> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # We’re on a Mexican radio... o-ho-ho - URL: https://www.smdp.com/were-on-a-mexican-radio-o-ho-ho/ - Published: 2002-04-15T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T00:14:25.000Z - Author: Dan Dunn - Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import “Eez a reeel frog, man,” the Mexican shop owner volunteered, as I surveyed the contents of a makeshift display case. On a trip in which I’d encountered more than a few twisted items, the dead, shellacked, conga-playing frog was by far the most peculiar. So I bought it... for $8\. “You should’ve bought the whole band,” said my buddy known as “Bottomfeeder” later at the bar La Cava, one of a handful of squalid watering holes that littered Nogales. He was referring to the saxophone, bass and drum-playing, dead, shellacked frogs that were also for sale. Without a lead singer, though, I figured it was pointless. Tossing back a stiff shot of tequila, I told Bottomfeeder as much. “Freakin’ singers,” he mumbled. Then he swallowed half a glass of mescal. I noted, for the record, that he looked oddly at home here. And he didn’t seem at home many places. But, somewhere in the 15th hour of the drive from Santa Monica, I’d decided the entire road trip would be the stuff of a highly investigative, fully reimbursable freelance gig. So, for the record, let me note that subsequent research revealed that in her compelling tome, “The Complete Frog: A Guide For The Very Young Naturalist,” Elizabeth Lacey wrote “Because frogs are so delicious to so many efficient hunters, it is not surprising to learn that their lives are seldom very long.” Nowhere in the book, however, did she mention the number of frogs whose lives are cut short only to become freak collectibles for people like myself. I guess Elizabeth Lacey never hauled ass down to Nogales. If she had she'd have discovered that mutilated frogs are by no means the only bizarre goods for sale in the dusty Mexican border town. In fact, it’s safe to say that just about everything and everybody in Nogales is for sale, including goodies like bathroom-tiled night tables, authentic Mexican ponchos embroidered with — what else? — authentic NFL logos, wood-carved field mice and the town's best-selling item — pure, uncut vanilla. What I’m ever going to do with a five-gallon drum of vanilla, I have no idea. But I’ve got one simply because I was able to haggle the price down to $20, which is what a trip to Nogales is all about: The exhilaration of haggling for completely worthless goods and services that you’d otherwise never dream of owning. In Nogales, haggling is the quintessential form of social contact and can earn the most diligent shoppers either the utmost respect or utter disdain of the people they deal with. More importantly, haggling affords you the opportunity to say things like “How much for that 7-foot-tall, wood-carved Blessed Mother?” “Seekstee-five dollars?” “I'll give you twenty.” “45.” “25.” “30.” “Hah! I'll take it.” It was as if I’d stolen the perfect Christmas gift for my mother right out from under that shady character's nose. It was later I realized that all I’d come away with was a rather grotesque and inordinately heavy religious bauble that will most certainly spell the end of my mother/son relationship if I ever choose to ship it back home to Philadelphia. And it was no easy task, mind you, negotiating the crowded streets of Nogales saddled with a shellacked, dead conga-playing frog, a five-gallon drum of pure, uncut vanilla, a 7-foot, wood-carved Blessed Mother and Bottomfeeder, who’d thrown back one too many shots of mescal. I enlisted the help of a young Mexican boy so slight that his baseball cap seemed to weigh him down. But he was eager and shamefully poor, so I let him carry the frog, a sympathetic gesture I thought might give me a needed karma boost somewhere down the line. “That's all?” he cried incredulously as I handed him a $5 bill, which, in my estimation, was more than ample payment for carrying a dead frog a mere two blocks. “Gringo tacano!” He dropped the frog, kicked me in the shin and took off with the money, vanishing instantly on the crowded street. Bottomfeeder shrugged, then motioned towards a decrepit old donkey inexplicably covered with black paint splotches. A most unusual photo opportunity to say the least. “You need a picture with the painted burro. It’ll help you capture the true Mexican flavor,” he said. I was already convinced that vanilla was the true Mexican flavor, but running agonizingly low on culturally enhancing options, I gingerly climbed aboard the old burro — Hector was his name, if memory serves — ridiculously attired in a sombrero and multi-colored serape. Sitting atop Hector, posing for a Polaroid, I finally understood why, despite Bottomfeeder’s objections, I’d taken a detour through Nogales. First off, it was par for our journey, which had evolved into one big detour that included stopovers in Tombstone, Oklahoma City and New Orleans (more on those hotspots later). But at that particular moment it felt right because I was a footloose American in a Mexican den of depravity, and I’d come, I’d seen, and I’d haggled, though my efforts to barter the 7-foot-tall, wood-carved Blessed Mother for the Polaroid proved futile. “Four dollars,” the photographer demanded as Hector looked away impassively. “But this statue is worth $65\. I’ll trade you straight up.” “No, senor.” “The vanilla?” “Noooooo, senor.” “How about the frog, then?” I implored. The vendor looked long and hard at my musically attuned amphibian, then shook his head and countered “No lo quiero, sin el cantante.” “What did he say?” I asked Bottomfeeder, who had surprised me with, among other things, his proficiency in Spanish. “He said ‘I don't want it without the singer.’” Freakin’ singers, I thought. “Let's get the hell out of here.” (Dan Dunn, a Santa Monica resident, writes for Warner Bros. online. For more FunHog fun, check out www.thefunhog.com). *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 15, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/041502.pdf?ref=smdp.com)