About Us

Short stories of the early Mexican digital counterculture

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Fear and Rome in De Efe

    *Shot around 10 AM on a Saturday morning loaded af after blowing a couple of g’s with my homeboy 602 throughout the night before. The most recent episode of my love life had me stranded so deep that I had no other choice but to wash away all pain with mezcal, weed and coke. Compa Luke had joined us right after dawn crashing my place with a flaky eight ball that drove us to spend the day wilding out in one of Mexico most famous tourist attraction ever, the “trajineras” of Xochimilco’s canal.

    By that time the flowers of working for a media company had finally blossomed allowing weekly leisure moments to blow some steam off without hurting anyone. Existentialism was not the subject of that day, tho’. The real first heart break had finally happened the night before. You know, the one that actually hurts when it rips away the innocence of choosing to trust without a safety net behind? The first rupture that crushes the veil of love fronting interest and status as the relationship true purpose. Which kindda’ sucks but happens a lot all around anyways. Specially in the big city where the need to weight a person against the other’s convenience is practiced as regular as a lunch served daily with a fresh sip of self hate and the proper vices to mellow yourself.

    Read the full magazine article and follow the link to find out more about Baby Jesus lit parties: Ninopa

    One of many early adventures with my blood Toni happened during a rainy Wednesday of March close to election day, during a period of Mexico where the final remains of old head politicians still ruled over a country six years deep into a bloody war against narco.

    Keep in mind that no more than ten years ago it was kind of crazy to go out as a regular citizen and protest over the streets of the city. Government’s own paid rioters always had their way teasing and consequently crashing with the police, bringing down any credibility left for the real meaning of the protest. Disguised as anarchists or the Black bloc they would later reach their highest point by setting on fire the city’s Christmas tree while streamed live on national television, consequently unleashing a massive brawl that thrashed a whole strip in Downtown’s historical district.

    Yet shit was really hitting the fan and many Mexicans didn’t even fantasized we had such issues. The general street and media feeling about this particular march was against it, but reality came a little more harsh. That evening itself more than 40,000 gathered not to protest but to beg for food, water and labor justice.

    The necessities of mayor monetary interests where closing hard on the least favored. Miners, labor farmers and union workers marched along laid off airplane pilots and executives that demanded solutions from the State institutions. The very few social media influencers able to amplify the message relied solely in a 140 character, multimedia-less Twitter, while none mainstream reporters were called for coverage.

If you ever remember Sitting at your right feels like jazz seen through the eyes of a cat plotting laughter next to you I dream Chinese cobra

    In a more personal level acid and street skate were the move all right. The influence of Gonzo journalism at work plus an environment willing to experience life at its many simultaneous dimension allowed myself in different states of truth during particular situations. It didn’t matter if a new digital campaign at work needed to be developed or if the gig was overcrowded with sweaty ska fans yelling gibberish at each other, Mexico City and its social game needed to be understood and mastered. And if that little piece of paper was able to help me process data at a higher speed, I was in.

Los Master Plus, Cholula, Mexico 2012

Young Cannibals, Cholula, Mexico 2012

    There was another time when I joined Toni for a short trip to Cholula, following her all around during a music festival, taking pictures of her fans while she shot some photos of the bands playing live. Hated Flavor Flav being the closing act for that show because I was tripping so hard that I thought it wasn’t him on stage cause he looked way more healthy than how he apeared in his reality show.

Lol.

    Still I enjoyed it pretty much. The smoking active volcano in the horizon was deadly beautiful to look at, plus the event was held on the grounds of an old pyramid hidden underneath a Colonial building once used as a nut house (scroll up to the image above me dropping a tab).

Maachina, Tijuana. 2012

*Funny how I actually had to run away from the city for a few of days in order to clear my mind and leave all the love bs behind.

*But ultimately traveled back only to find myself refusing to face the fact that I had been dumped by avidly spending between 10 to 14 hours a day at work avoiding reality.

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Niñopa

    They also call it “Niñopan” but no one is really certain about how the wooden figure became such a celebration for the small town of Xochimilco. Some assure that the miraculous appearance of a divine representation of a young Jesus Christ helped settle the first allegiance between the local natives and the early Spanish pioneers. Others claim that the actual figure was carved by the artisans of the local convent back in the XVII century, and has been preserved and celebrated since.

    Fact is the two feet piece of Coral tree representing a baby Jesus –Catholics’ main deity– lives in a different house every year and visits church on Sundays only. The rest of the week is reserved for private adoration outside the temple, after which it is returned to the hosting house where it’s removed from its day clothing and set ready for bed, warm milk and pj’s included.

