Bryan D. Brown

So this Christmas, like last Thanksgiving, was spent in southwestern Utah. This time, my folks and I took a day trip out to Zion National Park, which was pretty incredible. Of course, there also was the requisite trip to the Wal-Mart to see the polygamists, who were out in force this week. Being in Wal-Mart is creepy enough, but when you’re in a Wal-Mart and surrounded by polygamists… well, that tends to be a little much for me.

After Christmas, I ventured out to Santa Cruz to spend some time with Jennifer and her folks. We did some hiking in the Santa Cruz mountains today, and Sunday Jennifer and I will be ringing in the New Year in San Francisco.

Humbly relaxing for the holidays was not in the cards for me this year.

Lastly, some CoolMojo.Net news. Joining Jennifer and I at CoolMojo.Net is one of my oldest and dearest friends, Bennett Furlow - who is a religious studies graduate student, with an emphasis in Islam. I figured that since he’s married, has a (beautiful) baby girl, and is a graduate student that he was falling short in ways to procrastinate. Either that or he hates me for my freedom.

Anyway, Happy New Year to all.

I live in Santa Barbara. Here, the weather is supposed to be 70ºF and sunny. All the time. Everyday. That’s why we pay the rents here that we do. That’s why we live here when the median price of a condo is $575,000 (click that link and scroll down a ways).

So here was today’s forecast:

Yes, that’s 32ºF swing in today’s temperature. Yes, that low is also 33ºF. That’s cold. I don’t care if you’re from Minnesota - just because it is colder in Minnesota, doesn’t mean it is not cold here.

On the bright side (har har), Jennifer and I put up some Christmas lights.

Here’s to double-paned windows on both counts.

While my birthday has come and gone, I almost forgot to mention the gift Jennifer gave me - only the most excellent gift ever. It is a version of the mask - purchased in Oaxaca - worn by Adolfo Tapia Ibarra, also known as La Parka, one of the most famous and greatest luchadores of all time.

One of the things I very much wanted to experience when I was in Oaxaca was lucha libre. Our tour guide to Monte Albán, who proved to be less than ethical on many levels, told me that the only place I could see lucha libre was in Mexico City. This, of course, was false, but we found out too late - from our cab driver the day after lucha libre had just been in Oaxaca. He simply pointed at a sign advertising the event we had missed.

Other fictions our tour guide told us are, but not limited to, the following:

1) Only buy artifacts from his recommended seller because everyone else was “selling fakes”.

2) He will take us to a place where the handmade rugs are “more affordable”.

3) The Zapotecs probably died off due to - I am not making this up - having too much “gay sex”.

That third one was my personal favorite - also a favorite of the older lesbian couple from New Zealand who just happened to be with us on the tour. Nothing like mixing ancient culture with a little homophobia. Not to go off on a tangent, but Oaxaca is one of the more progressive states in Mexico with regards to sexuality - at least, as progressive as a very Catholic country can get.

Back to the La Parka mask. Jennifer knew that I was hoping to see lucha libre, knows my favorite luchadore is La Parka, and was able to find a La Parka mask while she was down there. I am, in fact, wearing said mask in that photo. Unfortunately, no photo could be taken of me jumping off the top rope with a steel chair. Maybe next time.

And here’s La Parka in action, via a tribute video someone posted on YouTube: