Sunday, December 9, 2012

Christmas Gift Ideas For The kids.......



Make of this what you will…
The “Just Like Home” McDonald’s Cash Register 10 Piece Playset features a working cash register where you can hear your menu selections. Includes playfood, and a drive thru playset with headset with real working intercom and McDonald’s play money.
Toys’R'Us exclusive Just Like Home pretend play kitchens, grocery and restaurant toy play sets give your kids everything they need to become the next great celebrity or reality show super chef!
Or perhaps your child will aspire to become the a part of the growing minimum wage fastfood industry. Seven in ten jobs of the next decade will come from low wage sectors, so train ‘em now for that dead-end job that won’t even provide a living wage, that they’ll be LUCKY to get!
Forget “gender specific toys” and all of that stuff: What kind of fucked up message does this toy send? (“This is your lot in life, kid. Get used to it”?)
Serfdom USA. No surprise that Toys’R'Us is owned by Bain Capital.

Thanks to Dangerous Minds

I'd go for these gifts ideas anyday.........

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Annual MazReal Real Mozzie Alternative Awards Part 2 of 2


MazReal staff are now back in London kicking their heels staring out the window as the Atlantic gales rattle the sash windows and ruffle the feathers of the dirty pigeons pecking and sitting on the window ledge and from where belching buses slush through the dirty snow on the streets below and the night sounds of police sirens and kids vandalising cars and telephone kiosks are ever-present. In three weeks we will return to Mazatlán and begin work on our next project. A movie charting the violent history of Mexico through the ages starring Mel Gibson playing all the roles (nowadays he comes cheap and is willing to do any old thing for board and a bottle of beer).


We come to part two of the now famous MazReal Mozzie awards of the year...........



BEST DAY TRIP


US Frontier

Winning hands down for the 25th year running in the 'Best Day Trip' category is the frontier with USA just a few thousand kilometres north in the wondrous emptiness of the Arizona Badlands near Naco. It is here that you can witness first hand the tug of war matches between US citizens who are desperate to immigrate south and spend their pensions in the relative cheapness of Mexico and their own country's law enforcement agencies who are desperate for them not go because they want them to spend their hard earned life savings on US soil.

You can either watch or participate in this archaic struggle by grabbing an arm to help the hapless pensioner make his or her way south. The US citizens making their way across the border have become known as 'Drybacks' because they choose not to cross through a river preferring the relative dryness of a desert and this ancient pre-Hispanic struggle has now become a participation sport called Pullama where the US enforcement agency has luckily been ordered by the Obama government to refrain from shooting the migrant dead as they once used to under Bush. Now they are only allowed to grab a foot and tug. Punching and biting is also forbidden but it is not unheard of that the occasional aged arthritic limb is torn from its socket.

The border guards are allowed to shoot Mexicans and close by is a river where you can count the dead bodies of once desperate Mexican illegal immigrants floating by who have been shot by US border guards and left to the vicious piranhas and crocodiles and hippos. You can also visit the wonderfully colourful graves with bunting where those lucky enough to have been buried lie. Just across on the US side is a Rottweiler and Pit Bull ranch where those vicious dogs are bred to tear apart the Mexicans unlucky enough to have got through.

You owe it to yourselves to swing by and bring a camera too.

A close second in this category is the charming tourist town of El Keleetay that was built by Disneyland Mexico to represent a typical olde worlde Mexican silver mining town with genuine cheese shops, colourful plastic booganville, robotic old Mexicans who smilingly welcome you in their homes to partake in fast food tortillas and you can delight at the antics of young children riding and whipping donkeys half to death and then cheekily ask you for money.



THE BIGGEST FISH


more fishy stuff after the break....


Saturday, November 24, 2012

Some Recent Images From The East And South

Cuiabá, Mato Grosso Brazil


Chapada Dos Guimaraés, Mato Grosso, Brazil

Orchard Road, Singapore.

