Wanderlust: Metal Edition :: Mexico City is "muy caliente" (El Chopo)

We have discussed to length before how the rest of the world is still living in 1988 and it's the U.S. alone that thinks metal is dead. I recently spent 2 weeks in Mexico City and, let me tell you, it was an ALL-OUT-METAL-ASSULT! Or, like they'd say over there: TODO-AFUERA-ASALTO-METALERO!

Sometimes, when I fall asleep listening to Slayer, I dream of a place where you can hang out with other metalheads with South of Heaven blasting from a car parked near-by. A place where thousands will gather to show off their backpatches. A place where I can buy an Iron Maiden Eddie rubber mask for $9 and Morbid Angel's complete bootlegged discography for $0.75. Well, my friends, that place exists, and it's called El Chopo. This heaven on earth is basically the awesomest flea market in history. Hundreds of little metal/punk/goth street vendors set up shop on the weekends through about 8 blocks of city streets. They sell EVERYTHING metal, from spikey belts and bracelets to Acid Reign bootleg DVDs; from Pungent Stench T-shirts to King Diamond embroidered patches. My Mexican friend Memo warned of the sheer amazingness of this place, but I was not ready for this level of absolute, dark, metal mayhemic (Metal Sin reference) rock-o-rama! I'm sure right now you are thinking: "No way, 'Krusher, you GOTTA be lyin'!" Nope, I'm not. Proof? I got your proof RIGHT HERE! (I'm grabbing my crotch and pointing to this YouTube video narrated by Pedro, from Napoleon Dynamite... not really.) Ignore the punk, goth and hippie shit:





Oh, yeah, they also have awesome live bands:






So, of course when I was there, I met lots of Luchadores and bought plenty of shit. I asked my new Luchador friends to pose, wearing some of the shirts I bought and here's the gallery of my treasures:

Dr. Wagner Jr. sporting an awesome WehrMacht tee.

Ultimo Dragón wearing Dark Angel


Avismo Negro (R.I.P.) in a gorgeous Venom long sleeve


Mistico (my current fave Luchador) rocks the CF t-shirt right

Please Note: The above are not the ACTUAL luchadores. It's just me wearing their masks in my apartment. Please don't make fun of my circa 1998 hp scanner/printer that I haven't used in over 5 years or of my lady bug kitchen towels, my still-sealed spice rack or my never-been-used red kettle. Shaking off the remains of my ex-wife's influence in my life is tougher than I thought. Well, Abismo Negro died like six months ago and Ultimo Dragón lives in Japan, so it's not like this fashion show would have been impossible anyway.