The Mexican Drug Wars: How Far Away Are They?

Of the 45,000 deaths
thus far, says Grillo,
“each involves a real family,
a real story, real history.”

Ioan Grillo, author of the new book about the Mexican drug wars — “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency” — has been covering Mexico for over 10 years for magazines and newspapers. He talked about his experiences covering Mexico Monday night at the Half King in Chelsea.

It was such a good talk and people asked such good questions that I decided to make use of the notes I always take at these things and write a bit about Grillo’s presentation. Though Half King is a pub/restaurant, things quiet down considerably when someone like Grillo steps up to the microphone. And because the mike didn’t work last night, people listened more attentively and more quietly than usual.

In 2004/05 when the violence in Mexicao started to get bad, the Houston Chronicle told Grillo he should “cover it like a war.” He began by getting to know addicts and he started to see the horrific transformation of Mexico through their eyes. “When I first got to Mexico in 2000,” he said, “it was a time of burgeoning democracy.” In a few years time, he said, tragic changes resulted in what he now calls a “low-intensity war.”

A single massacre in Mexico resulted in the deaths of 72 people. And killings take place every day. By comparison, the most Al Capone ever killed was 7 people — in the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Of the 45,000 deaths thus far, says Grillo, “each involves a real family, a real story, real history.” The implications remain bad for most of the country. “Society operates quasi-normally, with electricity and schools running and yet you have this extraordinary thing running through all of it.” Franchises entrench themselves within a community and grow from there, enlisting locals and corrupting ongoing events.

Grillo says this kind of thing could happen in any number of countries with similar conditions, such as a weak government amid powerful organized crime. Brazil, parts of Africa and Jamaica are a few of the vulnerable places he mentioned.

The people of Mexico, says Grillo, are used by the drug cartels’ “machines of murder.” For payment of 1,000 pesos, or $85, they’ll take a human life. The head of the police in Mexico City used his own key to get into his home, where he encountered assassins who shot him dead. Police from his own force had been co-opted by the cartel and gave the assassins access. “Your best defense as a journalist,” he says, “is not to piss anybody off.” Five people who contributed information for the book have been murdered. Even the elite and the political class feel scared, but they are divided among themselves and cannot find common ground from which to attack the problem. The cartels now run massive kidnapping schemes as well.

At the end of his talk, Grillo listed three major areas of reform:

1. Realistically assess current policy and be realistic about future policy. The war on drugs isn’t working. The ludicrous UN motto: “A drug-free world. We can make it happen.” There is now a considerable drug trade within Mexico. As for the United States, both the US and Mexico have a role in this. 90% of the cocaine in this country comes from Mexico, for example. And, says Grillo, “It’s impossible to shut down the border.”

2. Rehabilitate communities within Mexico. Nothing comes into the impoverished communities. Imagine what good 1,000 social workers could do, says Grillo. “We’ve found that kids just doing art in class discover a worth in themselves and want to make a choice about how their life goes.”

3. Build a unified police force throughout all of Mexico. Right now police operate independently from town to town.

Life lessons from a senior sexpert

'It takes intention to keep
movement and sexuality in our lives.'

Happy Birthday to Joan Price, author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty. You are like a sister. And, sister, you make me proud.

It’s your birthday on Nov. 10 and you are at the top of your game. You work it like no one else I know. At 68 you live more in a day than most people do in a week.

How is that? How can someone who once was in such a serious automobile accident she shocked doctors merely by surviving, who suffered injuries that plague her still, how can that person go on to teach aerobics six days a week and, later in life, teach line dancing three and four nights a week for hours at a time, walk for one or two hours a couple of times a week, lift weights when time allows and do advanced Pilates with a personal trainer every week? That was a long sentence with few pauses because that is the kind of life you lead. Then there are the speaking engagements, the workshops and television appearances, the writing of books, the social media updates and maintenance — you have 774 friends on Facebook, the blog, the testing of sex toys for their makers and for the readers who buy them. What have I forgotten? You review books, you’re compiling a book of erotica for Seal Press, you respond to emails in a timely fashion. I’m sure there’s more.