Soya Farms, Mato Grosso, Brazil

more great stuff after the break


Friday, November 23, 2012

Lack Of News So In The Meantime.............


....................Teach yourself how to amputate an arm. Remember this is an operation that only English Gentlemen with stiff upper lips can perform on each other whilst standing upright. If you are of an inferior race it is wise to tie your man firmly to a kitchen table and knock him senseless with a mallet otherwise the screaming and histrionics will perturb the neighbours.

One stiff glass of brandy should see your amputee right.






Saturday, November 3, 2012

Annual MazReal Real Mozzie Alternative Awards Part 1 of 2


Expats living in Mazatlán are looking for alternatives to their regular haunts, alternatives to the same places that win the awards year after year. The MazReal Real Mozzie Alternative Awards have become an essential guide to all the places and activities where the hip expat wouldn't be seen dead not going into and wouldn't be seen dead not doing. 

Our staff have trawled the city suffering food poisoning, bed bugs, the plague, muggings, decapitations and scrofula to bring you this list of places where, if you are seen exiting from, will make your name light up amongst the discerning expatriates in our wonderful community. Places and activities that will really elevate your standing within that community. 

This list is compiled by the editors of MazReal and expats themselves who feel these are the  new pursuits and activities that will make a retired person's life worth living and will further add a spark of frisson to your lives. 

The Best Thing To Do With Visitors



Shotgun fishing.

There was so much back and forthing going on in this category between Shotgun fishing (women voters) and Marlin torturing (men voters) that MazReal staffers got so pissed off with all the extra work that they voted in favour of the women as the best day out for visitors is to shoot fish rather than torture them with a large hook and then weirdly throw them back in for the fish to have to go through with the same thing again! 

Forget the hassle and expense of actually hiring a boat and crew so you and your visitors have to spend hours of inactivity and seasickness waiting for a tuna or marlin to bite and then the hours of pain and suffering as you play around with it on the end of your hook, try this easier method and just shoot them with a shotgun or toss a stick of dynamite in the sea or river. We all know that this country is awash with weapons and explosives so even the ladeez have the opportunity to do what manly men spend an inordinate amount of time and energy doing. So while the men are giving themselves hernias and strained testicles reeling in a marlin you women can pick up a gun and blast the fish out the water.

Wandering aimlessly around Plaza Machado as an activity that garnered some votes but this winner suggests that that relaxed ambience is becoming so out of touch with what the 'real' Mexico is all about. The 'real' Mexico, according to statistics and blogs from Mexicans is Pancho Villa, Narco Corrida Bands, street food, pre Columbian history, baked elotes, death, revolution, Day Of The Dead, surrealism, tortillas cooked on a hot stone, shotgun fishing and Natalia Medina walks.

What to do, where to go? Our advice? Forget killing fish and make a trip up the Mazatlán garbage mountain and give sustenance to the 'recyclers'. 

Contact MazReal for gun and explosive hire and you will redirected to a corner of a street at midnight in Olas Altas from where a dark windowed SUV will pull up and hand you your 'fishing rod' and 'tackle'.



The Best Petsitting Service 



Zeke's Dog and Cat.

While you are out and about enjoying your time on the town with your pals, your pets needn't be clawing at the doors, howling and tearing up the upholstery anticipating your return, Zeke's Dog and Cat is the answer. We have had nothing but good reviews from fellow animal loving expats regarding entrepreneur and animal lover Zeke Crapston who has a pet training school somewhere in the backstreets of Olas Altas.

 He has a novel way to take your pets out for a walk, a method that will make sure your pets will have run off their surplus energy and some of that excess puppy fat by the time you get home. Amongst other dog and cat activities, your beauties will have the opportunity 'drive' Zeke and his car to El Quelite where he will have a beer and a meal with his friends and then they can take him back again. This is the perfect way to give your pampered pooches a good workout and allow Zeke a day out and to save him the cost of gas at the same time.