    There is no way you can have the original Ninopa all for yourself in your house anytime you want. There’s a 35 years waiting list ahead of you, and you also need to think about money because moving it into your place means to set up a decent block party for the neighbors with snacks and soft drinks included, but no DJs allowed for the show’s soundtrack.

    So while some wait for their moment to serve the holy figure, the general custom is to bring your own Ninopa replica to church every second day of February, have it blessed first by the priest, but finally and more meaningfully, by the presence of the original Ninopa figure which has showed up to host the religious celebration, and ultimately parade from the temple to the house of the new family hosting for the following 365 days.

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Hey, hey, I wrote you a song ’Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born

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Galerismo

    One of my favorite moments in life happened a few minutes after opening doors to every new expo held at the gallery we had managed to set up inside our office in order to bring more awareness to our business. We ran a new show every three months or so, flying in all sorts of painters, photographers, sculptors or plastic artists that could offer good content and fine pieces to the collectors and early hipster trustfund babies that roamed the scene. 

    I felt fascinated everytime I closed my laptop, stepped away from my desk and walked down the hallway straight to the bar to grab a cocktail before swinging my entrance through a lobby packed with the hippest youth from all the city and world, close friends that came for a good time, and a bunch of celebrities, critics and cameras asking questions outloud to anyone who was dressed fashionable enough to give a smart answer.

    The moment above happened a few minutes before Nick Zinner opened his first art exhibition in Mexico City. It was titled “1001 Images”, and was about showcasing 1,001 pictures he had shot over the years, throughout his time on the road with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and during his own personal moments. He was nervously bouncing from room to room, concerned about running short on time because his bags with some of his art for display inside them had been misplaced and barely arrived fresh from Florida two hours ago. Roaming around the rest of the gallery was Toni François, who was also headlining that expo. Her collection included some amazing images of many rock stars performing wild during concerts around the world. 

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Romalocos

   After homeboy Tulio had taken an unexpected flee out of town I eventually found myself spending more and more time with the local Roman wolves. For a regular country boy like myself, lost in translation in one of the biggest cities in the world, twenty four hours a day swiftly became never enough to feel like giving it a call and going home. Incessantly, every sunrise came with a new opportunity to blow my mind by learning something new about the ways of the monumental Mexico City straight from the brains of its own creatures.

    Dani was YouTube and chillin’ with some of her buddies when we arrived to her spot at Narvarte neighborhood. It was one of those hot sticky summer Saturday nights when nothing seems to happen, meaning my buddy El Carnali and I had spent the last couple of hours on the hunt for a decent party, but after a few hours of bar hopping in Centro Historico and involuntarily being dragged in and out of Carlos Monsivais’s funeral ceremony, we decided to drop the search and relentlessly headed to the apartment he shared with his sister in order to regain our high while hitting bottoms to a few brews before calling it a night. 

Next thing you know, shortly after arriving to the apartment, is everyone digging in their pockets and their hands coming out anything but empty, holding a half of this or a full tab of that. The sudden text with a weary hint about a party at Reforma Avenue is enough to get ups moving from the couch, and before Dani could even confirm the address, we are already riding the cab while popping acid and ecstasy in order to reach the perfect candy flip right at the door of the venue. 

The party turned out to be an insane celebration for UTA & Under’s anniversary, Mexico City’s favorite after hour spots for post punks and new wavers: three full stories dedicated to glam punk, synth wave and industrial garage, fully loaded with dressed up music fanatics ready to dance the weekend away while a dj dresed up as an Aztec Amadeus Mozart crazed the crowd playing his vintage records in the middle of a marble stairway between the first and second floor madness.

    Any given weekend morning was about checking on the social media conversation, locating trends and scheduling fresh posts for work through an oldschool version of Tweetdeck or some CMS like Wordpress for Media Publishers that crashed one out of every two times you tried to upload files heavier than 1 Meg. Those were also the times when Twitter stars couldn’t attach images to their tweets, so they had to rely solely on 140 characters to tell us about their shower thoughts or current situation status during almost every holy second of their existence. Never the less, the goal was to turn a blog into a full online media site, and you know how it is when I say, “that content wasn’t going to become relevant by its own.” 

    See, I wasn’t in it for the money. I love the lifestyle. I’m hooked on the digital rush: I started as an intern working full time for free during the first three months, and direct deposits really didn’t became substantial until many years later. Also the enviroment was even more derisible towards online social content strategists than it is today, turning almost every proposal in a true quest to find its approval from sponsoring brands, the audience or even some of my closest ones.

