All photos from Joan Sinclair’s book Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs.

Prostitution is illegal in Japan, which may be one of the reasons for so many creative “alternatives.” Whatever the reasons, the commercial sex industry in Japan is bold, ubiquitous, and incredibly diverse – a magical hall of mirrors for the die-hard pervert.

Consider this: Japan’s largest red-light district, Kabukicho, is a convenient two minute walk from Shinjuku, the largest train station in the world, teeming with over 3.64 million daily commuters.

Here is a short list of a few of the more interesting club themes and services available to the paying public.

Image Clubs

Stewardesses from a flight themed club whisper to one another. All photos from Joan Sinclair’s book Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs.

Themed clubs or Image Clubs are establishments offering a variety of sexual services in a specifically themed setting. For example, chikan densha, or pervert trains are places where the john enters a look-alike subway car, gropes a number of girls for about ten minutes or so and then chooses one with whom to proceed to a private room.

Other popular themes include nurse’s offices, high school classrooms, and bored housewives. A variety of services are available, running the gamut of vanilla sex acts.

Soaplands

Soapland in an off hour.

Soaplands are some of the most common brothel-type establishments in Japan. Because prostitution is technically illegal, the businesses advertise as being private bathhouses (aka soaplands) much in the same way certain massage parlors are operated in the U.S.

The client undresses and is bathed soup to nuts, generally by one or two hostesses. An array of lotions, bubble baths, and lubricants are used, and in certain scenarios the women strip down and lube themselves up before rubbing their bodies on the customer, using their own skin as a soapy sponge to “wash” them. This generally culminates in a garden variety sex act, the type of which is determined by the client’s budget.

Touch Pubs

Sometimes called Peeping Rooms or even Pink Salons, Touch Pubs are hostess clubs where customers go to engage in sexual touching. Each client gets his own cubicle, sometimes with a view of a live peep show, sometimes with just a TV and a selection of pornography.

A hostess then comes around and takes his order and service is generally delivered on the spot. Average prices range from about $30 to $40 for manual stimulation and $50 to $60 for oral sex. Some clubs offer a “lucky hole” in which the sex worker performs the sexual acts through a hole in a one-way mirror and never sees the customer’s face.

Breast Molestation

Breast Molestation is a specialty of many clubs. Patrons pay for access to a private room and a girl of their choice. Once the girl enters the room the groping begins, the grabbing and fondling continue for a limited amount of time.

There is a general understanding that no other sexual acts will take place, and the customer is to abide by strict rules, only touching the breasts. Very rarely do measures have to be taken to deal with customers who have broken the rules.

Remote Control Vibrator Play

One interesting game is tobikko play, in which the girl wears specialized panties with a built in vibrator that is remote controlled. The game is often times played in public while the couple walks from the front desk of the sex club to a nearby love hotel. The client controls the remote and can hit the switch at anytime, teasing the escort to his liking.

Doll Clubs

One of the more unusual club concepts is the Doll club, in which one can pay by the hour for a room and a personal session with a Real Doll Patrons can choose the face, hair and clothing. Even interchangeable vaginas can be inserted into each doll per customer specifications.

The dolls are incredibly life-like, and weigh about the same as a real woman. Moreover, the price for “alone time” is almost the same as with a living prostitute. What goes on once the door closes is at the client’s discretion – his desires so private they needn’t even be shared with a hooker. The maintainer of the doll may have a pretty good idea, though.

Left: Doll from a Doll Club, right:the spoils of a panty auction

Panty Service

The Japanese obsession with used women’s panties is reflected in some of the services available to those who are willing to fork over enough cash.

Certain clubs offer a special service where the client pays extra for the urine soaked underwear of his date as a souvenir.

Other clubs offer panty auctions, where prospective buyers place bids while the undies are shown in action by models who wear nothing else. Once the bidding ends the women take them off and the keepsakes go into individual plastic bags for the soon-to-be happy customers.

For more on Japan’s sex industry check out the book Pink Box by Joan Sinclair.

