Update on Drunken Cycling Wolf Story.............

We have discovered the identity of this pesky animal. He hangs out on the Malecón but during the day he disguises himself to be virtually unrecognisable by wearing sheep's clothing and he takes on a chummy demeanor.

Our photographer risked life and limb to capture these two images :

One while the wolf was about to collapse at the bar -
 red-eyed and vicious (approach with caution whilst in this state and contact this little known but well meaning local association that does good things - Treating Real Everyday Violence.

An the other while he was sober -
meek and friendly

Our model is wearing T shirts we are thinking of printing to celebrate this curious and dangerous animal:

All you Drag Queens who want Bigger Badonkadonks!

Fredericks of Hollywood Spring catalogue tell you how to get that perfect rear end. Prompts me to suggest that in those days they would turn and ask friends "Does my bum look small in this?"

Waaaaaaaay cheaper than than J-Lo's ass.

Drunken Wolf on a Bicycle Roams Calle Baltazar Izaguirre Rojo Shouting Abuse at Houses

Last night our sharp-eared reporters heard reports of a drunken, ousted from society, misfit wolf cycling down Calle Baltazar Izaguirre Rojo loudly shouting abuse at houses in an accent that sounded to have originated from somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Judging by his bellowing rants he has a dislike for women and so-called 'fuckin' poms'. (poms must be a derogatory term for a group of people or nation used by another nation that was once part of the abused nation - or something like that!)

Obviously sometime previously this wolf had been barred from the premises of fine upstanding residences and bars and clubs for drunkenness and unsavory behaviour towards women. It seems he continues to haunt the nighttime streets of Centro in an inebriated state riding his bicycle taking his frustration out on bricks and mortar.

The methods used by this wily character is to charm himself into unsuspecting establishments and take up residence until he is eventually inevitably turfed out into the street.

Lucky we all live in houses built of brick.

S.E. Asian tour of massage parlors and opium dens. Part 1.

The MazReal community bus has at last slid to a halt after its arduous educational tour of the hot pillow joints, opium dens and massage parlors of S.E.Asia. Memories of this exercise are still fairly fresh in the mind so they have to be rapidly recalled because soon they will disappear forever from the addled and befuddled goldfish brains of the members.

We returned via Singapore a few days ago where we managed a quick stopover in Paris to chill out and drink mint tea and smoke hookahs in the El Tangier Moroccan restaurant just off the Champs-Élysées surrounded by the soothing warbling tones of throat musicians from the Atlas Mountains. Safely back in London just in time to join the student riots we will soon be taking that flight to Mazatlán to comment on the new season of art walk tours and any other thing that takes our childish fancy.



Stop One - Shanghai China

View south over Shanghai and the Huangpu River

Smog makes for striking post apocalyptic images over Shanghai.

What seems like many moons ago we touched down at Pudong International airport in Shanghai and were chauffeured to our first appointment high on the 59th floor of the Park Hyatt hotel in the Jin Mao building just the other side of The Bund on the Huangpu River. These views from the massage parlor confirm the striking views that be seen over the megapolis of Shanghai. Image these images when the mind is enhanced after a few hookahs and the tingling of a post massaged body.

Roaming the streets and underground transport system of that fabulous city we couldn't help to have been overwhelmed by the 'in your face' tone of advertising that has taken off in China. All quite scary in a heightened state of mind and body. The Chinese themselves must be reeling with this onslaught of Western consumerism and this onslaught has been to promote the products with the biggest posters ever seen and blast the poor people senseless with it.

Kit Kat chocolate is not about taste but giant bland sensuous women who will no doubt spit the offending crispy block out post - photoshoot

Adidas is all about screaming, flying, muscular US basketballers. China loves basketball and generally have to import tall men.

Gap is smiling women tied up knots lying at the feet of uninterested no doubt gay males ( I have been in the business and know the facts).

More sporting goods explode off the posters.

Pudong from the Bund across Huangpu River.