No wonder Zeke's service got the most votes. 


More awards after the break

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

This Never Fails To Make Me Laugh........



There is so little left to make you smile on the internet these days but luckily simple little gems like this bit of inane fun appear every now and again.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

We Will All Embrace Smartphone Photography Sooner Or Later.....


After reflection. 

No we won't!


Golden Dawn London 27 October 2012 by iPod Touch and Instagram

I'm new to Instagram and smartphone photography and these images are my first attempt at using this new and extremely popular technology. As a photographer I was initially excited at the prospect of going out and seeing what I could come back with and it kind of renewed my interest in just wandering around taking pics. 

Well it did for two days (these images were taken within that time) and I have already lost interest. 






However I initially liked the idea of using the square format again (I used to shoot with Hasselblad and many of my favourite photos were taken with that wonderful camera and it's famous square format) because I think one has to really think about composition a lot more when trying to fill a square with an interesting image. I liked the idea that my iPod camera did not have a motor drive and I would consequently have to put some thought into placing a well composed interesting image within the frame rather than  banging off 6 images in a second and hope that at least one of them would work out. So you have to be more alert and wait for something or someone to appear within the frame and then wait for the right moment to touch the little camera icon. And lastly I kind of liked the Instagram filters that can hopefully uplift an awful image.

All this was great till I got the images back home and put them on the computer and then I saw how crappy they looked - grainy, noisy, many were blurred and the filters on Instagram weren't exactly exciting.


More after the jump.....

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

South African Image Mash Up



My plane from London to South Africa was chock full of Americans dressed up in well ironed and pressed brand new khaki safari gear with lots of pockets full of compasses, cameras, long lenses, iPads, flash lights, portable cooking appliances, tents, emergency rations and GPS thingies. Useful things for their stay in luxury resorts in the Kruger National Wild Animal Park. Also on the plane were many Canadians dressed in shorts with lots of empty pockets, T shirts and baseball caps with a Canadian flag on the back and backpacks also with a Canadian flag on the back. They were all over excited at the prospect of seeing buffaloes and lions and thorny flat topped trees with other smelly, fly-ridden wild animals sleeping in the shade underneath. I was also going in the same direction and was also over excited at the prospect of seeing Jersey cows, little raggedy guys running around who live in white round houses, lots of misty places, underground Australian refugees, Doily Trees and baboons hiding behind bushes.

Here are some pictures of my South African Tour................................................................................

A Jersey cow leaning over for the benefit of tourists who want to see leaning Jersey cows in an African setting from the view point of someone sitting on the floor of a fully functioning dairy. It it a little known fact in developed countries that Africa does operate modern dairies and does raise sophisticated animals such as cows as well as buffalo and lions and baboons.



The 'Synchronised Jersey Calf' troupe performing for the tourists.



Force feeding the head of a calf for the benefit of tourists.



More stuff after the cut


Sunday, October 7, 2012

MazReal in South Africa - Reporting



The goddamn lazy staff at MazReal went on strike over the cold and damp conditions they had to endure whilst huddling around a lump of hot coal in their shed down at the docks in Whitechapel or was it Limehouse London Yoo Kay. Anyway whilst they were high in the air cruising over the deserts of Mali flying south not long after setting a timer on high explosives that destroyed their shed and the surrounding east end of London in an explosion that sent the gross domestic product of that struggling country of Yoo Kay on a downward spiral and all the usual suspects - all immigrants from Irish and Arab speaking countries, to be rounded up and shot.

The aforementioned staff looked for a country without jet lag and terrain that easily matches that of their beloved homelands in Mazatlán Sinaloa State Mexico - thorns, scrub, dust, dirt, swamps, insects, mosquitoes, snakes, an infinite variety of smells, lots of poor people, corruption, scorpions and of course buffaloes, tortoises, lizards and other big predators - but without the debilitating humidity of that area. And they came up with South Africa.