Photos taken by Abram Sinclair from his copy of the book.

Community Connection

Want to learn more about Japan? Turner Wright gives you 10 Customs You Must Know Before a Trip to Japan.

And for a big laugh, check out Abram’s classic post on how Teaching English in Japan is Awesome and Sometimes Hilarious.

There is no shortage of beer festivals in May, so if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of these places, make sure you stop by for a swig.

Photo Courtesy of lizzlebob

May 1-2: Edmonton International Beer Festival

Don’t be a hoser, eh! The Shaw Conference Centre in Alberta’s capital is hosting the Edmonton International Beer Festival and will have over 200 varieties to be sampled, so get your “aboot” sayin’ butt over there! 

Note: don’t expect to find any hockey going on as the Oilers are all out on the golf course. Feel free to pop over to Vancouver though, where the Canucks — who’ve just swept their first round playoff series with the St. Louis Blues — are sure to have a long Stanley Cup run (sorry, had to be done).

May 7-9: Banbury Beer Festival

Banbury is about 130 kms northwest of London in North Oxfordshire. Explore the countryside and visit heritage manors and beautiful gardens, but in between make sure to hit up the Banbury Beer Festival. The 9th annual version promises to be bigger than ever and will include a new Foreign Beer bar. Entrance is free for CAMRA members — but I have a feeling that, if you’re a CAMRA member, you would already know that.

Photo Courtesy of whiskymac

May 11-17: American Craft Beer Week

Not a festival per se, but American Craft Beer Week is a celebration of all that is wonderful of a carefully, handcrafted beer. Small, independent breweries around America are drumming up some special plans to honor the culture and traditions of this noble craft.

They call on beer enthusiasts to thumb their noses at the macrobreweries and to sign their Declaration of Beer Independence, promising to practice “informed consumption” and to champion the message of “responsible enjoyment of craft beer”.

In 2006, the inauguration of the week-long event was recognized by US Congress. You can even friend ‘em up on Facebook.

May 15-16: Fete de la Biere

The Fete de la Biere website is only in French, but no worries — here is all you need to know: the festival showcases more than 170 beers and can be found on the lake-shore in Lausanne-Ouchy, Switzerland, with the Alps providing a dramatic backdrop. Live concerts in the evening will ensure you’re given the full festival atmosphere.

Photo Courtesy of deegephotos

May 16: West Coast Brew Fest

The West Coast Brew Fest at Miller Park in Sacramento, California says this year’s 10th annual event will be better than ever. There will be over 60 breweries in attendance and live music on site. Like feeling special? Buy a VIP ticket for some special treatment — just make sure to buy early as they only have 100 of them (it’s exclusive too!).

May 22-23: Kelowna Beer Festival

A little late for snowboarding the champagne powder of Big White and maybe a tad early for water-skiing on Okanagan Lake, it’s the perfect time to partake in the Kelowna Beer Festival in beautiful British Columbia’s interior. Kelowna is an easy and scenic four hour drive from Vancouver, so it’s well worth the trip.

Some of the micro breweries on hand will be: Tree, Granville Island, Sleeman, Dead Frog, and Paddock Wood Brewing. Don’t know any of them? That’s alright, that’s the point! I’ve had several of these, and trust me, if you like beer, you’ll like these.

Photo Courtesy of lizzlebob

May 23-June 1: Czech Beer Festival

“If I had all the money I’d spent on beer, I’d spend it on beer.” – website of the Newark (England) Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.

Not many countries do beer like the Czechs. The Czech Beer Festival is proclaimed to be the “largest gastronomic event in the Czech Republic”. There are a million reasons to visit Prague, as anyone who’s been there can tell you. And here is one more.

Over ten days you’re going to get the finest Czech beers, dishes and desserts, doled out by servers in traditional Czech folk costumes. If you’re super keen, you can count down on their website to the opening: 23 days, 16 hours, 52 minutes, 37 seconds…36 seconds…35 seconds…

May 30: Plattduetsche Park Beer Tasting Festival

If you’re in the center of the universe, stop by New York’s Franklin Square on Long Island. You have two sessions at the Plattdeutsche Park Restaurant to choose from if you want to taste some of the world’s finest beers. An authentic Biergarten atmosphere will be on hand, complete with traditional German music. Ladies: bring your dirndle!