Stop Two - Dongying City Shandong Province North China.

The delights of Shanghai sampled, imbibed, ingested and found to have been immensely satisfying we moved on to view a particularly interesting region on the flatlands of the Yellow River flood plain in the northern province of Shandong. We wanted to sample industrial China and were invited to tour a tire factory outside Zebo City. You may think that a tour of a tire factory is strange to say the least but within that factory is one of the finest cooks of the region who produces local food from an adjacent farm owned and grown by factory workers for the factory workers and served in the workers canteen. There is also the benefit of a fine massage parlor in the communist party styled Huatai Hotel that we decamped to once we hit town.

The wonderful Huatai Hotel built in a suitable grand scale by the state and featuring marble from top to bottom. Even the vast carpark is marble.

The diminutive and not very flamboyant lobby

Communist style garden sculptures. Spacey and heroic to say the least.

Got an hour? Choose your food for dinner. Every plate had something new in my food vocabulary.

The sea food section. Choose your selection aquarium.

Meanwhile back in the tire factory we were invited to the worker's canteen to sample the lunch offerings.

A tire factory at lunch time. Next time you change a flat tire by the side of the road, this is where they come from. Looking like dark satanic mills but in fact a very relaxed atmosphere prevailed.

The Factory again during lunch break.

Food and beer and a revolving table laid out with some of the finest food to have passed into the mouth of  this international gourmet in the simple surroundings of a large Chinese tire factory. It doesn't get much better than this. Organic, non chemical and busting with taste.

View of downtown Dongying City from the back view of our limo.

The meal and tour over we quickly repaired back to the hotel and a tour of the massage parlor and illegal opium den behind the Huatai Hotel. The madam (disguised as a peasant) greeted us and posed for this quick snap as she took us out back to be pummeled and ravished by the staff therein this notorious den also disguised as a simple habitation and owned by the equally notorious Dr. Wang whose shadowy figure made our stay one to remember. What those people did to you is best kept a tight secret.

Madam Wang poses stiffly keeping up her disguised appearance with great skill.

Back at the hotel and glad to be reminded by the elevator carpet that it was in fact Wednesday. We prepared to leave.

The flatlands of Shandong as the limo whisked us through the ever present twilight industrial smog to our next destination of Chennai formally the Indian city of Madras on the east coast of Tamil Nadu southern India.

Part Two around the corner.

Figures seen in Our Virgin's Eyes? Or is it Pareidolia?

Pareidolia is a type of delusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. For example seeing Ronald Reagin in a cinnamon bun or a potato that looks like Ganesh or human figures seen in the Virgin of Guadalupe's eyes that testify to the fact that the tale of Juan Diego was true. His image was imprinted on her tilma and to add to the authenticity an image of him and others was imprinted on her eyes.

"According to many scientists who have inspected the image, it seems that in her eyes, in both of them and in the precise location as reflected by a live human eye, could be seen many figures that have been extensively analyzed and seem to correspond to the shape and size ofhuman figures located in front of the image.”

Like other relics, all sorts of claims to support supernatural characteristics are promoted by the faithful. What the faithful see in the eyes of The Virgin of Guadalupe is simply pareidolia.

Horatio tells it how it is.

Here's some more famous examples:

Man on the Cydonia region on Mars. With a creepy name like Cydonia why wouldn't there be a big man.

Jesus in toast

Person in my bathtub. This really bothers me every time I want to relax in the bath.  I now keep my swimming kit on.

Beijing and Shanghai in a Dream

While we notice that a new art gallery has opened in old town Mazatlán where the familiar (sun reddened) faces - bloggers, artists, columnists, retirees and frightening pink magazine editors turned up to look at real art and the catering looked from a distance like fusion Asian we were brought to mind our ongoing Asian odyssey. So we are putting together a travelblog and imagery that will allow you to get a glimpse of the outside world before we land back in Mazatlán in time for the rounds of Christmas socializing and boozing and piñata wackings unless we have been laid low by social diseases or jail or penury.

