The wheel has turned, Carnival is here again and Mazatlán is in a state of high excitement.
"The twinkling strings of coloured fairy lights promising us soup and warm hearth flies or is it fires, triggering in us a response that takes us back to our privileged childhoods and a Mediterranean red roof-tiled roof over our smiling upturned glowing faces. Walking down the pre-carnival malecón bathed in the warm light from those multi coloured shining hardbinge drinkers we break out in good-hearted gales of laughter and hand over all our pesos in a spontaneous burst of charity to that bare-arsed lady of the street we see everyday sleeping in the most unexpected place and the other wheelchair lady demanding money outside Santander Bank who has had a weeping leg for the last 12 years. Oh those finely built alpine wooded soon-to-be overflowing 'bathrooms' that bring a wonderous glow to our ruddy cheeks ...........(my God Mather! Enough of this crap. Tone it down for christ's sake - the editor.)
2013 MazReal entertainment correspondent Mather 'Dudley' Mathers is there to bring it alive without the rose tinted memories of his happy childhood being bathed by his Shona servants in colonial Zimbamboo Africa. Salud to you too Mather! Keep it simple.
"Mathers reporting. MazReal CEO - El Duke of Zenda - last year sacked the disgraced 2012 entertainment contributor - Zeke Fandango - for suggesting that to add some life to the carnival the prospective queens should each be given a machete, place them in the Bull Ring surrounded by baying males and let them get on with a Battle Royale where the last standing or even kneeling bloodied woman would be crowned the Queen of the Royal Machete and equally give the Laughing Kings a flamethrower and send them into the hills wherein they may toast each other to a crisp in a Fire Royale and not bother to come back.
These ideas caused a lot of offence as did the accompanying picture* (see it again below) of a hopeful smiling queen wielding a blood soaked weapon with the catchline - Muses With Machetes.
Culturas as we now know never did reply to Zeke's emails with the suggestions because as we all know this year we are back with the normal stuff.
more wonderful carnival happenings after the break
People come in from all over Mexico to let their hair down. They commandeer whatever transport is available just to get an experience of the world's third largest carnival. As we can see the trains bringing economic migrants from the south are allowed to pass through Mazatlán so the poor people can have one last taste of a Mexican fiesta before they all get arrested and shoved inside Arizona desert concentration camps.
Taking pictures of the queens preparing themselves have been banned so we sent our court reporter and sketcher to bring us an idea of the procedure.The carnival queen hopefuls indulge in one last joint and line of coke before changing for the final photoshoot before the final parade in front of the judges.
Who will it be we all ask? All secretly knowing that the queen with the most money will stand on that podium and wish for world peace and desire to give a helping hand to all the poor and dispossessed out there as long as someone else does it.
We always look nostalgically to the past and here is a library picture of a glorious carnival queen from the era of black and white. Wonderful alien looking contestants with creative hairdos like this wonderful piece of sculpture are no longer tolerated as the rules announce that all the queens have to look the same and use the same hairdresser and stylist.
The reason for this being, as we all know, is that those with the most generous backer will win and as each queen knows that she is equally as good-looking as the next in a Telenovela sort of way, there will not be the usual tears and eye scratching shenanigans as allegedly occurred when they were allowed to have a character.
The alleged wonders of Photoshop and alleged cosmetic surgery is highlighted below in the alleged 12 pictures of the alleged same woman with 'Karelia' facing right just to suggest that she may be an alleged different person or even allegedly dead. Because as we all know in the famous Beatles Abbey Road album cover where Paul was not wearing shoes, it was suggested that he really was dead and is in fact living with Elvis in the fourth dimension.
Be aware that the newly formed 'Expression Police' will be roaming with rubber batons to make sure we are having a good time and they will be be judging the fine time we are having by scrutinising our facial expressions. So Culturas are handing out these cards with your ticket so we know what face to wear on each day of the carnival as it progresses to the finale. So be sure to look ecstatic on the final day of the proceedings otherwise you may receive a truncheon blow in the face that will surely rearrange your expression for good.
The wonderful 'Expression Police' doing their rounds. They themselves have to cover up so when they arrest us for not enthusiastically smiling we cannot turn round and say "Well you aren't smiling either."
Our photographer had to snap this picture from behind closed doors as he was feeling a bit depressed that day because his dog had been run over and did not want to be beaten up for looking glum.
Floats are now built to a new uniform design to deter the naughty shenanigans of last year when someone let off a firecracker which we all thought was a weapon discharge and subsequently caused panic and therefore in that panic more concealed weapons from RPGs, AKs, M16s and drones were brandished. 3,000 people were killed.
Culturas are taking no chances and now we are sure the carnival queens will be well protected. We may just be able to see them smiling if we look closely through the slits in the side. The ultra whiteness of their beaming smiles will, we are assured, shine through.
The carnival has its little known sideshows. The female mud wrestlers are depressed and recently went on a one day sit-down strike in the mud because they are no longer supported in the official programme. But they have generously been given a venue in the muddy inlet next to the Riu Hotel in Cerritos, if there are any grubby slathering men out there who want to catch an eyeful of this slippery carnival sideshow.
Carnival is a wonderful time when we can all let our hair down and be ourselves without someone pointing their fingers accusingly in our faces. We are once a year allowed to drink non-stop for a week, we aren't required to bathe and we can sleep where we fall without anyone looking unfavourably down at us. This is a library pic of a man who was found most days like this outside the carnival from that fine imaginary country of 'Stralia. That man is luckily no longer with us shouting racial obscenities through windows.
Bands have been give new venues so that wherever we happen to be, we will be able to hear music. Here my good friend is serenading the fruit and vegetables with some cool jazz sax solos.
Many expats, during the carnival, will be having difficulties sleeping, and may be overdosing themselves on hallucinogenic drugs, large newspaper-sized joints and or handfuls of sleeping tablets to get a week of uninterrupted sleep and allow themselves to fly to that distant planet Vogella in the Canus Dog's Bollocks system or at least take an hour or two's peace from the incessant ambient racket of the competing bands.
We, however, suggest you don't go down the mind-bending drug induced route or the shooting of oneself in the head route but read James Bender's book and wear his special strap-on frieze cool head contraption that will freeze your brain into an mini cryogenic state for a week allowing you to stare at the ceiling not knowing whether you are actually alive or not.
We also suggest reading an unexpurgated version of Moby Dick with all the footnotes or watch the movie Sex In The City 4. These methods will send you to sleep in three seconds."
In conclusion, The End Is In Sight, and we will once again be able to wrap ourselves in our comfortable cloak of seductive retirement without the fucking nightly noise.
So we implore you not to smoke yourself to death, not to go down the self immolation route and dive burning into a petroleum filled swimming pool, do not commit sepuka with a blunt knife and ask your neighbour to stick his fingers in the wound, do not have fun without sex or listen to Bobby Gentry on a loop with a gun next to you. Do not hang out on the corner of Venus and Baltazar Izaguirre Rojo dressed in your fities underwear and ask for a light from a policeman.
We ask you instead.....................
..................to ask Jesus the directions to the road to LIFE.
So hang in there, the carnival is over Tuesday night Wednesday morning.
Mather Mathers signing off till next year."
* That beautiful young hopeful was not really carrying a blood soaked machete.
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