Photo Courtesy of deegephotos

May 30: Atlantic Beer Festival

The Atlantic Beer Festival website urges you to “tap a firkin keg!”. Moncton, New Brunswick’s event also has two sessions to choose from, and they offer free shuttle after each one. There is much else to do on Canada’s Atlantic coast, including checking out interesting rock formations at Hopewell Cape or visiting the world famous tides of the Bay of Fundy.

May 30-31: 18th Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation

Yes, I know there are at least 10 things to do in Belgium besides drinking beer, but, well…we’re talking about drinking beer here! What sets this Belgian beer fest apart from the rest is that only lambic beer will be sold. Of that, only “authentic” — no commercial ones — will be on tap. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what lambic beer is, I certainly didn’t.

This beer is brewed only in the Pajottenland region of Belgium, and rather than using carefully cultivated brewer’s yeasts, lambic beer uses a process called “spontaneous fermentation”, in which it is “exposed to the wild yeasts and bacteria that are said to be native to the Senne valley”.

So, there you go; your May is set. If you do get to visit any of these fine beer fests, make sure to check back with us and leave a comment here to let us know how it was.

Feature Photo Courtesy of a4gpa

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Check here for Matador’s picks of the 20 Best Microbreweries in America.

Last year, Ben Cox and Jamie Kent went on a mission to find America’s best micro brews. Read about it here. If you’d like to know which are the best beer towns in America, here are 20 of them; best beer bars in New Orleans? Here you go.

And finally, what article about beer would be complete without a mention of the biggest beer festival in the world? Here is A First Timer’s Guide to Oktoberfest.

Feature photo by Daaane. Photo above by nonanet.

Plants and Animals

This Montreal group went from nowhere to everywhere following the release of a short EP a year and a half ago. The subsequent full length album, Parc Avenue, is a glorious hodgepodge of “franglais pop” that’s part rock opera and part art-rock. www.plantsandanimals.ca

Recommended: “Bye Bye Bye” and “A L’Oree Des Bois”

Born Ruffians

The latest and greatest from the Toronto scene. Frenetic, engaging threepiece pop from three kids who sing about what kids care about.

Short songs, upbeat tempos, chants and singalong choruses made last year’s Red, Yellow & Blue a critical favourite and their live shows a must-see. www.bornruffians.com

Recommended: “Kurt Vonnegut”; “Barnacle Goose”; “I Need a Life”

Metric

A four-piece that’s nomadic by nature, having called Montreal, New York, and Los Angeles home before decamping to Toronto. Smart lyrics, plus Emily Haines’s purring vocals and guitarwork make them the dance band for thinkers. www.ilovemetric.com

Recommended: “Gimme Sympathy”; “Combat Baby”; “Poster of a Girl”

Constantines

A perennial Toronto favourite. Vocalist Bry Webb alternately growls and croons his way through anthems that recall a young Springsteen. Their recent album, Kensington Heights, earns its name from a downtown artistic community and was voted 2008’s Album of the Year by the Associated Press. www.constantines.ca

Recommended: “Young Lions”; “Do What You Can Do”

Stills

Montreal’s Stills sit alongside other notables like Broken Social Scene, Weakerthans and Feist as elder statesmen of the new Alt-Can-Rock. Last year, the band released “Oceans Will Rise” (their best album to date), a more mature take on the post-punk sound that originally saw them compared to mope-rock afficionados like Interpol. www.thestills.net

Recommended: “Snow in California”; “Everything I Build”; “Still In Love”

Crystal Castles

An electroclash-influenced noise factory of beats that sound equally great on the dancefloor or on your Ipod.

