August 24, 2004

• Eddie came home from the supermarket this evening with a look on his face like he’d seen an alien. “You’re not going to believe what’s just happened”, he said.

  Lili: What?!
  Eddie: I just saw a skunk.
  Lili: Where?!
  Eddie: In the back alley near the garage. I can’t believe it. It was a real live skunk.
  Lili: What’s a skunk doing in the back alley?
  Eddie: I don’t know, but it had a black tail with a white stripe. It was a SKUNK. And you know? It looked just like Pepe Le Pew!
  Lili: You’re kidding! A skunk? On our street?
  Eddie: Yeah, it just ran along the road the way a squirrel runs, only it wasn’t a squirrel, it wasn’t a large cat, it was a skunk!
  Lili: Why is there a skunk in our street? What was it doing? What do skunks do, anyway? What do they eat? Where do they hang out?

  

  At this point we both realized that we didn’t know a single thing about skunks. We don’t have these creatures in Australia. Our only point of reference is Pepe Le Pew. And even so, we still don’t know a thing about what real skunks actually do…

  So we ran out of the apartment, camera in hand, to look for the skunk. Because I wanted to see it too. But it was dark and the skunk had run off to hide, who knows where… 

  ---

  Sunset Junction street fair

  
  Hot Dogs

  
  Junc gallery: post-its; masked pillows

  
  So cool! – The I&I Sound System is an ice-cream truck that has
  been converted into a mobile soundsystem

  
  So are bottles good and cans bad?

  ---

  Saturday night: El Monte

  

  El Monte is in East L.A. and this FMLL lucha event was on a ranch – the Rancho El Fallaron - out in the middle of nowheresville. As we stepped out of our car in the dusty parking lot, we could hear the horses, smell the horseshit, and occasionally see a charro or two walk by, lasso in hand.

  There were so many people lining up outside (similar to our Tijuana lucha experience with Mr & Mrs Gutierrez). The line went on forever. The ranch had a ‘club’ right next to the ‘arena’, where a Mexican wedding was in full swing with very loud music.

  
  Ring in the middle of the charreada

  Now, imagine sitting in the stands with merry ranchero music pumping away from over the fence - a tuba going oompah oompah, while a wrestling match is taking place in front of you. Very strange! Things got even more surreal when the wrestling soundtrack became a waltz. Also imagine every so often, a train passing through your line of vision on the freeway behind the ring action. Or a helicopter hovering past, searchlight beaming down. Meanwhile it’s frreeezzing cold, the crowds are restless, and the wedding music gets progressively louder.

  Thank goodness, we found a way to move closer to the ring on the ground level -and could avoid the music and the cold. Finally, a much better view!

  
  Mascara Sagrada greets his fans; Shamu in the ring

  
  Super Porky! - always a crowd favorite

  The wrestling itself was so-so. Big name wrestlers but very sloooowwwww matches.

  One highlight: George Lopez was there! (And was hounded by fans wanting his autograph). George was the voice of La Evil Dentista in one of our favorite first season episodes of Mucha Lucha – ‘Tooth Or Dare’. ”I still haven’t seen the episode” says George. “I gotta get a copy from Warner Bros. Why didn’t they bring back the dentist character?”

  
  Lili sitting next to Liz; George Lopez in the background
  (the one on the right)

  It was also great to finally meet Duncan McLeod, whose lucha libre documentary - La Lucha, will be completed late 2004. Until now, we’d only communicated via email.

  Word from Liz: The next L.A. Lucha Va Voom is October 28th. The show will also be travelling to more cities including San Francisco, Detroit, etc.

  Eddie: So it’s Saturday night and we’re out in the middle of nowhere, with around 700 people – mainly Latino families – queuing to see the lucha.  I don’t know how FMLL promotes the event within East LA, but it obviously does a good enough job to get this amount of people to its shows. It doesn’t even bother trying to attract anyone west of downtown.

  The matches were slow, drawn out affairs.  The venue’s lack of intimacy seemed to affect the wrestlers and the crowd.  Most of the matches were played for comedy, and there was no hint of anything at stake – a real ‘family’ show.  It was great seeing the original Mascara Sagrada, but all in all, the lucha was pretty unspectacular.

  But as an experience, it was something else!

  • 1:02 am
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