    Yet the fight needed to be fought. The darkness of a State controlled pop culture was being fiercely vanquished by online globalization, and the opportunity for the solidification of new careers and new forms of business had begun to happen. It was up to us, and only us all in the game, to bring a permanent status to it.

Juan Cirerol, private party, Mexico City 2010

The Spits, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City 2010

    While early versions of many now established art and film festivals spreaded hope for culture by popping all over the country, the war against narco lashed the general population with its most vicious whip, finally cracking the media bubble where Mexico City had lived in, which slowly began to crumble after the number of press headliners, marches and protests seeking justice became too overwhelming to ignore, leading in the harsh reality of massive forced disappearances, beheaded corpses and public hangings on the streets.

    Simultaneously, war had been speeding migration inside Mexico; bringing into the city many young professionals from all over the country who had witnessed at first hand how their career opportunities ran dry after organized crime had taken control over some of their hometowns. So the artists that couldn’t afford LA or NYC moved to DF, many to a once beautiful but then shabby cheap neighborhood called Roma, right next to downtown, close to every hot spot, yet classic and wild.

   One could say it felt inspired by the Condesa art movement that during the late 90′s transformed the bedraggled old jewish neighborhood into a haven for contemporary creators: Boutiques and small galleries began opening their doors in the sidewalk level floors of buildings on Alvaro Obregon and Colima streets; a few mezcal joints and live music venues had taken over oldschool houses and now you could spend your nights roaming through the strip bouncing from bar to bar while the best musicians of the country, and sometimes the world, played live for a small crowd. Also new digital media companies and small ad agencies had established themselves in the neighborhood, so most of us lived, worked and partied in the same area, creating this collective mindset of hustling hard in order to party even harder.

    From my own personal point of view there is a different Mexico City before and after this fab four squad came together. When the picture was taken your regular outdoor music festivals, funny Vloggers, mainstream urban artists or massive paid media budgets in social media weren’t even a dream. A few of us around the country had to go to war against the Establishment to unlock them powers free for everybody to enjoy. A real life battle where I saw brothers and sisters struggle to death with themselves and the validation from the outside world to recognize us as profitable and trustworthy young adults. 

    And during that battle was a moment, distanced from egos and ranks, that us four were the only thing we could depend on to make it happen. We relied solely in each other to cover our flanks and make our way through the fight of existing in relevance. We believed it was time for our hedonistic lifestyle to coexist with Capitalism, yet victory refused to show her smile unless we managed a way to land the trick of turning a foreign magazine into the hottest media company in town.

    So after several months of hard work and restless nights things finally started to happen, Eduardo learned to charm the clients and forever changed the country’s rules for making business with digital content, which pushed the doors wide open for Laura to blow her mind and together with Christian bring to life wild and acclaimed live shows that helped shape Mexico as a welcoming country for international artists, and eventually layed ground for a national outdoor festival euphoria. All the fuzz brought in new fresh amazing content to post, filling the blanks in our followers and sponsors timelines, launching our site to a new record traffic high. And on the top of the cake, the blogs and influencers network we had launched to run sponsored content and ads was finally paying off, sharing some light on digital savy youngsters in the country who were becoming enabled to pursue a career in the internet media culture.

Wolfmother, Indianilla Station, Mexico City 2010

*Lol. The following three are the only pictures I shot during the first edition of Corona Capital festival. Most of the music blogs and sites had set up a pop up shop offering samples of their magazine, stickers or giveaways. Ours had a real Lucha Libre fighter armwrestling with the crowd.

    The crew already roamed the streets when we first met. Watchavato, Pavel, Vipo, Juan and Simpson were my main boys because we happened to be homies as well, but local chiefs such as Ciler, Tatanka and JNares were always close. Strangely, overall the things someone could connect with any others, the Romalocos gang was always together for the fun of it. No pretentions, just acquired taste for music, content, skateboarding and laughter. 

    I really can’t remember a moment when we weren’t cracking a joke or bringing in the lighter version of any kind of issues the other might have had. Like a support group for veterans of the urban life expressionism, but with a persuasive love for party.

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Holy Friyay

    Now that science method is taught since kindergarden school, faith expressions will probably leap from passion for an irrefutable invisible presence based worship into something more tangible and inmediately rewarding. I mean, we don’t have to die in order to know if we did right or wrong; posting your activities as Facebook status will instantly let you know if you’re favored or not. Which eventually leads me to conclude some of the actual forms of cultural expressions will be dead and forgotten by the end of my generation.