Made up of duo Alice Glass and Ethan Kath,their self-titled debut album released last year is awash in indecipherable lyrics, screams, bleeps and doodles that are simultaneously old-school and futuristic and somehow melodic. www.lastgangrecords.com

Recommended: “Courtship Dating”; “Vanishing”

Black Mountain

From Vancouver, the rotating lineup of Black Mountain (and various splinter groups, including Pink Mountaintop, Pink Mountain, etc.) draws from a collective of artists and friends who’ve been playing together in various incarnations for years.

They’ve earned kudos from the unlikeliest of places, including an opening slot on the Coldplay 2005 Canadian tour.

2007’s “In The Future” is their most cohesive and ambitious album to date, a sprawling, haunting and equally uplifting/devastating whole piece of work that could be the soundtrack for our generation’s midlife crisis. www.blackmountainarmy.com

Recommended: “Angels”; “Stay Free”; “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around”

Brendan Canning

Feature photo by Daaane

“Something For All Of Us”: The debut solo record from one of the founders of Broken Social Scene and a stalwart member of the Toronto scene (hHead, By Divine Right) is a thing of beauty.

From the opening notes of the title track, discordant and eerie, to the sad pretty lilt of “Snowballs and Icicles” and the driving guitars of my favourite track, “Churches Under the Stairs,” this record is a seamless glimmering gem that’s vaulting on to everyone’s “Best of 2009″ lists.

The production is top-notch, giving each track its own chance to shine, although there’s still some quality BSS fuzziness. www.brokensocialscene.ca

Recommended: “Churches Under the Stairs”; “Antique Bull”; “Love is New”

Lights

Lights is one sugar-coated candy of a girl making pop that’s fast becoming everyone’s guilty pleasure. Old Navy plucked her out of obscurity by featuring her music in its TV campaign, and the web effect was instantaneous: thousands of fans and website hits and offers of record deals.

Even though she’s only got an EP out at this point (full length due before end of the year), her pop songs are also making inroads at radio and she’s shot low budget videos for three tracks already that are online and getting play on Canadian TV. www.iamlights.com

Recommended: “White”; “Drive My Soul”

Wherever there are teens with guitars, there’s bound to be metal. Black metal is its most extreme sub-genre, combining screamed vocals and incredibly fast blast beat drumming with lyrics that deal with the taboo.

When we think of black metal, we tend to think of Northern Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America. However, at this very moment, headbangers from Brazil to Kyrgyzstan are donning facepaint and rocking out to homegrown riffs.

Photo of Demonic Resurrection by Frog StarB

1. Sarcofago – Brazil
This old school band combines raw thrash and BM elements with angry lyrics in praise of Satan. Like Venom and Sodom, they were part of the first wave of black metal and influenced bands to come. Lead singer Wagner Lamounier was formerly in Sepultura.
Recommended Album: I.N.R.I. (1987)

Satanas from I.N.R.I

2. Be Persecuted – China
This female-fronted band from Jiangxi deals lyrically with suicide, depression, and nihilism. Underproduced like all depressive BM, Be Persecuted is an atmospheric metal band in the vein of Xasthur or early Burzum. Unlike most atmospheric bands, they actually have three members and perform live.
Recommended Album: I.I (2007)

3. Melechesh – Israel
Melechesh combines Sumerian myths with ethnic instruments to create an authentically Middle Eastern atmosphere in its black metal. Indeed, the band calls itself Mesopotamian Metal. The Jerusalem police and press have accused the group of cult activities. Now that’s pretty metal.
Recommended Album: Sphynx (2003)


4. Kekal – Indonesia
Kekal started as a classic, 2nd wave styled BM band, but soon moved in a more avant-garde direction. They now combine elements of melodic, black and goth metal with their own flavor. They’ve started to incorporate jazz and blues elements, and even covered a song by A-Ha on their latest album, Audible Minority.

5. Shub Niggurath –Mexico
As the name alludes, Shub Niggurath produces a mystical, Lovecraftian brand of metal. Combining old school death and black influences, they’re a little bit Slayer, a lot of Absu, and a few zombies and monsters here and there. It’s a refreshing change from all the Satanic stuff out there.