MazReal staff and itinerant hangers-on, slaves, masseurs and groupies landed in the New World. The new world that is S.E.Asia on a relaxed tour that will take in Hong Kong, Singapore and closer to the orient - Chennai (Madras to those of colonial persuasion) in Tamil Nadu India home of the old world idea of the blindingly hot curry or 'The Ring of Fire'. China is the future of everything, China will be the future. You only have to see those Asian magalopolises with their cloud tall skyscrapers where the 88th. floor is not even half way up, where you can hardly see the ground from that level covered it is in smog. That brown, dirty contamination of progress.

Wangfujing Street Beijing. A pedestrianized shopping experience that makes 5th. Ave. NYC look like Calle Benito Juarez.

Wandering through Beijing and Shanghai is a dream-like experience. The smog, the size of the cities, the slow moving crowds and the architecture are just so different to anything we experience in Western cities. The contamination dissolves the distance objects and makes streets look like tunnels of light.

Across the Huangpu River that divides Shanghai. The river reflecting the smoggy sun looks like burnished gold.

Beijing outdoor restaurants in streets lined with blue bucket spittoons

The famous olympic 'Bird's Nest' stadium with attendant tourists diving into the papyrus grass for a snap as they affect strange positions. We started the trend by taking the image a few below. The idea caught on.

You cannot say the Chinese women arn't stylish but their poses are strange.

Crssoing the Huangpu River in Shanghai.

Papyrus and the Bird's Nest Beijing.

Colonial Shanghai along The Bund. The equivalent to the Mazatlán Malecon. A promenade along the Huangpu River made famous by the British back when they were a power in the region.

From our hotel window into the Pudong financial area of Shanghai. Actually this is a breakfast room view of a smoggy sunrise.

The Central Business distirct of Beijing.

We have left China for the time being as our hedonistic lifestyle in the search for the long gone opium dens of Shanghai came to the attention of the authorities who still haven't yet shaken off their Maoist almost Calvinistic Tea Party hatred of having a good time so we have retreated to Hong Kong where the lifestyle is certainly more open and free. From there the entourage will report.

Images © 2010 MazReal

El Chepe to Divisadero

While we are, as those Brits say, swanning around Europe with our hired Malay manservants carrying our bags, giving us sensual massages and lighting our opium pipes we will be showcasing sets of photographs taken within the last year in and around Mazatlán starting with El Chepe to Divisadero. Much like watching re-runs on the TV when the execs are two damn lazy to commission anything else. But these are fine original images.

El Chepe and The Copper Canyon.

If anyone reading this has not taken the El Chepe train from Los Mochis through the Copper Canyon it's about time you did. These images will give you a taste of the sights through the train window but they cannot convey the feeling of vertigo as the train moves upwards sometimes hugging vertiginous rock cliffs only holding onto two narrow rail lines.

What other train line in the world employs dapper stewards in waistcoats and dicky bows that match their moustaches?

A late night luxury bus took us to Los Mochis (on which the camera gear fell off the overhead rack onto the head of our sleeping assistant causing a river of blood and screams. The driver raised the music and drove on) and a taxi to the rail station arrived early.

The idea of this trip was to shoot our model and red umbrella standing precariously on the edge of a cliff inches from a 2000 metre vertiginous drop. Poor woman, she hated heights and we shot her with long lenses from the safety of solid ground one hundred yards away. Using long sharp sticks and a cattle prodder we forced her to stand near the edge and came back with great shots. (see example further down and the end result color panorama arriving shortly.) We stayed at the Hotel Divisadero Barrancas before they were bought out by someone who has almost tripled the room rates presumably for all those Chinese tourists that have been arriving by coach by way of Chihuahua.

July is the dry season up here

Our plucky model nears the edge. (color panorama in the next post)

Obviously we are accompanied by nice men in black carrying M16s

Images ©2010 MazReal