    Via Crucis, a Christian representation of its main deity’s final learnings while walking to his death carrying a wooden cross on his shoulders, is performed during a certain Friday every early Spring almost anywhere in the world where the Roman Catholic Empire was of influence during past centuries. And eventhough more modern times have definitely reached us, this celebration to sacrifice has found a way to stay tuned in the minds of a few citizens willing to find redemption by leasing and carrying a wooden cross on his back.

    Climax comes shortly after Christ is crucified by the Romans and an actor dressed as an angel climbs up to the top of a huge wooden cross as sort of giving its blessings to the dying god and the present audience. 

    Walking around the area looking for a place to take a leak we found a black garage door holding a fluorescent sign offering VIP access to the show. And beer. The place was actually a patio full of drunk people having a good time guarding the way to a ladder that took you up to the roof of a half way built house on the top far side of Cerro de la Estrella in Iztapalapa’s disitrict, from where you could get a real behind the scenes view of the Via Crucis while a Sonidero blasted through the speakers.

    We had also taken the house as garrison rushing in just after a knuckle fight had broken out between the locals on one of the only two exits out of the neighborhood. So we  took our precautions, cracked a few jokes, bought a few more cold ones to the kid selling forty ouncers through the window of his room and danced our way out of the party into the last train before sunset. 

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Vistrito Federal

    Cheers if you’ve ever found yourself amused following your trembling hand reach for the first bite of the past thirty hours, cleary acknowledging that there won’t be any more food until a full day passes by because you need to save some money to buy your weekend meals. 

    The choices we walked into contionusly forced us to weigh on our life options. We were living the rise of the materialization of Internet culture and with it came new ways to offer and new needs to demand. Web editor, blog manager, and many other unborn crafts where skilled and brought to life with every software update from any Social Platform, Operative System, Smartphone, Application or Website. There were not many teachers to look up to except the answers posted in forums or new widgets placed on this or that music blog. We were mustang riding cowboys in the Wild West of Digital Content Distribution. Not many bouched for it and many less really understood its upcoming potential, but for us children of the Modems the sole possibility of working in the World Wide Web was worth the price.

    The ghosts of the land that witnessed the birth of Mambo dance their time away everytime the orquestra plays at the iconic Salon Los Angeles. Tobacco scented black and white songs echoe between the old neighborhoods of the great Hispanic capital. At any time of the day, if there’s barrio around, salsa, bachata or cumbia will be playing somewhere near you. 

    Work was blooming. My cousin helped me score a job at a magazine turning its eyes to digital media. Started as an intern slash blog editor, but soon enough I had my hands full helping with the rest of the business.  

    The magazine brand was becoming huge all over the world by putting out fascinanting and really raw content that shocked the internet as well as the audience on the streets. It brought to the table articles that sparked conversation on things that mattered a lot to our generation but no one in the media ever mentioned. It felt like a stand against the establishment turned into a cool business.

    As I got more involved with what later became known as Digital Marketing specs of the game, part of my new responsabilities started to include the set up and managing of paid ad placements in different lifestyles blogs similar to ours, what put me in close contact with some of the hard players in the local digital revolution.

    Andrés up here was the editor for Rolling Stone and also founder of Me Hace Ruido, a site dedicated to indie music ranked as top most read sites in the country. Mariana, below, was still a student and part of the Iberoamericana University blog staff, plus a host in one of the hottest shows at the school’s station. Radio Ibero played indie songs from all over the world and hosted a site about it followed by almost all the students in one of the most prestigious education institutions in Latin America. 

Austin TV, El Imperial , DF, 2010

60 Tigres, El Imperial, DF, 2010

    Capitalism has taken over idealism in most of the countries in the world able to provide electricity service to their population, giving birth to a fresh interconnected generation that talks to each other in the universal language of pop culture. This delivery also happens in Mexico under a new breed of individuals that avidly participate in the globalized cultural market and constantly find the necessary resources to acknowledge which version of their country the world carries in mind. Some of them build better things for all of us, whilst others give zero fucks about whatever is happening outside their heads. The vineyard emerges diverse with choice and thought.

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We dug these holes we crawled into now they're my home Now here I can not feel the wind, can't feel the rain or cold

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Streets are owned by those who hustle on them

    You’ve got to believe me when I tell you equal gender marriage was once illegal in Mexico City. Back then it was a different universe named Distrito Federal, the Federal District, where gender diversity was as celebrated as any concert in benefit of the AIDS deniers community, and the suit and tie gentlemen that smell like hang over and cologne, morally ruled most of the country. 

