The day before the Baja 250 technical inspection, San
Felipe had the pulse of an octogenarian on Valium. Nothing
was set up along the Malecón and few people walked
the streets. And then, toward sunset, the cars, trucks
and trailers began streaming into town. The flow was
steady throughout the night and before sunrise this
morning, T-shirt and cap vendors were throwing up their
kiosks and pavilions and backing their product-filled
trailers to the curbs.
At 10 AM the trophy cars, ATVs and motorcycles were
edging along the crowded Malecón bricks, surrounded
by vendors, hailed by whistles and calls, and performing
pride-pauses for photographers and well-wishers. Interestingly,
this year inspectors were magna-fluxing frame joints
of the vehicles, searching for stress cracks. Perhaps
as an extra safety measure.
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What followed the inspection was a sign that the Baja
250 has passed from the hands of more traditional spectators
into the edgy and excitable tenure of generations X
and Y, or as we older folks have come to call these
coordinates -the Axis of Evil.
A band mounted a small stage near the sea wall and
plugged their guitars and keyboard into the amplifiers.
The drummer nimbly maneuvered behind his collection
of cake-sized tambores and reached
for his sticks, which he held like a three fingered
surgeon. At a signal that someone over 30 would surely
have stopped if they knew what would follow, the band
broke out into --something. Not song. Not harmony. Not
the music of the spheres (unless you consider grenades
to be spherical). What came out of the all-too-large
speakers was an unintelligible, cacophonous, jangling
cataract of sonic turbulence. The din dwarfed the roar
of trophy engines and, very likely, the apocalypse,
if it cared to chose that moment to arrive. The young
lead singer howled his lyrics, screamed like a gut-shot
chimpanzee and managed to flatten his libretto more
efficiently than a Riggz Steamroller. A group of loose-mouthed
men with hooded eyes gathered in front of the stage
as the crimson tank tops and track pants of the Tecate
girls began to grind to the music.
This isn't the first year a punk/rock band has rained
their anxieties on the heads of innocent restaurant
patrons. An indigestive afternoon of grating dissonance
seems to be the favored flavor of public entertainment
now. The effusive aggression and ferocity of the vocals
will eventually have their intended effect one day when
someone packing a Beretta goes on a murderous rampage
at one of the local eateries. One can only hope that
a few stray bullets collaterally collects the band members
and sends them to the angels. Where they'll have a very
tough time getting into the choir.