South African Airways drop us in Kwazululimpopo, a speck on the map of Africa.

We went South African naturally. Flying South African Airways was always a delight and we couldn't fault the sloppy service as a dish of something grey with bones was thrown in our laps and the inflight entertainment of flapping wings, one engine falling off over Tanzania and freezing draughts through the dislodged fuselage panels was a one in a million wondrous experience. The landing in some totally random area of the country was also a wonderful way to experience the African bush at first hand and the loss of a number of passengers to hungry large cats was a great way to become accustomed to Darwin's great philosophical work of art The Survival Of The Fittest.

South Africa's lush vegetation and climate never fails to satisfy.
Back at the airport as luck would have it we found a shady tree under which we could gain a little respite from 45 degree C (about 300 degrees F) on the 10 mile walk from terminal 1 to terminal 2 at Johannesburg's fabulous Oliver Tambo International airport.Fortunately our baggage had been rifled of all contents so we had little to carry through the furnace of heat and we were able then to use the empty bags as rafts to cross the crocodile infested Zimbimzulu River only losing three babies to the hungry crocs. We will never forget the self-sacrifice of these plump pink babies that we tossed in the river upstream so the crocodiles diverting to eat them left us time to get to the other bank. However a  further seven of our passengers on the onward flight to Mzilikazikazi were lost to big cats or pythons before we managed to find safety in terminal 2.


 more news from the bottom of Africa after the jump.........

Monday, October 1, 2012

Annual MazReal Real Mozzie Alternative Awards Part 1 of 2


Expats living in Mazatlán are looking for alternatives to their regular haunts, alternatives to the same places that win the awards year after year. The MazReal Real Mozzie Alternative Awards have become an essential guide to all the places and activities where the hip expat wouldn't be seen dead not going into and wouldn't be seen dead not doing. 

Our staff have trawled the city suffering food poisoning, bed bugs, the plague, muggings, decapitations and scrofula to bring you this list of places where, if you are seen exiting from, will make your name light up amongst the discerning expatriates in our wonderful community. Places and activities that will really elevate your standing within that community. 


This list is compiled by the editors of MazReal and expats themselves who feel these are the new pursuits and activities that will make a retired person's life worth living and will further add a spark of frisson to your lives. 


The Best Thing To Do With Visitors



Shotgun fishing.

There was so much back and forthing going on in this category between Shotgun fishing (women voters) and Marlin torturing (men voters) that MazReal staffers got so pissed off with all the extra work that they voted in favour of the women as the best day out for visitors is to shoot fish rather than torture them with a large hook and then weirdly throw them back in for the fish to have to go through with the same thing again! 

Forget the hassle and expense of actually hiring a boat and crew so you and your visitors have to spend hours of inactivity and seasickness waiting for a tuna or marlin to bite and then the hours of pain and suffering as you play around with it on the end of your hook, try this easier method and just shoot them with a shotgun or toss a stick of dynamite in the sea or river. We all know that this country is awash with weapons and explosives so even the ladeez have the opportunity to do what manly men spend an inordinate amount of time and energy doing. So while the men are giving themselves hernias and strained testicles reeling in a marlin you women can pick up a gun and blast the fish out the water.


Wandering aimlessly around Plaza Machado as an activity that garnered some votes but this winner suggests that that relaxed ambience is becoming so out of touch with what the 'real' Mexico is all about. The 'real' Mexico, according to statistics and blogs from Mexicans is Pancho Villa, Narco Corrida Bands, street food, pre Columbian history, baked elotes, death, revolution, Day Of The Dead, surrealism, tortillas cooked on a hot stone, shotgun fishing and Electroshock therapy .


What to do, where to go? Our advice? Forget killing fish and make a trip up the Mazatlán garbage mountain and give sustenance to the 'recyclers'. 


Contact MazReal for gun and explosive hire and you will redirected to a corner of a street at midnight in Olas Altas from where a dark windowed SUV will pull up and hand you your 'fishing rod' and 'tackle'.