Your answer is that you exercise so that you can exercise, if that makes sense. You move to stay mobile is another way to put it. You are a vegan and you eat delicious, nutritional foods. You say you don’t want to be bored so you commit to doing what you are passionate about. And because nothing beats boredom like acquiring knowledge, you’ve made learning a priority. And you teach others what you’ve learned. Because of you, because you talk out loud about senior sex, we know how to maintain our vaginas to keep them in good working order. That’s just for starters. Recently one of your readers said you helped save her marriage.

When you had a reading in early July at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan, you were a guest in the NYC apartment where I spend time with Jim. We gave you the couch, a blanket and a space at the table for computing. In the mornings Jim made you strong hot coffee the way you like it, without cream or sugar. The only time you weren’t working or making connections with others throughout the city was when I was talking or when you were sleeping. You are a marvel. You model the way it should be done.

You had a profound loving relationship later in life. Robert Rice, your husband, died just as you had begun working on Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex. How hard that must have been but you got through it, found ways to grieve, work and carry on. Because of you and your book Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, we got to see for ourselves how true love and sexual intimacy are bound by no rules and heed no expectations.

Here, for those who are interested, are excerpts from a conversation I had with Joan over the telephone in mid-October. I wanted to present the woman behind her two most recent books.

The “ick factor”

“I found that people didn’t want to look at senior sexuality, face it or address the problems in a positive way. It isn’t just the youth-oriented culture that has stereotypes about sex. We seniors have them about ourselves. We think we lose enjoyment, we lose function, we lose our appeal. For every problem, there is a solution.”

Work

“I think of myself as a hard worker. I thrive on challenges and sometimes on confrontation. Ninety percent of the people I speak with say thank you for the information. Ten percent say, ‘Tell me no more’ or they make fun of it. That just spurs me on even more. Bring it on, I say.”

People are shy

“I spoke at my 50^th high school reunion recently. People listened attentively but no one asked me a single question. I know why. The last time we saw each other was when we were 17. So I told them if they had any questions, I’d consult with them in the corner of the room. People came up to me throughout the reunion saying, ‘I want my consultation in the corner.’ Every time I speak, I learn something.”

Being physical

“With regard to enjoying the pleasures of our bodies, it’s not just line dancing or having sex or walking in the sun. We need to be in relationship with our bodies.”

“People ask me: What’s the best exercise? I tell them: The one that you’ll do!”

“Exercise should be a treat, not a treatment.”

Senior foreplay

“One way to get started is to do something physical together like dancing in the living room. Walk or bike ride together. This lets you enjoy your bodies together and lets the blood flow. By the time you begin making love together, you’ve already started. Part of what makes us pull away from sex is the depletion of blood flow to our muscles, our brains and our genitals. Exercise reverses that.”

Aging

“People aren’t aware that it’s happening little by little, week by week, year by year. Athletic people I knew at 17 are now 75 pounds overweight.”

“It takes intention to keep movement and sexuality in our lives.”

Solo Sex

“Make a date with yourself.”

Joan Price’s contact information
website: http://www.joanprice.com/
Blog: http://www.NakedAtOurAge.com <http://www.nakedatourage.com/>
YouTube: http://youtu.be/MN6_HVD-Jdg <http://youtu.be/MN6_HVD-Jdg>
Naked At Our Age Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/JoanPriceAuthor <http://www.facebook.com/JoanPriceAuthor>
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JoanPrice <http://twitter.com/JoanPrice>

You can contact me at rae.francoeur@verizon.net. Read my book, “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair,” available online or in bookstores.

Passion as art

Israel Galván interacts
with a guitarist and singer
in his intense and stylized
flamenco dance.

Flamenco dance is a glorious departure from normal.

Hence, this must be an American speaking. Someone with the romantic languages in her blood and popular culture fatigue in her bones. Car chases. Faces pummeled. Guns exploding. Women raped. Enough. Give me Andalusian soul music. Show me your beating heart.

Today I had the great fortune to see flamenco dancer Israel Galván in one of his last performances in NYC this fall. It’s a 10-minute walk from when I’m staying and despite this week’s rave review in the NY Times, I managed to get the best seat in the house.

