John Rexer
Website: http://www.ilegalmezcal.comJohn Rexer, the founder and editor of La Cuadra Magazine, expatriated himself from Los Estados about 6 years ago because he couldn't stand seeing his city, New York, lobotomized by the metastasizing sameness of WalMart America and didn't have a pillow large enough to Chief Bromden the place out of it's misery. After knocking around Mexico for a while he landed in Antigua, Guatemala - broke but certain about the decision to stay out of the States. Without much of a backup plan he opened Café No Sé (with a rusty credit card) on a residential street, in this sleepy, third world, Colonial town with the intention of creating the best bar in the known universe. For those of you who've been through Antigua, you know he succeeded. Primary mission accomplished, a few years ago John started "creatively transporting" mezcal from Oaxaca into Guatemala with the intention of creating a multi-national company that would deliver the finest agave spirits to the citizenry of the world. That company, Ilegal Mezcal, is a work in process with the first major shipments being made to American and Europe by the end of 2009. La Cuadra Magazine, an idea hatched years ago in a booze fueled bitch session with current Editor in Chief, Mike Tallon, is actually just the first step in larger plan to develop a publishing company that will create a genius literary movement in this new century in much the same way that Ferlinghetti's City Lights project launched the Beat Movement of the 1950s. Writ short, his aspirations are as big as his liver. Or, as Mike has noted on a number of occasions, John Rexer puts the "messy" back in "Messianic."
Stories by John Rexer:
From The Recesses – The Beckoning
NAKED DINNER
Years ago I was walking the streets of New York City with my youngest sister, when she said “Let’s have fish for dinner.”
I was in my early thirties. She was 15 years my junior and had come in from the suburbs where we both grew up.
“Sounds good,” I said.
I grabbed her hand and we… full story HERE »
From The Recesses – The Death Of The Book
The Birth Of the Book – A Holy Rant
For almost 2000 years, on our half of the planet, when you said you were reading The Book, everybody knew which one you meant. And, it’s one Hell of a Book if ever there was, filled with subtext below subtext below subtext. Just take the first words… full story HERE »
The Surly Bar Owner – No Nukes, Idiot
FukUshima.
Oh, so funny . . .
I’m trying to think of something funny about the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan. Something real ha ha, grab-your-belly, split-a-side-open funny. Because if I don’t think of something funny, I may just have to be carted off in a straight jack.
Hmmmm . . .(that’s me thinking)…. full story HERE »
W.T.F? – Antigua Journal
The Femoral Artery is a main artery in the body that runs from the external iliacartery, near the stomach, all the way down both legs. It carries oxygen, among many other things, to the lower half of the body. If you are male you get a hard-on because of this artery, and/or because you are… full story HERE »
Part-Time, Part III – A Foot Fetish Fandango
The tiny room I lived in, in the large Soho loft, was like something out of Being John Malcovitch. It had been haphazardly pieced together by previous tenants years ago who must have been a family of traveling gnomes with gyroscopic bodies. There were no right angles; in fact there were only very wrong angles.
Nothing… full story HERE »
Terrible But True – Confidence Men
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. And God knows, despite all the religious rubble of our colonial town, Antigua is one giant glass house full of flagrant, lawbreaking reprobates — beautiful, lawbreaking, romantic, deranged and damaged reprobates of which most are good company and even better friends.
So it is with both… full story HERE »
First Person Shooter – Part Time, Part II
Fuck. I needed some money. Three days prior I paid rent with the last of my crumpled bills and was now down to zip. Nada. A few nickels, dimes and pennies in a change jar; that was it. I had already gone through the quarters.
My stomach growled. “Fuck you, stomach,” I said.
I went to the… full story HERE »
Letter From The Editors – March / April 2010
Semana Santa is presently washing over us like a tsunami of purple robes with thousands of floating – then sinking – now sinking, now floating again – cross-bearing effigies. It is a beautiful time of year. Neighbors get together and make gorgeous alfombras, the intricate flowered carpets that take hundreds of man-hours to create and… full story HERE »
First Person Shooter – Part Time, Part One
I’ve had some jobs in my day.
It always happened like this. I needed some money so I found some way to make it. The thought of a career never really was my thing. Being something – a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief just didn’t ring true. The sense of permanence, grown-up-dom, self-importance, and lack… full story HERE »
Letter From the Editor – October / November 2009
Cobbling together La Cuadra has always been like a drunken acrobat doing a high wire act over a blazing fire. There is a good chance things will get messy, but in all likelihood the end result will be oddly entertaining.
We begin the process in hermetically sealed rooms, insulated from the outside world, with the loftiest… full story HERE »
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