The Best Petsitting Service 



Zeke's Dog and Cat.

While you are out and about enjoying your time on the town with your pals, your pets needn't be clawing at the doors, howling and tearing up the upholstery anticipating your return, Zeke's Dog and Cat is the answer. We have had nothing but good reviews from fellow animal loving expats regarding entrepreneur and animal lover Zeke Crapston who has a pet training school somewhere in the backstreets of Olas Altas.


He has a novel way to take your pets out for a walk, a method that will make sure your pets will have run off their surplus energy and some of that excess puppy fat by the time you get home. Amongst other dog and cat activities, your beauties will have the opportunity 'drive' Zeke and his car to El Quelite where he will have a beer and a meal with his friends and then they can take him back again. This is the perfect way to give your pampered pooches a good workout and allow Zeke a day out and to save him the cost of gas at the same time.
No wonder Zeke's service got the most votes.
More awards after the break

Friday, September 21, 2012

MazReal The Movie





MazReal Productions announce a new experimental short movie (temporarily titled MazReal The Movie) currently in pre-production soon to be filmed in an around Mazatlán this coming Mexican winter...................

Featuring Mariela Mexia, Javier Díaz Dalannais and Tere Chaides. Three of the most exciting actors working out of our city. Directed and written by Matt Mawson with collaboration by Dave Robb, Nan Robb in the art department and producer Carol Lewin

Check out the website and follow in all the excitement here: mazrealtwo

Editor: This blog has been given a 'family friendly' rating so responding to concerns from members of this fine community we have replaced the original image that has caused debate and added a cute pic which has nothing to do with the forthcoming short movie that draws on subjects of ancient Mesoamerican sacrifice and bloodletting and the history of violence in this fine country. So those people sensitive to exploding eyeballs and casual violence can be forewarned to stay away.

This image was in fact taken on our recent African safari to a dairy farm where those people sick of seeing big ferocious animals tearing each other apart red in tooth and claw on game reserves can go and see milk production and little calves with big eyes waiting to be fed. In fact our researcher gave the cute little critter his finger to suck and it bit it clean off.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Centro Mazatlán Restaurant Roundup

Foodie  Quincy 'Porky' Mondragon reporting:

You can't swing a cat* in Mazatlán without it hitting a restaurant, eating house or bar. Mazatlán expats of all persuasions from all these fabulous countries - ex totalitarian states, monarchies and weird republics that we represent can consider ourselves extremely lucky because there is a restaurant on our doorstep that will cater for our exotic palates.

We all know that expat news magazines exist only as an excuse for the editors to eat out every day and get their bills paid by the restaurant so consequently the reviews are always positive and the subsequent advertising revenue keeps them afloat. So we sent out, incognito and in disguise our food photographer cum expert eater and regular glutton, Quincy Mondragon, to get an objective look-in at what is on offer in Centro. As you can see he tells a positive story and paid is own way. Well......sometimes.

Il Mostro

Il Maestro, that charming restaurant down some steps hidden behind trees on the 'quiet' side of the Plaza continues to charm diners with its superbly consistently fabulous ambience and one must not forget it also serves food  - Italian food and the chef, The Great Fabrizzio, is an artist who uses pasta in a truly fabulous expressive way. 

Pasta is an expression of Neo-Realistic starch and is well understood by The Great Fabrizzio at Il Monstro. His fettucine, though wry and puckish in an almost mischievous way, owes a lot to Barzino (that other conceptual minimalist chef at Pepino and Herschels's on the 'noisy' side of the plaza) , whose use of fettucine as an instrument of social change is known to us all. The linguine on the other hand is quite delicious and not all that didactic, true there is a persuasive Marxist quality to it, but this is hidden by the sauce. Spinoza(That avant-garde post modernist pasta chef at the third of the Great Three Pasta Artists of The Plaza whipping up dishes at La Tramoyses's virtually opposite Il Minstrone on the 'uproariously loud' side.) on the other hand has had great success in espousing his Marxism by subtly including it in the tortellini (yum yum yum).