Here’s what today’s flamenco performance was like. And though the performance, titled “La Edad de Oro,” is avant-garde by traditional standards, what I describe here is pure flamenco:

Three men on a stage — one dancer (Israel Galván), one singer (David Lagos) and one guitarist (David’s brother Alfredo). They’re all dressed in black, though at one point Galván changes to white shoes. The stage is bare except for their chairs and a speaker for the guitarist. The backdrop is black. Lighting is often from above and it’s minimal. Everything that happens happens between the men and the music and the audience.

It’s intimate. Us and them.

The performance feels like a long story that Galván starts off by stepping into the solitary beam of light and beginning a percussive dance with, at first, no accompaniment. Sometimes the only sounds are his vocalizations. Sometimes he is completely still and there is only silence. David begins to sing and Alfredo plays his guitar. They trade off, Galván sitting while David or Alfredo continues. It’s a conversation, told in music and dance, that lasts for an hour and a half. Exuberant, plaintive, funny in parts, the dance and music portray us, in conflict, in love, in loss. And when Galvan stomps his feet and arcs his entire body with arms straining toward the ends of the universe, it is unbearably intense.

Olé! Sí! Bravo! I found I was amid a Spanish-speaking audience, used to joining in, at times, with expressions of appreciation and exclamations of joy. It felt as if we were at a juerga — a spontaneous gathering, perhaps in Spain at some small pub — drinking wine, reflecting on our lot in life. The dancer or singer begins a lament and soon everyone joins in.

This art comes from the heart and is transformed by skill and training and generations of dancers and singers and guitarists evolving to this, where Galván is on the edge of something old and new.

What I describe is passion and I express tremendous gratitude to know passion and to recognize it in others who take it whole and shape it into beautiful art.

As we left the theater, I heard one man say to his group of friends: “I feel so lucky to have witnessed this.”

Perhaps he's also saying is that he feels fortunate to be understood. That his passions have a place in his life.

The bullied pulp

Obama comes in last at the
Iowa State Fair pie-eating contest.

Dr Rae psychoanalyzes Barack Obama

Dr Rae does not want to come back from vacation mode, where she has been happily rewriting a novel. Dr Rae has been at play in the fictional world, a fun fantasy land where people live and die as the mood strikes her.

Zap. There goes another one.

Imagine, then, the horror upon returning from summer vacation to find the world unchanged. Men still acting badly.

Let us not waste time, then. There are a lot of men acting very badly. I’ve watched the reruns of Mad Men on Roku this summer. I know how bad men can be.

The man with me on my couch today, the man awaiting psychoanalysis, needs no introduction. Few will be surprised to see that Barack Obama, our president, is heaped here like a tired-out whoopee cushion. He has just fled the Republicans, the Vineyard and Hurricane Irene, and way too many sticks of fried butter hurled by cranky farmers while he was scoping out the Midwest from his hulking black Skulk-o-Van.

Mr. President, with all those state fair fried butter sticks and clumps of fried dough you’ve encountered the last few days, dare I ask, why are you so scary skinny?

Dr Rae, I confess, I ate sparingly as a youngster. The habit has stayed with me.

Sorry, sir, but did you just refer to yourself as a youngster?

As a boy, then.

That’s better. And as said boy, did you take lunch money to school with you?

That I did. Folks back then carried quarters to school for cafeteria lunches. Fish sticks. Tater tots. Michele says potatoes have potassium. I’m not opposed to tater tots. For that matter, I am not opposed to veterans. Gays, well, that’s another story.

So you enjoy a tater tot on occasion?

I never had the pleasure of a tater tot, Dr Rae.

Just as I expected. Tell me, commander in chief, if the scenario I describe sounds familiar:

You are walking to school. A bit of a distance ahead on the sidewalk, you see another human being coming toward you. You reach into your pocket, take hold of your small treasure, and you exclaim, “Please! It’s all yours.” You hurl your quarter, your precious lunch money, gift wrapped, polished, worth 20 times what it’s worth now, toward the approaching person. But before you can ask that toddler on the tricycle for her vote in return, off she trikes, marveling at her good fortune and practically smelling the five Snicker’s bars in her immediate future.

Dr Rae, you are so smart. How do you do it?