Satanas Zombie from the record The Black Goatlike Arise

6. Taarma –Afghanistan
This one-man band from the Balochistan region, now living in Pakistan, produces sludgy, depressing, wall-of-sound atmospheric metal in the vein of Be Persecuted or Xasthur. Indeed, Black Emperor Jogezai is the only artist out there who has covered Xasthur’s work. Taarma’s lyrical themes include references not only to depression, but to his culture: “Kafan” (a song title) means shroud in Arabic. Taarma means darkness in the ancient Brahvi language.
Recommended Album: Remnants of a Tormenting Black Shadow (2007)


7. Deiphago –Philippines
These self-styled Filipino Antichrists are certainly keeping the old school, blackened thrash spirit alive, complete with over the top anti-Christian attitudes. With ridiculous album titles like “Holocaustik Metal Sexxxecution Whoreslaughters”, they are definitely recommended.

8. Inquisition –Colombia
Inquisition is one of those bands between genres. Starting out with a thrashy, raw black metal sound and an extremely anti-Christian attitude, they have since added progressive and experimental elements to their sound. Inquisition no longer resides in the developing world: its members have since moved to Washington State, joining the USBM community there.

9. Demonic Resurrection – India
Demonic Resurrection is one of India’s most popular blackened death metal bands, having opened for international acts like Opeth. They combine keyboard-driven virtuosity with slightly Satanic, but not over the top lyrics. Technical and melodic without losing the blackened feel, this Bombay-based band is certainly one to watch in the next few years.
Recommended Album: A Darkness Descends (2005)

 
10. Darkestrah – Kyrgyzstan
Darkestrah is melodic and epic, yet dark, underproduced, and atmospheric. This female-fronted pagan metal band has lyrics about shamanism and the Silk Road, as well as a song simply titled “Shaitan Akbar!” (”Lord Satan!”). The members of Darkestrah now reside in Germany, but continue to use include traditional instruments and overtone singing in their work.

Recommended Album: Epos (2007)

Inner Voice from The Great Silk Road

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:
Thinking about attending a music festival at home or abroad? Check out our recommendations about how to prepare for a summer music festival here.

Hostels are starting to pop up in Southeast Asia, an area previously dominated by guesthouses and hotels.  Open last year in Bangkok, Lub*d (despite the ridiculous name) continually nails 95%+ customer ratings on booking sites and rave reviews.   Here’s why:

Design

This is the big shocker, the amount of time that went into laying the hostel out.  Its nouveau-industrial look gives off the feeling of a white-hot advertising agency rather than a bunk bed emporium.  High ceilings, distressed wood, blasted concrete and wide stairs all work exceedingly well together.

 Rooms

Not the hugest but certainly the neatest.  Big, thick mattresses and bedding that feels like it comes from The Martha Stewart Collection.  Couple that with unbelievably efficient air conditioning and that new-hotel smell…it’s a winner.

Safety

Lub*d is smartly located away from the Koh San Road glut, a safe walk from the Chong Nonsi BTS/Skytrain.  A digital room card taps open your room, as well as the main entrance.   Each room has a big safe.

 Bathrooms

A girl staying here told me that let out a moan when she saw them for the first time.  A huge sink, with actual mirrors, sits dead in the middle of the room.  It’s surrounded by sizeable showers, each with overhead spray-age and honest-to-Jesus hot water.  

 Computer Friendly

Nine laptops sit in the lobby, with free use for all guests.  Speedy WiFi is available in all of the rooms, free of charge.   Bigger plus – all rooms have oodles of electrical outlets.

 Touches

 The little things add up, from the way that the electrical outlets match items in the room, to the fun atmosphere of the lobby (which stocks board games showing no sign of disrepair, as well as a bar).

 The Only Downside

 Lub*d isn’t cheap, compared what you can find at guesthouses.  650 Baht will swing you a dorm bed.  A better bet is splitting a “twin rail room” with a friend, which ran two of us $1,200 Baht.  I felt that paying an extra 200 Baht was worth it, just so that I could go a whole night without seeing bamboo.