I tripped and fell down the steps knocking over tables and diners whilst looking for the great Il Minstro behind its cover of trees and began my meal with an antipasto, which at first appeared aimless, but as I focused on the anchovies, the point of it became clearer. Was Fabrizzio trying to say that all life was represented here in the antipasto with the black olives as an unbearable reminder of our mortality. Fabrizzio has always worked better with chicken and one can say that his Chicken Parmigiani says more about our involvement in Afghanistan than any book can. (Barzino, however, always worked better in veal than chicken or even fish and it was a shocking oversight by that great ERM! magazine when reference to him was omitted in their cover story of Rauschenberg).


The cozy interior of the delightfully charming Il Mostro on The Plaza

I had heard from the chef, The Great Vasili at that wonderful Russian restaurant, Molinka's, that Fabrizzio hesitates when it comes to his spumoni so for the main I tentatively went with the spaghetti vongole which before his psychoanalysis, clams held great terror for The Great Chef and he could not bear to open them and consequently blacked out. But his later attempts prove he has regained his lovely touch after Stravinsky's influence with his Concerto in D for strings. In point of fact the vongole is now a great example of atonality.

For dessert I had tortoni and I was reminded of Wittgenstein's remark: 'The Monads have no windows.' How apropos! The prices at The Great Il Monstro, as Charmion Von Wiegand once told me, are "reasonable without being historically inevitable." I agree. 

So can we prove the existence of God using Liebniz's philosophical pasta model that:
(a) some pasta is linguine
(b) all linguine is not spaghetti
(c) no spaghetti is pasta, hence all spaghetti is linguine?

No, how ridiculous! By this logic one would have to say the 'fetuccini and the linguine are not the rigatoni.'

We can conclude as Gødel declared over and over "Isn't this spaghetti wonderful." And a meal at Il Mostro proves just that.


A n elegant couple of expats in typical evening wear supping at a table al fresco at the charming Il Mostro


Hits: Philosophical food that imputes the very notion to Krishna.

Misses: Working conditions reflect English factory problems and the waiters are made to serve 10 hours a day with napkins that don't meet current safety standards.

More fine dining after the jump

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Expatriate Pastimes



It is always good to get away from Mazatlán for a few months so one can laughingly look back down into the petri dish and gain a fresh perspective on the expatriate population living there and how they pass their time. In my experience of being a professional expatriate and expatriot all my life I know that expatriates have a natural missionary zeal (ie. the conversion of much of Africa, China and Latin America into the Christian and other dodgy faiths) and like to partake in social get togethers sharing their hard earned knowledge over tea and moonshine and try to get you into all manner of secret societies and crazy cults. 

Mazatlán is full of expats from every country north of the border and one or two from elsewhere and here's some of them........

The MazReal photographer took this fantastic photograph of some the wonderful expats living in Mazatlán. They laughingly agreed to get together in this group pic on the beautiful Olas Altas beach




The overspill from the beach spilled out into the Plaza Machado where we captured them again having a wonderful time standing around cheering something probably the fact that the new clock erected at the Plaza is now showing the correct time at least once in every 12 hours.




Here are some examples of what they get up to in their spare time and a small example of the societies and clubs they belong to in this fine city of eternal noise, dust and dried prawn smells:

More expat shenanigans after the jump............

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Expats Come In All Shapes And Sizes.........



The IS the end you know. MazReal and all its journalists and hangers-onners and slaves and stevedores and rent boys and female sharp-shooters and chauffeurs and gay body builders are de-camping and heading back to Europe to earn some real money. Not plastic stuff like you get get in hot humid countries but real wonga made out of rags like you get in temperate climates.

