Teenage Wasteland part II

Teenage Wasteland II

We set out from Los Angeles to Tijuana in the winter of 1969. I rode with “El Profeta” in the front seat of the candy-apple green 1958 Chevy. My brothers Jean-Pierre and Philo rode with my mother in the red Chrysler station wagon. 

My mother was finished with the life of a suburban housewife. Since the divorce she had taken on a number of different jobs; the one that fit like a glove was administering the Carter Gallery on La Cienaga Boulevard, the heart of the art crowd back in the day. She took up painting and was well received. But when she met “the prophet” she knew it was true love. We were leaving everything for a new life in Mexico. She sold the house, she sold the furniture, she gave away my comic book collection of the original spiderman and avengers and packed us up in the car. Our goal was to reach Puerto Vallarta. Once there, “El Profeta” would play his guitar and she would paint by the sea-side. It would be a little paradise for all.

On the road to San Diego

El Profeta’s real name was Nacho. He was a brilliant song-writer who played chord-melody, finger-style and jazz guitar. He had set out to revolutionize music. He wanted to return Mexican music to its roots in Bolero and exterminate forever the Chunka-chunka style. He had won song contest awards in Tijuana. With my mother’s gallery contacts in Puerto Vallarta he would be a hit. Together they would open a club. She would paint psychedelic landscapes by the seashore, while he would captivate audiences with his message of peace and love. 

We breezed through San Diego and soon reached the Mexican border.

Tijuana, 1970

 We crossed the border into Tijuana. I was appalled. The funk and stink was nothing I had seen before.  Carboard cities where ragged children begged for pesos. Plywood shacks with no running water but with a forest of TV antennas rising into the heavens. There were mariachis, donkeys painted to look like zebras, live sex shows and 14-year old prostitutes in mini-skirts plying their wares along with old fat pros. Fried grease filled the air with pungent fumes of pork and chicken mixed with onions, garlic and chiles. The smell of tortillas was everywhere. The cars were from another age: old beat up jalopies oozing smog into the smoke-choked streets. Music blared. We were stuck in a traffic jam. This was not what I signed up for. Where were the palm trees?

Cardboard City, Tijuana, 1970

But soon, we made it out of the traffic and into the desert. We skirted the border into Calexico past Mexicali to Sonoyta on Highway 2.



 Nacho, the "Prophet", stopped for beer. We gassed up the cars and moved on. The sun set on the Mohave and near a small desert town called Sonoita we found a cheap motel, the Azteca. We would only sleep three or four hours. Tomorrow we had to get up early to beat the heat of the Sonoran desert. 

Sonoyta, 1970s

We set out again, at about 5 o'clock in the morning. You could see all the stars against the black desert night. The sunrise found us in a little town called Caborca, where they make cowboy boots. The other special feature of Caborca is the immigration checkpoint. There was some confusion about the cars. In those days you weren’t allowed to import a car into Mexico without paying an exorbitant tax. I driving our cars so far into the interior, we had violated the law on importing vehicles. We have to negotiate. Meanwhile they impounded the cars. My mother was hysterical. We checked into it another motel. While Nacho negotiated with the police, my brothers and I tried the tacos at Don Felipe’s. The taco sauce burned our guts. My brothers and I walked around the town; in those days there was nothing there but Don Felipe’s place, the motel and a gas station and the checkpoint with the federales. We went back to the hotel and played basketball, pitching cards into a wastebasket.  

Finally we had some good news. Nacho paid a bribe. My mother could bring a car into Mexico as a tourist, but Nacho couldn’t, being a Mexican national. So they stamped her tourist card and put the candy-apple red convertible in her name and then stamped my tourist card, and put the red chevy station wagon in my name. I was the legal owner of the family car at the ripe old age of 15.

The sun had gone down, so we were stuck in Caborca for the night. 



But Nacho had plans. You see, the “Prophet,” as he liked to call himself, owed his visionary status to certain experiments in higher consciousness. Not only was he a guitarist-singer-songwriter, but he had a philosophy, a spiritual vision. He shared his vision with everyone who listened. Wherever he played his guitar and entertained people come he would also give long rambling speeches about the nature of the universe, and the need for spiritual peace. He would speak of the teachings of Jesus, and how we don't need material possessions. The true followers of Christ needed to focus on eternal brotherhood. Music was the universal language of peace. Caborca fit perfectly into his plan. 

Desert outside Caborca

Having bribed the federal police, Nacho drove us out of the car impound smiling like a tiger.  He reassured us that the police situation had been taken care of. We wouldn't have any problems further south. Furthermore he had arranged a spiritual retreat with the local medicine man. In Mexico these are called brujos or “curanderos.” Unfortunately for my mother, this retreat was for men only. And my brothers were too young. But I was a man now. Didn't I have a car in my name? He laughed. 

Returning to the hotel, Nacho give instructions to my mother. We would return in the morning. He gave her his gold cross and a number to call in Mexico City if anything happened to him. She wasn't very happy about it, but he explained that he had to follow his spiritual path. Furthermore, we were visiting an important medicine man or Brujo. He could work miracles. This man would cure my epilepsy.

I was in awe. The prophet was way cooler than Dostoyevsky. He was inviting me into a world that I had only heard of in books. We got into the candy apple green 1958 Chevrolet convertible with the guitar in the backseat. He fired up the ignition and we drove over to a bar called “El Caballo Blanco.” Outside the bar was a tall barrel chested Indian man. He had long black hair and eagle nose. He was dark and war old cowboy boots and a leather vest. He wore a hat with a feather in it and said his name was Arthur. We shook hands. He had big strong leathery hands and a wide smile. He got in the front seat and I sat in back. Was this a medicine man? I wondered. 

Nacho gunned the engine of the big Chevy. We took off into the Mexican night. They had a heated discussion in Spanish. Arthur reached into his bag and pulled out huge knife. The blade gleamed in the moonlight. The two men laughed. The car sped down the highway, headlights cutting a swath through the cactus. Arthur reached into his bag again and found an apple. He cut off a big piece and handed it to me on the point of the knife. 

“You know where we're going, kid?” He said. 

“To see a medicine man?" I said. 

Arthur laughed and shook his head. He looked at Nacho and laughed some more. He pulled out a harmonica and played something sad and monotonous, a kind of dirge or hymn of the Otomi Indians.

“You ever try peyote, son?” said Arthur.