Oaxaca, Mexico: An Expatriate Life

The Writing of Stan Gotlieb

I have lived in Mexico since 1994. Before I came to Oaxaca, I had never had a single thought of becoming a writer. All that changed when, after sending three letters to a personal friend who happened to be the publisher of a monthly newspaper in Minneapolis, I received a check for $75, with a note asking that I keep submitting pieces. Dumbstruck, I stood rooted to the spot outside the Oaxaca post office until I could answer the question "does this mean I'm a writer?".

Since then (I answered "yes"), I have published over 100 "Letters From Mexico", 200 subscription-only "Oaxaca / Mexico Newsletter", and several magazine articles and book contributions. Featured here are chapters from a work in progress, tentatively titled "An Inappropriate Life". Intended as memoire, these slices from my life are meant to amusing, historical, and, for some, disturbing. Enjoy!

• An Introduction, in which I talk about myself and hint at what is to come.

• My Ancestors (part1) tells a little more about my father and his life before I came along.

• Life With Father deals with early influences on my young self.

• Little Boy Lost tells about the first time I ran away from home.

• How Bill Haley Changed My Life. Rock and Roll forever, man...

• The University of Minnesota was a surprisingly liberal place in the mid 50s.

• Live / Die / Drink is about poet John Berryman.

• Race Relations is about dealing with racism in off-campus life in 1957.

• For Example, Bentley is an elegy for a dead friend and a past life.

• >R.I.P. Dave von Ronk is about the blues, from Minneapolis to Oaxaca.

• Me and Bobby D dishes some dirt about a rich, famous person.

• Scoring Dope In Oaxaca, wherein our hero goes to the end of the trail to track down a pot of green.

• A Prince of North Beach introduces the reader to our new landlord.

• Our Pad in North Beach was a home away from home for many people.

• Anti-war organizing gets our interest and our support.

• Where Did Everybody Go? San Francisco in the "summer of love".

• Who Was That Masked Man? Memories of Lenny Bruce.

• Get Thee to a Commune reveals the roots of what would become one of the seminal formations of the "new commune" movement.

• The Old Country: We flee the U.S. for Europe.

• Greece in the Time of the Colonels was a tricky place to be.

• Tonight, Don't Go Everywhere is about being trapped in a potential warzone.

• Welcome to Sunny Greece reveals how cold weather and a cold hearted headmistress put an end to our career teaching English in Thessaloniki.

• Scoring In the Old City is about buying hashish in Jerusalem.

• Sailing, Sailing: Getting from here to there with a piece of hash in your pocket can be a bit of a nail biter...

• Is She or Isn't She?: Tripping around Istanbul in 1968.

• Where is Omar When You Need Him? in which we go tenting across Europe.

• Group Sex details some experiences in alternative living arrangements.

• Which One of You Mutherf***s Stole My Blue Jeans? covers a trip to Oregon from Minnesota, by way of Berkeley. Sex, drugs, political protest and "bad" language...

• CRO Goes to the Movies details my brief career in the cinema.

• I Am What I Eat: Meat is about vegetarianism and drugs down on the Farm.

• Sex on the Edge deals with taboo behavior.

• Power to the People examines the revival of the co-op movement in the 70s.

• What Did You Say Your Name Was? Ramblin' Jack Elliot and a miraculous night in an anarchist vegie restaurant.

• The Co-0p Wars i s about how the "movement" eats its' young.

• Promise them Anything.Some of the Oregon communards end up in Wisconsin.

• Thar She Blows takes place on the St. Lawrence Seaway during whale migration.

• What I Did on my Summer Vacation is about when I went to prison.

• Hush Puppies are Where It's At: Fashion and the pecking order among the incarcerated.

• Marvin Davidov, Presente!: Contemplating lost heroes at the end of life.