    During those final times when happy punk compact discs used to make a headline, you could also witness with your own ears how old fashioned record labels where overthrown by new digital platforms such as MySpace or Blogspot, helping create an atmosphere so full of hope for creativity that you could literally taste the winds of change of culture over the smell of chorizo from the taquero on the corner of the street. It was the dawn of the Millenial cult, and the sport required no brakes.

    As for me and my homies, we spent our time in cheap booze and fine moments; running as a tight crew, hitting bongs and getting wasted at the hottest live acts with all the bootleged beer we could afford, or dropping acid just to spend the night hitting the Dualshocks with some caguamas.

Phoenix, Salón Cuervo, DF, 2010

Hong Kong Blood Opera, El Alicia, 2010

Fobia, Salón Cuervo, 2010

    Televisa parties were as fancy as it could get during that early BlackBerry biased 2010. You had the finest weirdos from different social levels of almost the whole country, gathered under the same roof with all the free booze, soap opera celebrities and 1990′s live music you could get into your brain.

    That night was supposed to be wild because of the full-contact pre UFC live fights happening at certain point of the party, but somehow I lost my time after a fourth “Smirnoff” & Tonic. Next thing you know I’m wasted up my ass stumbling on a shady street in the middle of Anahuac, the rusty industrial area behind Slim City, heading towards a closer spot to home in order to hail a cab friendlier to my budget.

    I remember feeling pretty wasted riding on the back seat of a Nissan taxi while cruising by the outskirts of Chapultepec Central Park. Out of nothing the driver pulls over by the sidewalk and asks if I’m OK with his friend riding with us, but by the time I could deliver a reasonable “Hell NO!”, a stiff guy with a black leather jacket was already diving on to passengers front seat and the car was in drive gear again. “Hey dude, you can’t take this cab I’m already he...”. 

    Motherfucker gunslapped a noisy “shut the fuck up” at me and that was it. I was officially being mugged in DF. Popping my cherry in Polanco, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Latin America. 

    Oh but times were hard and scarce, and loosing whatever I had on me at that time meant not eating for the rest of the week. I was already living in a one meal-a-day diet, and my health wasn’t willing to afford going below that. It all came down to either starve or getting shot. 

    The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than 8 seconds. I faked trying to reach for my wallet and then jumped out of the moving cab while it was not going that fast yet. Felt the car driving in reverse breathing down my neck while running to the closest big avenue, but all the booze in my blood made me feel confident enough to reach it before any of their bullets reached me. Once there I got lost running towards the wrong way of the street and into the crowd. Kept running until I reached home.

    I was so liquored up while this happened that I only hold short flashbacks that make sense altogether. There’s a great one of me tripping over Lieja’s bridge while running as fast as I could, that later explained half of my right palm torn apart. Others, like the tremors by fear and adrenaline while washing my blood out of my head and hands, remind me of how sudden shit hits the fan when you don’t take care of yourself.

Ultimately the street had taught, and I was there to learn.

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The last thirty first

How often does the contemprary nomad realizes that the moment currently happening will never be again because of the disappearence of its context? 

This was the last night (of the year and ever) that Roxyto partied at the silent H. We were all together members of that part of the community that changes things forever. We made it OK to be different. Through music, articles, illustrations, coding, video, photo, radio or websites, we delivered what we thought it could be the tools to build a better place. Some of us are still involved, some of us are gone, but construction has already begun.

It was also one of the last moments I felt to belong somewhere.

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As the summer fades away you'll lead me to the garden passing the lovers swooning in the autumn see yourself, your image in the eyes of someone else see yourself, your fears as they appear to someone else

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First twelve

Critically acclaimed chocolate topped herb breakfast by my roomate Marco Tulio was the main fuel during that sunny noon we arrived to La Villa. We were two of the seven million people to visit the Basilica of Guadalupe that day as part of the celebration of the only entity that holds Mexico together, La Virgen.

The annual festivity, held every December 12th, witnesses a vast sea of faith demonstrations that can go from an easy mile long walk to say your prayers at the main church while holding your saint portrait, up to a hundred kilometer march on your knees from any given little town in the middle of nowhere to visit the blessed Virgencita at one of the oldest neighborhoods in Mexico City.

The purpose of reaching the Basilica of Guadalupe is to thank the saint for the blessings over the year and pay back any favor you might’ve asked for during your last visit. 

