Lida is an accomplished author and journalist who has lived in Mexico City for the last 15 years. He has written a number of books, which you can read about here on his website.

David Lida. Photo by Federico Gama

The following is a short chapter about a dollar-a-dance hostess known as a fichera in Mexico City.

Paty
The Villa Rica is a low-lit bar with amber lighting, wood-paneled walls and a jukebox that doesn’t have a single song recorded after 1980. It is an example of what are known as antros de ficheras, and I have never seen them outside of Mexico City.

A fichera is a woman who, despite what is usually a boiler-shaped body, dresses in a short skirt and a snug blouse, and sells her company to a male clientele. Most of a fichera’s clients are after nothing more than her sympathetic presence: a woman he can flirt with who will not rebuff his advances; a woman to whom he can recount the various misadventures and misunderstandings of his life; a woman with whom he can dance to the familiar ballads on the jukebox. Ficheras earn no salary, but are given tips as well as a percentage of the price of the drinks the customers order for them; hence, most have cast-iron constitutions and, as they say in Mexico City, toman como cosacos (drink like Cossacks).

Some ficheras are game for further adventures; if the customer pays an exit fee to the management, she will accompany him to a nearby hotel. Still, most customers prefer companionship; ficheras are closer to geishas than to prostitutes.

Many men like to visit ficheras when they are feeling low. Mexican males, the weight of machismo on their shoulders, are emotionally diffident and cannot express their feelings to the people with whom they are supposedly intimate; a fichera is a convenient receptacle for their sorrows and shames. There is a particular fichera at the Villa Rica named Paty that I like to visit, but not to recount my anguish. Like Sheherazade, Paty has a thousand and one stories, and listening to her invariably makes whatever troubles I may have recede in the rearview mirror.

Paty wears enormous eyelashes and thick makeup, changes her hair color on a regular basis, and flaunts her enormous breasts with low-cut blouses. About five feet tall, she tends to sport nine-inch heels. Her smile is wide, perpetual and, as far as I can tell, genuine. She has been working at the Villa Rica since 1985, her anno horribilus, when not only did the earthquake leave her and her family homeless, but her husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (a disease she refers to as “European”). Her salary as a waitress in the coffee shop at Sanborn’s wasn’t enough to sustain them and her two children, so she began her career as a fichera.

One of Paty’s regular clients is an ancient Spaniard who owns the Hotel Toledo down the street where the ficheras take their customers. He only likes to watch – Paty assures me hasn’t had an erection in the 20 years she has known him – so he takes her to swingers’ clubs, where men are not allowed to enter unaccompanied by women.

“But he makes me take off my clothes, and in those places if you’re naked, you have to let anyone do what they want. You can’t say no. Even when you have your clothes on, they still get handsy with you – with their fingers and everything.” She made a face like she had sipped spoiled milk. “Having sex is better because at least they’ve got a condom on. That guy’s fingers …” She uses the Mexican’s universal expletive for disgust: “Guácala. I couldn’t sleep that night.”
Another man, who always dressed in a suit and tie, would take her to a four-star hotel. Before entering, he would buy a bunch of roses on the corner. He would ask Paty to strip and eat the rose petals. “And that was that. He never got naked; he always kept his boxers on. He’d let me have whatever I wanted from the minibar and would pay me more than three times the going rate.”

After losing the 2006 presidential elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who had resigned his post as mayor of Mexico City to launch his campaign) arranged mass demonstrations on Avenida Juárez and Paseo de la Reforma, the two biggest streets near the Villa Rica. Getting around that part of the city became close to impossible, and nearly all the bar’s customers disappeared. Paty, who usually earns about $45 a night, was coming home with less than ten. “The other night a guy came and bought me 40 tequilas,” she said one night while the protests were in full swing. Not knowing when the next time a big spender would arrive, she drank them all. “After all that, I vomited through my nose, but at least I made some money.”

Paty didn’t blame López Obrador for her hard luck. “It’s God’s will,” she said. “In the Bible you’ve got the years of the fat cows and the years of the skinny cows. Right now it’s skinny time. God squeezes us but he doesn’t strangle us.” She put her hand on my thigh. “You want to go to the Señorial steam baths? They remodeled them. You don’t know how beautiful they came out. We can go to a private room. They have cable TV with a porno channel.”

An exhibition honoring lucha libre legend El Santo opened in Mexico City late last month, marking the 25th anniversary of the fighter-turned-film-star’s death.

El Santo’s first famous silver mask, which he made himself out of pigskin, is one of the many precious items on display in the small show hosted by the art gallery in the Universidad Iberoamericana in Lomas de Santa Fe.

His silver leather boots, old comics starring the fighter, and some of the cloaks he wore in the ring can also be seen encased in glass in the exhibition.

El Santo, also known as the Silver Mask, was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, born in Tulancingo in the state of Hidalgo on Sept. 23, 1917. He began fighting in the lucha libre when he was 18 years old. Before the debut of El Santo in 1942 in the Arena de Mexico — lucha libre’s temple in Mexico City — Guzman fought using a number of other names including Hombre Rojo (Red Man) and Murcielago (the Bat).