I took one look at you and said to myself, “You only get that skinny by giving away your milk money in kindergarten.”

Diagnosis. Sadly, our president has weak bones, particularly in the area of the spine. This is from a dearth of milk and its all important component, calcium, in his formative years. Without a family hawk to teach him bully-bashing maneuvers, he gave it up. Every day he gave it up. And, fellow citizens, as you can see nothing has changed.

What happened to passion?

Every once in a while someone says something so open and honest that it brings my world to a momentary stop. Most of us would agree: The earnest voice rings loud and clear. It cuts through the rest of the life’s din and penetrates our defenses.

At a recent reading in Babeland — SoHo, such a voice spoke out. A man introduced himself by saying he’d been married for 28 years. He said, I want to find ways to bring renewed sexual passion into my relationship with my wife. We have been together a very long time.

He, like another man in our small circle, had come alone — without their sexual partners — to seek advice. I was there with author Joan Price, whose new book, “Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex,” has just come out. Both of us published our books with Seal Press and we thought it would be fun to do a couple of events together.

. . . . .

Many would prefer to shop for private items like sex toys online. The great thing about shopping in person at a store like Babeland, in particular, is how great the staff is and how little embarrassment you feel as you look at the toys and find out what's recommended.

. . . . .

All I could say to the man was congratulations. Congratulations for coming all the way into SoHo, for walking into Babeland, a pretty store painted pink and run by women who sell “sex toys for a passionate world,” for sitting through this reading and presentation, but most of all, congratulations for taking your wife and your sex life seriously. I applaud you and the other couples in this room who are here for this same reason.

I would have done almost anything — short of a threesome — to help out these people.

I did read erotic passages from my book “Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair.” I would like to think it helped, not as a measuring stick by which to size up one’s own sexual life but simply as titillation.

Erotica, and here I’m talking about literary erotica like the kind found in “Free Fall” — is the sex toy you never have to lubricate. It doesn’t make any noise, you can’t turn it on by mistake, and you can pack it in your carryon luggage without fear of discovery. Download it onto your Kindle, for example, and save yourself the embarrassment of displaying its cover to other travelers.

Erotica can be downright devastating, in a good way. From the woman’s point of view, erotica can turn that major sex organ you have — your brain — into a single-minded lust organ that begs immediate and relentless indulgence.

So what I should have said to that earnest and searching man was: Buy my book or others like it. I was sad to see that he left empty-handed with no books, no toys of any kind, no lift to his shoulders. Perhaps he already has these things and was looking for more. He was on a mission, in search of some idea, some tip he hadn’t heard before.

Joan’s tried-and-true advice: Reserve some time for yourself and your lover, then begin the dance…whatever it is. Take it slowly. In time, your desire will catch up. This is what works. It’s an act of faith. It’s a little like Gestalt or cognitive therapy. You fake it till you make it, as the saying goes.

A couple of people did buy my book, and they bought Joan’s groundbreaking self-help book, too. They mentioned that they had a hard time finding erotica that wasn’t vulgar and crude and idiotic. There is good erotica but it’s not mainstream; it’s hard to find. Erotica doesn’t have to be explicit. In a book titled “The Literary Lover” published by Viking in 1993 (in time for a Valentine’s Day many years ago), William Kotzwinkle wrote a short story called “Jewel of the Moon,” about the entire delicious year a young groom spent very slowly seducing his new bride. Kotzwinkle, it may surprise you to learn, is also author of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.”

. . . . .

Joan Price was my house guest for a few nights. Though Joan was busy promoting her new book, we had time for a walk along the High Line in Chelsea.

. . . . .

There you have it, an erotic story to bring some fun to date night. A good vibrator that isn’t going to conk out on you or burn delicate tissue can cost more than $100. A stimulator for the brain costs less. It’s hard to find but well worth the search.

And it doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition.

You Don’t Say: Dr. Rae Psychoanalyzes V.S. Naipaul

V.S. requires treatment
for a serious word disorder.
To be blunt,
he doesn't know when
to shut up.

Welcome, Mr. V.S. Naipaul. Please make yourself comfortable. I see that you are in the habit of removing your shoes. This is good.