 Lub*d. 4 Decho (pronounced “Day-Show”) Road, Bangkok.  +66 (0) 2 634 7999  www.lubd.com

You may not agree with Kara Suhey and Mina Karimi’s taste in men 100% of the time, but if you like men and you go to Babe City Babes, you’re sure to find something to appeal and amuse.

Apparently armed with a camera at the ready at all times, poised to capture hot babe action, these two are always on the look out for what they call “man babes.” They catalogue them much as an entomologist does insect life, giving titles to the masses of hot men they find along the way.

Excerpted from the site:

Is it post-feminist? Is it silly? Will it bring a smile to your face? From the East to the West coast of the U.S.A. with submissions garnered from anyplace a babe can be found, the answers to the above questions are yes, yes, and yes.

In honor of the most recent inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio this month, Chuck D dedicated his entire Air America show (originally aired April 5) to the music and history of the most recent inductees.

Featuring a playlist that includes Run D.M.C., Wanda Jackson, Eminem, Aretha Franklin, The Yardbirds and Metallica, this show seriously rocks.

Here’s a performance of Run D.M.C with Aerosmith doing “Walk This Way” in 2002:

Checking out the original video will make you wonder why awesome collaborations like this don’t seem to happen anymore (embedding disabled but available for viewing on youtube here).

Chuck D packs the spaces between the songs with interesting tidbits of information about the inductees, taking a break from the normal “On the Real” political talk format to bring us his picks – guaranteed to rock your afternoon or evening for 75 minutes.

Listen to the show here:

Download it for yourself here. Subscribe to “On the Real with Chuck D” here, and check out the inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here.

The New York Dolls are coming to Buenos Aires in less than two weeks, and I just can’t stop thinking about it.

There are only two original members in the lineup.

David Johansen, frontman of mainstream “Hot Hot Hot” fame (as Buster Poindexter) still sings, and Sylvain Sylvain still plays guitar, as he has since a few months out from the band’s inception in 1971.

In this video, you can see the spazdic Johansen shake his ass and share the mic with the showy original lead guitarist Johnny Thunders. A gold corseted Arthur Kane can be seen rocking the bass years prior to his conversion to Mormonism and subsequent death from Leukemia shortly after the bands first reunion in 2004.

Jerry Nolan beats the crap out of the drums while Sylvain Sylvain plays hot licks stage right in black hat and maroon pants, though there never is a clear shot of his face.

Personality Crisis contains all the charming qualities about the Dolls. Johansen’s lyrics betray an empathy and understanding as he tells it like it is, a cro-magnon man in make-up, he makes up in energy and sincerity what he may be lacking in singing ability.

The metallic sounds of the guitars and bass were originals to the second rate knock offs done by many an eighties hair band. Look at these guys. Take the overt gender bending out of their look and all the soul out of their sound and you have the template for all the Whitesnakes and Warrants you could want.

It’s pure rock and roll and it’s got heart. I’ll be happy to say I’ve seen them a couple of weeks from now, even if most of them are now dead.

Download the mp3 of Personality Crisis (Live at the Fillmore East) here or the original version here from Amazon.

Photo: davichi

Oaxacan poet Eufrasio Reyes wrote, in a refrain familiar to anyone who’s plunged into a night at the cantina,

In the cantina, a man travels to unimaginable places, but the next day reality is crueler than his hangover.

Reality, legend, legend, reality: the swinging doors of the cantina vacillate between the two.

The cantina was born in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when U.S and French soldiers were attempting imperialistic explorations into Mexico. At that time, establishments serving alcoholic beverages were restricted to wine bars, for upper class Spaniards, and pulquerias (which served the fermented corn beverage pulque), for lower class mestizos and Indians. The two merged into the cantina, which surged in popularity during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.