But the creation of El Santo was when Guzman really came into the spotlight, and his wrestling performances caught the attention of film-makers, who made the fighter the star of at least 50 motion pictures.

The exhibition is small but perfectly formed. However, its location is puzzling. What is a show about one of Mexico’s most famous and universally-loved personalities doing in a basement art gallery that is tucked away in one of the country’s most exclusive and expensive private universities?

Lucha libre is famous for being the sport of the people, beloved by el pueblo mexicano, and “las luchas,” as they’re affectionately called here, continue to be an affordable and frequent family outing for Mexicans throughout the country.

Not only will few people be aware of this new show dedicated to El Santo because of where it is, but it’s also not easy to get to. The Iberoamericana campus is about an hour’s drive from downtown Mexico City, and the campus is heavily-guarded.

The show was inaugurated last month by El Hijo del Santo, who is Jorge Guzman and El Santo’s son. He is a professional and popular lucha libre fighter himself now, and was the only one of the legendary luchador’s 11 children to follow in his footsteps. The younger Guzman studied communications at the Iberoamericana University, according to the biography on his official site, before stepping into the ring as a pro, which might explain why the show is there.

But, strolling around the near-deserted exhibit on a weekday afternoon, I couldn’t help but feel that the quality of the homage will go largely unappreciated by many of El Santo’s fans because of its nearly hidden location.

- Written for la Plaza

Image: A sculpture of El Santo’s silver mask in the form of a punching bag welcomes visitors to the exhibition in honor of the legendary luchador at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times. See more Lucha Libre related photos here on Flickr.

El Santo, the legendary lucha libre fighter and movie star, was remembered fondly in Mexico yesterday, 25 years after his death.

A mass was held in his honor in the Metropolitan Cathedral Thursday afternoon, followed by the presentation of a new book about his career by his son — El Hijo del Santo (The Son of Santo), also a lucha libre fighter.

The son, Jorge Guzman, placed a wreath of flowers at a monument to El Santo in downtown Mexico City and told the crowd that El Santo was a man with a lot of magic who threatened to overshadow his own career but that “fortunately, I have won the love and respect of the public myself.”

El Santo, also known as “the Silver Mask,” was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta and acted in more than 50 films during his career. You can read a Spanish-language article on the life of the Mexican superstar here. Watch the video for a taste of his film career.

This post was written for La Plaza.

It’s a regular Tuesday night at the Lucha Libre in downtown Mexico City’s Arena Coliseo

For those of my readers in London, this is for you.

If you’ve enjoyed the coverage you’ve seen here on the Lucha Libre over the last year, now’s your chance to see the real thing in the flesh because the Lucha Libre is coming to London this weekend, and this weekend only!

Lucha Libre London presents sixteen of the best of the best of Mexico’s luchadores including El Hijo del Santo (the greatest living luchador and son of the all time great El Santo), Blue Demon Jnr (the man in the blue mask), Ramses (fighting star of Jack Black’s Nacho Libre) in a full-on struggle for the soul of Mexico.

It might be too late to buy tickets, but if you can get hold of them I can’t recommend the gig enough and would be curious to here from anyone who goes how the fights go down with the audience.

Check out the details here on the Roundhouse web site.

For all things Lucha Libre on MexicoReporter.com, click here and see my Lucha Libre photo gallery here on Flickr.

]]> http://www.mexicoreporter.com/2007/10/11/arena-de-mexico-mascara-seller-makes-nearly-1000-dollars-on-a-good-night/feed/ 27 http://www.mexicoreporter.com/2007/09/17/a-lesson-in-lucha-libre/ http://www.mexicoreporter.com/2007/09/17/a-lesson-in-lucha-libre/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:06:11 +0000 MexicoReporter http://mexicoreporter.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/a-lesson-in-lucha-libre/

MexicoReporter.com pays a visit to a Lucha Libre school in Mexico city, where the next generation of fighters are learning the art of the Lucha

Mexican Youngsters Wrestle with Fame

This is Ringo Mendoza, the Lucha Libre fighter and Maestro interviewed by NewCorrespondent.com some weeks ago. The photo is courtesy of Luz Montero.

See here for the interview.

First it was Leono (the Lion), Metalico and Tigre Blanco (the White Tiger) up against Loco Max (Crazy Max), ArkAngel and Doctor X. Then Blue Panther, Heavy Metal and El Sagrado (the Scared) had it out with Hijo de Lizmark (son of Lizmark), Averno and Mephisto. All insults form the crowd involved a combination of the fighters’ mothers and female prostitutes and the array of ostentatious Lycra outfits was jaw-dropping.It’s a regular Tuesday night at the Lucha Libre in downtown Mexico City’s Arena Coliseo, where for the price of an expensive pint of beer in London you can watch the country’s favourite Lucha Trios fight it out, Mexico-style.

As I prepare my equipment next to me, a man straps the mask of Metalico, his favourite fighter, to the head of his two year old daughter. He then jumps up out of his seat and holds her aloft towards the fighters preparing to do battle in the ring. She, in turn, extends her middle finger on his command and raises her arm. Priceless.