Sweary History with James Fell

This post is for paid subscribers Last day in Mexico. My flight leaves at 1:15am and because I am occasionally a smart man who listens to his wife I booked the hotel for today so I can use it until I have to grab a cab later tonight rather than having to check out at noon. First off, I am feeling much better.

This post is for paid subscribers My birthday yesterday in Mexico City was not the fun time I hoped for. Yeah, this story involves poop. And maybe you don’t want to read that. So I’ll leave it for the second half and you can decide to skip that if you like. The National History Museum wasn’t nearly as interesting as the Anthropology Museum.

This post is for paid subscribers Happy birthday to me! Tengo cincuenta y ocho años. That’s 58, and I’m feeling it a bit. I’m a wimp who is used to a softer bed. Despite the amazing food, I think I’m losing weight on this trip. The first day I walked over 23km. Yesterday I walked 12km. I had only two meals yesterday.

Ever since Nixon’s resignation, people love to add “gate” to some form of wrongdoing, legitimate or not, to make it more scandalous. The only time it’s been funny was in the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, when Calvin informed his father of his dropping in the polls, citing “Bedtimegate” and “Homeworkgate” as scandals plaguing Dad’s administration.

This post is for paid subscribers Sometimes, I am a whole lot of not smart. Case in point: Trying to save money on a hotel. It’s not what you think. My hotel is fine. But I should have paid for six nights instead of five.

This post is for paid subscribers Greetings new subscribers and longtime subscribers too. I leave for Mexico City tonight. The only direct flight (because no fucking way I’m doing a layover in the US) leaves at dinner time and lands just after midnight. I haven’t done shit to get ready except that I just put a load of laundry in. Reason being, guzerb.

Today is a dark day in history. Barely a year after the fascists were defeated in World War II in Europe, a future “leader” was defecated into existence in the United States. A hateful, racist, incompetent, orange-tainted blithering blowhard son of a KKK member anal fissure of a fascist. A smegma stain on the Stars and Stripes. And since it would drive him bugshit, let’s make this entry about the myriad accomplishments of the man Trump hates more than anyone else: President Barack Obama.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Mexico. It’s been 32 years since I was there without my wife. Actually, that time she was my fiancée, and I was there for six weeks for school. It’s also been 32 years since I was in Mexico City. Tomorrow, I’m heading back to the capital and flying solo. We don’t really do the separate vacations thing. We travel a fair bit, and always together. I often join her on work trips as well.

This post is for paid subscribers Recently, I bought my wife roses. We love the look and the smell, but lamented how they die so fast. It reminded me of a meme that shows a rose at the top, saying “Roses: The pH of my soil is too high. I am going to die.” Below that is a picture of a dandelion pushing through the sidewalk. The caption says, “Dandelions: FUCK YEAH CONCRETE!” Rhubarb is like dandelions. The patch in the photo is behind my fence, in the back alley. Size 12 Crock for scale.

This was more than three millennia ago, so how, the fuck, do we know that Troy was sacked and burned on June 11, 1184 BCE? Beats the shit out of me, but a thousand years later some math dude named Eratosthenes who pioneered “scientific chronology” said that’s when it happened. Oh, and there was no fucking horse.