Photo: Gary Denness

At that time, cantinas were mostly frequented by upper class men. However, when the Diaz dictatorship crumbled, so did the strict class boundaries attached to cantinas. In the radicalized, revolutionary Mexico of the 1920’s and ‘30’s, cantinas were frequented by bohemians, intellectuals, artists, and revolutionaries. And of course men looking, as José Alfredo Jiménez classically phrased it, for tequila and a song.

They were not, however, frequented by women; not even after 1982, when the law banning women from entering cantinas was lifted.

Mexican intellectual Carlos Monsiváis writes:

The cantina revolves around machismo, around a masculine supremacy of misery, around the ambition to submerge oneself in reality in order to forget one’s frustrations.

This “masculine supremacy of misery” is distinctly Mexican in style—it could include downing copa after copa alone, with sombrero pulled low, or it could involve belting out a ranchera at the top of one’s lungs, wiping tears from one’s eyes, or it could involve heart-to-heart man-to-man conversations about—sigh, groan—mujeres.

Photo: monocai

Oftentimes, I find, it is “masculine” only because it occurs between men—otherwise, the cantina is a place to release and demonstrate “feminine” emotions. It is a place where men are simultaneously at their most macho and their most feminine.

It is also a place where lower class men can go to release humiliation or frustration related to their place in society, and where they can temporarily abscond from their responsibilities to family, women, work. The cantinas that appeal to such men also tend to appeal to bohemians, intellectuals artists, and those who like dancing along the darker fringes of society.

Cantinas are not always pretty, and oftentimes visiting is walking the knife-edge between vivid joy and release and profound despair. Perhaps that’s what attracts writers. And what attracted me.

Eufrasio Reyes best captured the cantina in his eponymous poem:

A man loses the sense of passing time
His heart takes comfort in its beating
His mind rests in its unconsciousness
In the ultimate refuge of mankind

The cantina is the stuff of legend. And, like so many legends and myths in Mexico, it mixes indistinguishably–sometimes messily, sometimes romantically–with daily life. In the cantina poetry, beer, manliness, death, love, loss, melancholy, misery, and loneliness blend together to sink a man deep down into the soul of life, or yank him out of it.

The cantina is a socio-economic phenomenon, an illustration of Mexico’s political and cultural histories and realities, but it is also something more ethereal, soul-like or ghost-like. Stay at the cantina long enough, and the distinctly Mexican sense of doomed longing, of giving way to the grinning skeletal pull of the netherworld, creeps into oneself. And then, waking up the next morning with a roaring cruda, eating caldo or chilaquiles, one is absorbed back into the fabric of daily life.

I just told a peeing prostitute that Mexico has heart, I ponder, winding back to my friends. Not quite sure how I feel about that.

Photo: Jorge Santiago

We wander through the sea to find a table. The ranchera music, with its overdramatic, coordinated wailing of male singers and the vibrant abandon of horns, strings, and accordions, is overwhelming.

On top of that mariachis circulate bursting into whatever songs the customers request, creating sudden pockets of loud live guitar and accordion round the room. Add to that the rowdy displays of machismo that constitute conversation here, and it is like walking through a wave of Mexican male noises drowning one out.

I’m wearing a subtle suede jacket, loose jeans, and Converse, in sharp contrast to the teeny minifaldas and half-open shirts of the other girls here. The men wear the hungry looks of predators, and I’m feeling somewhat exposed as a random blonde piece of prey that’s somehow wandered in. A few laugh and make remarks under their breath as I pass, but otherwise, no one does anything overt. We sit and order beers under their heavy gazes.

Suddenly, my friend Eleutario lets out a cry of “Ay ay ay AYYYY!”, something like a Mexican turkey call which is a mixture of drunken abandon, grief, and unleashed repression. It is common in cantina music and seems to summarize precisely what happens to the male mind in these environs. This cry is seconded by a few other friends and then washed down with lime-laced Victoria. We’re more at home now in the vibe, having let our abandon be known.

But the surreal (at least from our perspective as patrons of the nicely decorated, turquoise-tiled art bars of Oaxaca’s center) quality of the place numbs us a bit. Porno poster, intense male gaze, bustling waiters, prostitute’s laugh, and suddenly…

Mariachis!

