Friday, April 10, 2009

A very good good friday.

Today is good Friday and I found my self in Pilsen with a few thousand Mexicans. We were all marching down the street with a few hundred Romans. With us was Jesus Christ himself, carrying a gigantic cross. Whenever he stopped to catch a breath, a few broom heads would nail him on the back with a gigantic whip. It was pretty surreal.

Here is Jesus passing a local McDonald's. I can only imagine everyone inside looking in awe, mouth open as McFlurries ooze onto their laps.

You know what's weird? Part of me wants to say "I thought I'd never see the day" but deep down inside, it seems pretty normal. 

There was some dude there who was trying to steal Jesus' thunder. He too was carrying a humongous, home made cross. What an attention-schlob!


After we made rounds past the local fast food joints I started to wonder "are these people really going to go all the way?" 

My question was answered when the march ended in the middle of a local baseball field. There was a small hill. A few minutes of awkwardness went by as the crowd sat knowing what was about to happen but didn't feel comfortable telling the savior.


I wish that I had a real camera or that my cellphone was also a Hasselblad because this picture really doesn't do the scene justice. One of the martyrs was covered in gang tattoos. Honestly. An image I will never, ever forget.

They day sort of ended on a bummer as Jesus was carried away in a makeshift coffin.


Also, the people I was with didn't want to go back to the Loop to get lunch. That means I had to eat Mexican food. You know what means?

It means after writing this post I'm going to go back to where I was before I started writing this post. The bathroom.

4 comments:

Si Allen said...

You know what we gotta do next year...

Si Allen said...

...Tell Jesus that he's about to be iced- then rally up a few people to rebel for the heathen prophet (out of the ten thousand latinos attending, someone...MAYBE two people would agree with us.)

Tony Rizzo said...

kevin, it's tony. i like your comment about the tattoo guy. and 2nd cross dude: such a casual, bound-to-fail attempt at stealing the show. LOL. but he got on my camera too so, maybe it worked for him. i'd never seen anything like this either, sort of shocking and admirable to see a parade of this type happen so hugely in a community that iSN'T wrigleyville or state street etc.

Carlos Galarza said...

its actually quite a common practice amongst extremely religious spanish people. Such a Kevin thing to be there at this parade.