el crispito

Making it worse, it's a radio. A shortwave radio. I listen to shortwave a fair amount, especially when I don't have Internet access for my edification and entertainment. Shortwave isn't anything like FM or AM - you can actually still get decent news, not just inflamatory chat shows and corporate programming. Live human beings introduce the music and foreign correspondents do in-depth analysis of political situations around the world. Plus, there's a kind of magic in pulling in stations from exotic locales in other continents. The sound wafts in and out over the soft roar of static, the radio waves lapping silently against objects in space. There have been so many early morning hours we've spent trying to decipher through a weak signal news of talks between Chávez and Castro, the tofu stockpiles in China and the names of wacky Japanese pop songs with the help of our little receiver. It feels as if we've lost a very close friend. In fact, even though it no longer serves as anything more useful than a clock with no alarm, I don't think we will be able to leave it behind, or more unthinkable yet, throw it in the trash.

Replacing it before we leave will not be easy either. It's a Sunday. None of the places that sell good shortwaves are open on Sunday. I've already looked. We don't have a car here either, but the San Diego Metropolitain Transit System is very decent and can get us to where we need to go easily and within 19 minutes. But that is only if the Sony Style store has our intended replacement.

This will have to be done on Monday morning, and we have to check out of our hotel on Monday morning, take all our bags, cross the border and check in at our hotel, which supposedly has a waterfall in the lobby that gives it "a special touch of freshness."

That won't be the only freshness either. As of then we'll officially have started our fresh Mexican life, at long last. We're leaving so many other things behind, perhaps yet another won't be such a big deal. Yet the morale-preserving effects of a radio that can get in broadcasts from distant places when you're isolated, either physically or culturally, can be great. It's nice to watch Mexican cable, especially when you get to see old movies, but in Guadalajara, it seems the only news broadcast in English is either on Los Angeles network stations or CNN, both being a bit fluffy and pandering for our tastes. Besides, that's what we're trying to leave behind.

Otherwise, there's the International Herald Tribune in print. This is a paper out of France, but owned by the New York Times and allied with (among others) the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung, the no-nonsense newspaper of Germany. So it's decent, but you don't have the funny things you find on shortwave, like documentaries on yodeling or nuns repeating the rosary over and over with new-age music in the background.

That's why it's worth the effort to try to get a replacement. Well, that and the fact that it would be nice to wake up on time if we ever need to.