Our shiny, slippery plastic stuff has run out and we have to get off our asses and do something called 'work'. The word that strikes fear into the minds of most people and the end product of which is dosh, loot, spondulics, green stuff, filthy lucre which the government takes away in tax that goes to support our wonderful health service and education so everyone may have access to medicine and learning.

Some people call it Socialism and that is another word that strikes fear into the minds of most people living north of this Mexican border whereas the rest of the world see it as a nice word. A word that is designed to help other less fortunate people, people who people again north of the border would term lazy people desirous of hand-outs so they don't have to get off their collective asses to work. Anyway I cannot imagine any of those naughty Tea Party-type people with those naughty extreme and selfish thinking minds living here in Mazatlán south of the north border.




Tijuana is the border crossing of yore that many expats would have crossed but not before taking advantage of all that that fine city has to offer before passing into conservative Protestant America.

I have always been wary of living amongst expat communities as I was raised and spent much of my early life in one as a result we tended to avoid the community or at least take time sounding out people whose views and ideas are compatible. So the longer we have been here the more we have ventured out and seen what a great bunch of people live here. There are individuals we avoid like the plague by hiding our faces, wearing false beards, ducking into doorways and sprinting to other side of the street to get away from but they are far and few between and generally only appear with the cool weather.

These are the stories of twelve of the varied and colourful members of expat community we have residing in this fine city of Mazatlán. You may have even seen them or partied with them or drank with them.



Here's one of them - The short-arsed, hairy bearded lady originally from Benson Arizona. George Jenson is her name. She is always hanging out on street corners nonchalantly leaning on things and just banging on about this and that and throwing vicious accusations around most of it selfishly untrue and thoughtlessly made up. Luckily she is only seen here in winter months otherwise I would have hounded her out of town to live a life of sleaze below decks on a shrimp boat . After a few months at sea she would look like Charlize Theron to a grubby shrimp sailor.


more expat shenanigans after the jump



Thursday, August 9, 2012

Art - Mexican Artist's View Of Disney Land



Disasterland is Mexican artist Rodolfo Loaiza‘s ode to pop culture, cosmetic surgery, drug use, and obsession with celebrity reflected back at us via some of The Walt Disney Company’s most valuable trademarks.






Narcocorrida?





Hugh Cornwell from the Stranglers sings his song - Golden Brown - a song about heroin (he said so himself) with a Mariachi Band. So it seems this is  Mariachi narcocorrida

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Mazatlán Photography




Following on from the last blog, in this here book are my favourite images from the completed photographic projected commission by Landor San Francisco for the Nextel Corporation Latin America. The project encompassed photography in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Peru. These images will be used on all the advertising and marketing for the communications company over the whole of Latin America. So in the next 6 months some of the Mazatlán imagery seen in this book and the rest in their library may be seen on billboards and bus shelters and the web.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Mazatlán Photo Fest

The fresh face of Helarte Ice cream and Mazatlán
MazReal is fortunate to have on it's books a number of very famous documentary photographers who contribute to some of the world's most important picture libraries and work freelance with some of the world's largest corporate clients. (One or two them can be seen drunk to the right of the screen on our staff photo) Here we allowed one of them to work with Latin America's largest telecommunication company through an ad agency in San Francisco. Obviously we took a great percentage of the photographers fee which only goes to pay for our vodka and blinis and chauffeurs and dog-walkers and bum boys straight off the container boats fresh from the Philippines.

Artists

So here you see a good example of the creative talent we have in this fine city and I am not only talking about our expensive photographer. Here are actors, chefs, artists, entrepreneurs, mothers, sports persons, farmers, shopkeepers, surfers, musicians and other fine upstanding citizens.

Thanks to everyone who was part of this.

Photo Fest #2 will out soon.

Hector of Molika - Chef


 More great images after the jump...................


Editor's note: The writer added a piece about inducing people to be part of this with huge accounts of cash. That was untrue and we have sacked the writer for adding unnecessary colour to the article and kept the money for ourselves.

All images ©2012

Monday, July 30, 2012

Natalie Woods For Life Magazine 1955


Laguna Santa Maria del Oro #2 - The Expensive Bit

Those who read this blog may be aware I passed by this great natural volcanic lake with no bottom and stayed at a place called Koala Bungalows. A little bit of manicured lawn and gardens with bungalows and spaces to park your tent on the southside of the laguna that is. Whilst staying there I would sit on the wooden jetty and cast my eyes over the lake to the northside. The rich persons side. The side where the morning mist floats like muslin over the water and delicate mayflys and damselflys dip into the surface causing ripples on the still water and where the low clouds brush the hillside with dripping moisture. Only rich people can afford to stay at a place where nature can spread that sort of romantic spell over the location.

Here where we stayed on the southside or south of the railway tracks our solitude was nightly destroyed by a group of itinerant neo-hippy drummers and Peruvian flute players who had their country HQ in a shitty, squalid house behind the bungalows. Their constant percussive out of tune thumping noise and barking mangy dogs put paid to any chance of sleep unless you OD'ed on Laudanum. Screaming kids and families banging doors till the wee hours also did something to make us vow never to return to Koala Bungalows and we looked in envy to the Elysium north. The land of fairies and soft grass and Edelweiss and goats on a lonely hill.

Last weekend we booked in the Tau Boutique Resort on the northside and from the tranquility of our first morning's breakfast sipping our carrot and orange juice cocktail on the terrace we looked with disdain to the south and their people living in Roman Galley conditions.




More nice stuff after the jump

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Photography - Zapata Smiling But Dead



Thanks to this Tumblr



and here's Zapata's lieutenant Fortino Samano looking uncannily relaxed moments before his execution in 1916 


Thanks to Tumblr

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Frida Inspires Yet Again




It's interesting how this artist and her work just keep inspiring people to manipulate her and her work using modern digital technology. Image what she may have done if she had had access to it.  Another example is the post of her head Photoshopped ultra-realistically on another body that inspired over 900 people to take a look on this blog. I subsequently deleted it because evangelical angry Frida purists began to get involved in the discussion.

Thanks to macedonum for this

The Art Of Staying Cool and the Role of the Useful Punkah Wallah



Our part time reporter Jim Thighes-Moriarty adivses you how to keep cool.

We at MazReal don't hold ourselves responsible for Jim's views. By all accounts he has never heard of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.


Frida Kahlo looking relaxingly cool with her bangles rings and flowers?  Not today in Mazatlán however. It is like putting your face in the door of a Turkish Baths and breathing in steam and heat tinted with sweaty Turkish man sweat and the occasional wafting smell of dried prawn, burning tyres, sewerage or power station smoke (when the breeze is a southerly that is )but luckily now in my garden wafts the hint of Jasmine from my better half's Jasmine bush reminding me somewhat of drinking tea in China during those heady days when the British still ruled Shanghai. Oh how we laughed.

That pesky punkah wallah I ordered from India for me and my memsahib is a damn long time coming. They're impossible to find in this country, something to do with the wages going up to 5 centavos a day I think it was so I had to reluctantly look through my well-thumbed copy of the Skymall catalogue and go through there. Indian Wallahs charge about half the Mexican Wallah rate  and that's for a month so they are good value. I have shipped half a dozen in a box by EdFex from that wonderful country of cheap labour where the poor starving native knows his place in that wonderful country of the caste system and rich Bollywood actors and honest politicians who are allowed to shoot poor people who get in their way.

Granny Farquhar-Fiennes-Clinton and her trusty slaves
I am just carrying on the family tradition as can be seen above from the family instagram snap of my grandmother reading the horse racing pages from her verandah in Poonaville while she gets a pedicure from the foot wallah and a waft of breeze from the family Punka Wallah called Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Jnr went on to govern India and be a real thorn in the side of the British Ragamuffins.

More colonial nastiness after the jump

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