in Karlha’s apartment. I got a bit nervous but not as nervous as Danger Dave got.
That night, they played the show at the Tijuana Jazz Club. It went excellent. My brother and his wife went and loved it. It could’ve been way bigger but it was a nice intimate concert of a band from Burkina Faso in Tijuana.
It must have been one of the first times a band from Africa plays in Tijuana. If not from Africa, then at least from Burkina Faso. There were some very unique fans of Baba Commandant that I never imagined would exist in Tijuana. One even had a ngoni that he built. The ngoni is Baba’s main instrument. I love string instruments. I want my own ngoni.
Guitar player was also superb. Drumming tight and on point. And of course, Baba and his art and the Ngoni.
It was a concert and hang out that I will always remember. I got a signed CD by Baba and went home past midnight.
I had a tour early in the morning. I couldn’t party with the guys anymore.
Here is what that looks like in an Instagram format:
I hung out with them and took so many pictures and videos but the only picture I took with Baba was this horrible one with my iPhone.
Saturday morning.
I was a bit late for the tour but met them with no issues by the bridge of doom around 11:30 a.m. Two Asian American guys from Wichita, Kansas. They were cousins but not blood related. A very Asian thing to do. It’s also a very Latino thing to do. I have cousins that aren’t my cousins.
After just a brief chat, I had it almost all figured it out. I asked if coffee or beer first. They opted for beer.
Bar Nelson for the first caguama. It wasn’t even noon.
After that, lunch. Cevicheria Nais like I always do for tourists. Tacos and tostadas accompanied by more beer (Sirena by Agua Mala).
It was followed by Mamut Brewery. Here I figured out they were just as nerdy as I was so I thought it would be good to go smoke weed and play video games to my apartment before going to their Airbnb. Walked them through Plaza Friki and other downtown locations and to my place. I made them played Celeste, some Neon White, then we played a few rounds of Street Fighter.
From there, we Uber to their Airbnb. But first, I walked them around Parque Teniente Guerrero. Their Airbnb was behind Hotel Lucerna. Beautiful condo that was $200 a night.
I walked them to see the statue of Lincoln which was on the way to the next brewery, Insurgente in Zona Río. I haven’t been back since they shut down back in 2019. It’s exactly like it was before except with new food options. We didn’t try the food.
We walked uphill to Colonia Cacho and to Public House. Here we switched to gin and tonics. Two each. I took them through taco alley but skipped eating tacos there and opted for Tacos el Vaquero. They are on the same location as before but they left the street to have their own kitchen-like spot. I liked them better when they were on the street but they were still superb. We walked to Madero Tasting Room for a pee break and a small beer.
I told them we could easily Uber back to downtown or they could do the real Tijuanense experience and ride the taxi de ruta. They wanted to see the ruta taxis. We were right in front of the Chinese store, so it was perfect to show them what they are like.
Yep. Exactly like a Chinese store. An old woman in the entrance said “you know what time it is?” in Cantonese (my clients told me this). They bought a green apple flavored Soju and we drank in the taxi de ruta. I forgot to film that.
I’ve been wanting to try the new mezcal place on Sixth Street, but this is the 3rd time I go with clients following me and I see it closed. I’m going to give up trying there. Instead we went to Dandy’s for one more gin and tonic.
After that, we went to adult Disneyland. But before that. Casino. They gave me $60 and told me it’s my Disneyland money. I put it all on one spin on black. I doubled my money. I took half of that and tried to get triple my money by gambling on the mid numbers (13-24). It landed on the first 12. I lost what I had doubled. I decided to walk out even. The thrill was worth it.
With more than a good buzz in our system, it was time for Zona Norte. We started at Chicago Club in there…
In there…
Well… In there… I’m not going to write about because it belongs to an addition chapter to my book. Or to the book volume 2.
Or to my Patreon.
I’m going to write it for my Patrons on Patreon. And other writing goodies and previews. Like the things I plan to sell on my store will also be on my Patreon. I need to work on my Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/Matingas
Here is the tour in TikTok format:
Sunday was family time. All hungover after a concert and a tour that got out of control. I still took family pictures because my sister-in-law’s dad had a new unveiling of art at his restaurant. It’s really nice and large piece of art with a recurring theme in Tijuana (migration).
And with that. May just begins.
I have a bachelor party tour with Canadians just after my birthday. It’s my birthday. I might have a tour right before that. I might have a tour this Saturday. I still need to finish that cover article. I have a meeting for the reality show. I still have books to sell. And much much more.
I’m keeping busy. Busier than I ever thought I would be. And I’ve been drinking a lot. It’s almost time to go drink now. I have a date with a girl I met at Dandy’s. I didn’t even meet her. She gave me a napkin with her number and a smiley face. We started chatting. And tonight I go out with her. I’ve been hitting on girls on Tinder and Bumble and more. And Zona Norte.
I think getting over my ex is almost finalized. I deleted her file from the Celeste game. I still haven’t deleted her pictures off my phone. That’s next. That’s what I’m going to as soon as I hit publish to this blog. I miss her so much and I will always love her. But I can’t be stuck thinking about her all the time.
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Matingas 