You have the right idea. Just sit back and relax on my virtual Word Couch. Here is where I muck around in my client’s gibberish, looking for telltale psychology.

One wouldn’t think so, with your Nobel Prize for literature and what we assume is a talent with words, but you are up to your neck in a very funky word hole.

Do you remember saying these things about women writers last week?

“I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.”

Ah ha! You, too, use words as a way into a person’s psychology.

Women’s writing, you say, reveals “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world.” And you don’t stop there, Mr. Naipaul. “Inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too.”

Hold everything! Do you have a license to practice? Or perhaps you think the Nobel Prize gives you liberties?

About your publisher, Mr. Naipaul, you say this: “My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don’t mean this in any unkind way.”

We are all at the mercy of our words and you have blathered yourself silly. Thank god for Dr. Rae.

Permit me one digression: When is “feminine tosh” not unkind?

“Tosh” means “nonsense,” you know, and could easily be construed here as synonymous with “female.” Not good.

Preliminary diagnosis: Muddle brain.

No problema! Dr. Rae to the rescue of V.S. Naipaul because Nobel laureates get sick sometimes, too.

Let us get on with your evaluation. Please answer the following questions with a yes or no:

• Do you and Arnold Schwarzenegger share any forebears?
• Do you identify with Popeye the Sailor Man?
• Do you dress in a phone booth?
• Do you covet John Edwards’s barber?
• Are you wearing a crown as we speak?
• What are your thoughts on virgins?

Stop it, Mr. Naipual. You may not channel Schwarzenegger’s swagger. Look what you’ve done. You’ve made an unholy mess of my Word Couch.

You suffer from a form of dementia called I am Man, Hear Me Roar. And you’ve roared yourself hoarse, I’m afraid. You are in extremis.

Treatment Options:

Lobotomy: A procedure that involves a sharp instrument and a malfunctioning frontal lobe. This pretty much neutralizes that roar of yours. Don’t give me that look, Mr. Naipaul. You’ve brought this on yourself.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (a k a Shock Treatments or ECT): There’s some loss of memory but Paul Theroux has offered to refresh you on the past. He’s written a book, in fact, that gives the details of how you used to be.

Since I’m handier with electrodes than I am with an ice pick, ECT it is.

Bite down on this tongue depressor, please.

You Don’t Say: Intervention required with Anthony Weiner

The Weiner Intervention . . .

. . . we can help Weiner get well and it won't cost him a dime.

So much for my day of rest. I must call an emergency session to perform an intervention with Congressman Anthony Weiner.

A NY Times news bulletin tells us that Rep. Weiner has decided to go silent. No more tweets or salacious admissions. He has entered into a treatment program.

No way! Mr. Weiner, come back! Do not throw yourself on the sword of tedious group therapy sessions, communal meals of stovetop macaroni and cheese, weeks of wearing that unpleasant hangdog face and those rounded shoulders of contrition — just so you can escape the wrath of Pelosi et al.

Come to Dr. Rae.

I won’t charge you a dime, you can still have your power protein smoothies, and my psychoanalysis will only take another two minutes. Here’s what we know about the developments thus far from the NY Times:

“Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person,” said his spokeswoman, Risa Heller. “In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from the House of Representatives so that he can get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well.”

Dr. Rae to Rep. Weiner:

There’s no need to pay good money to get evaluated. Just call your wife and ask her what’s wrong with you. This is free and fast and you will be surprised at just how right on she is.

If you don’t want to do that, and who would blame you, simply ask her to hand the phone to Hillary Clinton, with whom your wife is traveling right now. Hillary knows a good deal about such matters. She is, in fact, the all-time expert on the over-exposure of the married male penis. I am sure she will have some very fine thoughts to share.

As for the goal of becoming a better husband, the solution is again short and simple. Reread your marriage vows and do what they say.

Note to universe:

I must at this point congratulate the universe for once again surprising us with an amazing coincidence. That Hillary Clinton and Weiner’s wife are traveling together at this time would seem unbelievable. Yet there we have it — two of our culture's most "betrayed" women setting aside personal issues to serve their country. Meanwhile many of the rest of us suck in breaths of astonishment and on the exhale, whistle the refrain from “Twilight Zone.”

Session over.