Assassination Vacation

En route to León/San Miguel, Bob and I had a good six-and-a-half-hour, mid-day stopover in Dallas. Soooo, Bob had the idea of finding ground transportation into town, grabbing lunch, and maybe checking out the infamous Dealey Plaza. Personally, I had no interest in making a pilgrimage to the site of a bloody assassination by rifle, but Bob considered it a place of intrigue, and I was along for the ride, so what the hell.

We finally ended up renting a car since the daily rate was cheaper than any of the shuttle or taxi services (I always forget how basically damn cheap it is to rent a car). Had lunch at an unmemorable Tex-Mex place where the soup was better than the entree for which I had high hopes (quesadilla frita con flor de calabaza). That's what I get for being attracted by anything on a menu modified by the word "frita/o". Note to waiters: I am a totally easy-to-please (please, please me) customer -- just keep my @#$*&! water glass filled!!!!

We walked around the few blocks of the downtown area and over to Dealey Plaza. That photo in the upper right is the Texas School Book Depository, and maybe you can see that open window pane on the corner of the sixth floor. History made from such a mundane location.

I'm not going to try to wax poetic about JFK, but it was a fairly interesting way to spend an afternoon. As Americans, the newsreel footage of the motorcade is inescapably burned onto our minds' eyes; however, I hadn't any context -- the surrounding streets, buildings, plazas -- into which to put that motorcade, and now I do. Ever so conveniently, the street in front of Dealey Plaza has two white X marks painted on the blacktop to indicate the exact "points of impact". Yeeesh.

As for Dallas? Meh.

Anyone is more than welcome to invite me back for a return visit and to try to show me such a rip-roaring good ol' time that I'll wish I lived there. But for now, based on the info I have, no. The area in the heart of downtown where we ate maybe reminded me a little bit of Denver or even Colorado Springs -- just sort of generic with several "oldish," "warehouse-esque" brick buildings. Brick isn't something you see everywhere, so it can give a distinct feel. Yes it can.

There was just nothin' about the Dallas I saw that made me think, yep, I'd settle down here.

I have to thank GayProf for his recent commentaries on the Lone Star mentality, and especially regarding the Dallas Convention & Vistors' Bureau's marketing overtures toward the gays. And, hey, GayProf, I can attest that it was really pretty difficult to find the "GLBT" section of the CVB website, even when I knew what I was looking for! However, their site is totally entertaining! All marketingspeak, all the time. Check out the "Diverse Dallas" area for some chuckles.

I love this: "The GLBT community is also a large part of Dallas, which boasts the sixth largest gay population in the United States." Hmm, how much "boasting" about that fact is going on? Someone should totally poll Dallasites on the street regarding that one.

It's almost easy to imagine the writing/editing process that went into producing the copy for these promo materials:

Dallas was a once proud, White is a richly diverse American city - over the years it has become a magnet for more and more wetbacks, gooks, heathens and sodomites a melting pot of cultures, religions and lifestyles.

The history of Texas is deeply rooted in the Hispanic culture that was here before we whooped brown ass and pushed the border back to the Rio Grande. Originally called Tejas (jota is for jotos), the Spanish founded the state and today there are over six million Latinos (mostly a bunch of illegal aliens and their descendants) living in Texas.

In 1869, Chinese immigrated to Texas to work on the railroads at slave wages, considering the damn Yankees had just put an end to actual slavery, bringing with them a rich heritage. Dallas now has sixteen different Asian families nationalities living in the area.

Whew. That was fun. This final pic is (I just found out) the Hyatt Regency. I love how shiny and mirrored and clean it looks. All sparkly and sleek. My photo doesn't do it justice, but I really did enjoy its slick, mirrored skin. However, I have omitted the giant phallus that GayProf alluded to; it's part of the same hotel complex.

On the topic of diversity, though, I did notice that a lot of the DFW airport workers seemed to be of Ethiopian (or other Horn-of-African) extraction. I need to do some quick wikipedia research on that diaspora.

In the end, Tejas was a nice place to have lunch, but I was looking fondly forward to Guanaxuato...