Mexico- Hail Mary -The Statue Is The Saint
Mazatlán · Puerto Vallarta · Football Theology
Foreign LandFootball Atheists
A pain in the English: tourist season, entrepreneurial vendors, cathedral wordplay, football miracles, and a four-dollar movie in Puerto Vallarta.
It was tourist season in Mazatlán. The locals were fishing, waiting to catch the big one, while most everyone else lived on the small ones.
Everybody was vending something—from Mexican gummy bears to lead-painted, made-in-China drywall pet food.
Very entrepreneurial. Too bad nobody sold NFL merchandise, not even the knockoffs.
The Asymmetric Equation
Commerce + Comparison + Comedy = Cultural Translation Humour becomes the bridge between what the traveller sees and what he already understands.Mazatlán
Tourist Season Is Hunting Season
Fishing, vending, hustle, and the local economy of catching whatever the day provides.
The locals were fishing and waiting to catch the big one. Yet most everyone had a hunting licence—eating what they killed and living on the small ones.
The market was relentless: gummy bears, imported goods, counterfeit possibilities, and the constant question beneath every approach—what do you want, what do you need?
These Jesuses were the Derek Jeters of Christianity. They were good at what they did, but they believed in only two things: God and soccer.
The first religion was commerce. The second was soccer.
The Hustle League
From Mazatlán to Ocho Rios
The comparative rankings of black-market charm, shakedown energy, and destination salesmanship.
Still, no one could compare with Bob Marley's beloved Jamaica.
Those Ocho Rios in-your-face shakedown crews were the A-Rods of snake-oil salesmen. They kicked the entire black-market wheeler-dealer atmosphere up a notch.
They were the LeBron James of “What do you want? What do you need?”
Read Fat Elvis in the HouseMazatlán
Entrepreneurial
Sell the small thing often enough and the day works.
Ocho Rios
In Your Face
The sales pitch begins before the traveller has finished arriving.
Traveller
Defensive Line
Keep moving, keep smiling, and protect the wallet.
Immaculate Reception
The Church of Franco
Mazatlán's cathedral triggers a football-theology detour through Pittsburgh, Franco Harris, and one of the most famous plays in NFL history.
Here was the Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción.
I could not help thinking of American football and the United States version: the Church of Franco—or the Catedral de la Inmaculada Recepción.
The statue in Pittsburgh Airport honours Franco Harris, the Burt Reynolds of defensive linemen, with the moustache and male-pattern madness to prove it.
The Immaculate Reception remains one of the most famous plays in American football history.
Watch the Immaculate ReceptionLet It Be
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Another football miracle enters the liturgy: Hail Flutie, Boston College, Miami, and the pass that became memory.
Then there was Hail Flutie, the 1984 college football game between the Boston College Eagles and the University of Miami Hurricanes.
It became one of the most memorable moments in sports.
Watch Hail FlutieFootball Theology
Faith + Timing + Deflection = Miracle In church or football, the impossible usually needs witnesses.Puerto Vallarta
Show Me the Movie
A four-dollar ticket, a mall cinema, and a choice between somebody else's search for everything and Ed's search to go everywhere.
For four U.S. dollars, I could see Eat Pray Love at the Puerto Vallarta mall.
Elizabeth Gilbert's story was a year-long search for everything.
Or I could reread Eat Pray and Reif, a year-long search to go everywhere, written by the Rosa Parks of DILFs, Ed Reif.
Read Eat Pray and Reif