Eleutario pays fifteen pesos for two songs, and the mariachis unenthusiastically launch into Camino a Guanajuanto, a Mexican classic.

Photo: Jorge Santiago

“La vida no vale nada…no vale nada la vida…” goes the song. Life is worth nothing…

They sing as though they’ve seen and heard it all before—the revolutionary fighters swept up by patriotic glory; the men who aren’t good enough for the perfect virginal women they desire; the valiant but overly proud heroes killed in duels; the heartless prostitutes and the ones who break men’s hearts; the solitary, tragic figures who give everything up for love and lose.

The music pours over us in the aquarium’s ebb and flow, while the prostitute at the next table grinds away on the lap of a grimly smiling man with three gold rings. Every once in awhile, she gives furtive glances from side to side and tries to pull her jean mini down to cover a little more of her ass, but then, the man’s hand slides up again.

I begin to feel a little queasy. Jorge is taking photographs of another prostitute, who’s wearing big black sunglasses inside the fluorescently lit room, holding up her silver Cinderella heel and smiling. I ask her how she got work here and she shrugs and says, “I came with my friends, and asked to fichar.” Fichar is a verb that refers to fichas, or tickets. The prostitutes earn money from beers men buy them. The normal price of a Victoria at that cantina is 13 pesos; buy it for a prostitute, and it costs 50 pesos.

Somehow, in the midst of our conversation, the woman gets the impression that I am interested in this job possibility and calls over the waiter saying, “Ella quiere fichar!”

“No, no, no!” I clarify, half-laughing, half-horrified, as several men at nearby tables turn their heads. “I’m just wondering how it is for you.”

She shrugs. Shrugging seems to be the normative behavior of a prostitute working the cantinas. I forget, I suppose, that this is their work and their daily life, and they’re not about to break down into sob stories about it because a drunk gringa wants to feel their pain. Do you want to fichar, or not? No? Then vete, get out of here.

I go back to my table feeling slightly ridiculous, but then figure, hey, this kind of humiliation is what feeds good borracheras (the Mexicans have a noun to describe partying with the sole purpose of getting drunk). People are dancing now, men making those sharp, smooth arcs and curves of salsa with the prostitutes. The noise seems to have reached fever pitch, or maybe I’m letting my body cave to my senses.

At some point, I look around to see everyone in a somewhat parallel state, rocking slightly back and forth to the music and the beer, looking a little stunned, occasionally catching someone else’s eye and laughing.

“Vamos?” says my friend Fausto, and we nod. There is a scrambling of peso bills and coins to pay the tab, and then everyone stands with clumsy movements, pushing plastic chairs aside, and we leave. Weaving my way out, I’m noticed less, the men lost in cantina reveries now, thinking of money, or women, or nothing at all.

Photo: Fausto Nahum Perez Sanchez

The night is at once new and very, very old. There are kids playing in the street and alleyways that look as though they are netherworlds containing alternate realities we’d rather not discover. The streets are much darker here, until we begin to get closer to the center and the streetlamps cast a benevolent glow on the sidewalks once more. We are drunk. We are tired. There are really two options at this point:

Sleep.
Tlayudas.

Of course, we opt for the second. Being too lazy to trek across the city to Los Libres, which has the hectic late-night tlayuda joint frequented by all the other rowdy borrachos, we head for the 20 de Noviembre market, where food vendors work ‘til late under the shine of bright yellow lamps. There, we nurse our cantina-beaten souls with huge, crispy tortillas filled with meat, cheese, and beans.

We eat with a sloppy, blissful 1 a.m. laziness, strewn about on the narrow colored benches and lit from behind by the food stand. Our night of cantinas has come to an end. We are sweaty, tired, worn out from the cantinas’ florid outpouring of emotion.

And I can barely think, as we stroll quietly through the empty streets towards home, about where the cantina comes from, and what it means, and where it’s going. Those questions will be for tomorrow.