Stage: Scouting
God's Middle Finger is an addictive journey into the untamed Mexican Sierra Madre. This balls-to-the-wall, too-insane-not-to-be-true adventure reads like fiction but delivers a stark portrait of a region more Wild West more than modern, suburban Dallas.
Grant portrays the Sierra Madres as a lawless place that'd make Wyatt Earp piss his pants and sell his horse. Take Tombstone, crank it to 11, add cocaine and automatic weapons and you have a decent starting place. It's a land where legend and rumor are more valued than truth, where Norteño bands write their brutal "histories."
The drug trade isn't just a career choice here; it's survival. There is no industry in this region. No business. Solamente poverty. The drug trade often offers the only way to make money. "Grow mota or starve." Young people are more interested in wearing hats emblazoned with AK-47s (symbols of outlaw culture,) than preserving their culture.
When read about Mexico’s drug culture it’s tempting to believe we’re better than that with our vape pens and lattes. But turn on the TV and count the pharmaceutical commercials. Are the two really so different?
History has taught these folks not to build for the future. They’ve learned it never comes— a fatalism most embodied by the word "chinga" — which is essentially "to fuck." For them, it’s life as combat. Strong vs weak. Violate or be violated. To put in the words a character Grant meets along his insane journey: "I'm a proud Mexican and I love my country but everything in Mexico eventually turns to shit."
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