Even Mario Hermanos was out there showing some luv.

Once inside the Basilica’s main square, Christianity meets the Aztec rituals. Whilst the main Archibishop preaches outloud to the patio speakers from inside a packed church, incense flows around dozens of locals dressed in their tribe’s typical garment dancing and celebrating Mother Moon to the rythm of live percussions. 

Colonization laws demanded temples to be destroyed and Catholic churches to be built on top of them. Virgen of Guadalupe eventually became that divine revelation that helped unify locals and europeans under one yoke.

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Virreyes Hotel

Not sure if this still goes on. Stopped visiting Virreyes Hotel after Juan and Said got a free ticket out of there and moved to Roma. Many of my friends had spent some time there after arriving to Mexico City without a place to crash. It was an extended stay hotel, but also a secure place to score weed.  

At any given time, by roaming through the hallways of the hotel, you could easily bump into conversation with a tweaker school of arts student asking for beer money, or a fashion deisgner by day molly dealer by night handing in business cards and party invitations. Just taking the elevator felt like a wild ride to an unknown dimension and back.

The hotel lobby had a restaurant that turned into a hazy dance floor almost every weekend. It was a weird crow between guests, their friends and homeless drunks that tapped acid to some New Wave DJ playing music on the worn out turntables. Felt like a hundred ghosts.

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When in Rome

The Horrors, Salón Cuervo, DF, 2009

Los Black Jacks, Beer Hall, DF, 2009

    Noiselab, the record label that had brought estabishment to indie music in Mexico throughout the 2000s, was a main hub for the creative wild side of the country. The hottest punk or electronica acts played the label’s brand sponsored shows packed with melomaniac youngsters tired of decades of shitty pop music forced into their ears through State friendly media; but they also ran a well curated music blog followed by many of the young pre mobile social media fellas around. It was part of a net of sites that spread new music and lifestyle to the uprising digital youth. 

Radio Soulwax, ????, DF, 2009

Hercules & Love Affair, Salón Covadonga, DF, 2009

Crocodiles, Salón Caribe, DF, 2009

Patinbionico, Cibeles, DF, 2009

    Roma post Spice Girls era was all about dreams and feeling hungry. Live gigs by amazing underpaid indie bands and DJs where our every day dinner. Free booze parties were at its top and we thrashed all of them no matter the day. We took refugee of our shitty young adult lives by fueling our minds until sunrise with whatever we could drop before showing up to work live straight from the all-nighter. 

Vivian Girls, Cibeles, DF, 2009

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Flakone dropping some ink on mi amigo Pablo Canvas.

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La tierra de los conquistados

Los mejores atardeceres son los de octubre. Entre el naranja fosforescente y el sonido de miles de aves regresando a su nido, Reforma se convierte en Calzada de los Misterios, y el mundo civilizado conoce a los nativos del área desde cientos de años atrás. 

Ahí justo nos salimos del metro subterráneo. Sin relojes, ni carteras. La Guerrero, warrior hasta la muerte, nos miraba con sospecha desde sus talleres mientras nos dirigíamos hacia los imponentes edificios de concreto, conocidos como Tlatelolco. 

La parte blanco y negro del video del Tri donde cientos de estudiantes huyen del ejército corriendo por estos mismos pasillos, ocupaba la imagen mental del momento mientras esperábamos frente a la puerta del ascensor. Marco Tulio hacía rondas quincenales a este departamento del treceavo piso por encargo de Erich, un amigo mutuo. Pertenecía al papá de este último. Un escritor reconocido en el desierto. 

Esperamos ahí hasta la hora mágica y nos prendimos un toque. Charlamos sobre el Distrito Federal de aquel momento. Algo sobre cómo los ídolos intelectuales de los habitantes de la Roma Condesa eran tan distintos a los de los chicos regguetoneros que abrían sus primeras caguamas del día en el estacionamiento frente a nosotros. Con las bocinas a todo volumen, escuchando el ritmo pop internacional favorito de 2017, pero la música de los Tepicholos de 2009. 

Nuestro regreso a casa nos llevó sobre la misma explanada que alguna vez fue teñida de sangre y lavada de inmediato con la misma lluvia que nos moja a todos. No solo durante el siglo pasado, sino en décadas anteriores también. Por el mismo lugar donde en un par de ocasiones la lucha justa de algunos se ha visto amenazada por los intereses de mayores recursos.

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De la competencia de románticas despedidas poco se sabe acerca de las primeras eliminatorias pues en lugar de medallas recibieron imposibles moratorias