I'm back in Philly, which means this blog's time is up. So before I sign off, here's my Top 5 Of The Moment: A Mexico City Special.

I haven’t figured out why, but clowns are more popular here than anywhere else in the world.

In Mexico there are two main types of clowns: the caras blancas (“white faces”) with crisp clean costumes and big red shoes who perform at kids’ birthday parties, and the payasos callejeros (“street clowns”) who travel from the city’s poor suburbs to mime and dance for pesos at busy intersections. Their costumes are shabbier. Many of them paint teardrops on their faces to portray their circumstances.

When I finally walked up to the father and asked if I could take some pictures, he was incredibly cool. A soft-spoken and humble man, Augustin told me he’d worked in a restaurant on Walnut Street in Philadelphia for six months. He says the money was good—he could earn a lot more than he does here—but that he got sick and had to return to Mexico.

Back in Mexico, he works in the fields during the week planting and harvesting corn and carrots. Every Saturday and Sunday he and his three daughters, shy little girls with big smiles, travel an hour or two by bus to come to this corner where they work together to raise money for the oldest daughter’s high school expenses.

When the light turns red again the oldest daughter runs out into the street facing the stopped cars. She jumps up and down, dancing for the oncoming traffic. I’m hungry and I need something to drink, she mimes by rubbing her belly and lifting her thumb to her mouth. If you have money don’t be greedy, she says by tapping her elbows and wagging her finger back and forth.

Before the light turns green again she winds her way between the cars hoping a driver or passenger will drop a few coins into her hand.

Then the family runs back to the median as the cars once again race past. Waiting for the next red light, Augustin straightens his tiniest daughter’s big red wig and hugs her tightly.

Not to be confused with Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus the night of the Last Supper, San Judas Tadeo (St. Jude) is the patron saint of lost causes, hopeless cases and desperate situations. He's also the favorite saint in Tepito, where drug dealers, thieves and even murderers have made him a gangster icon and keep his image on prayer cards inside their wallets and on cloth escapularios around their necks. In the barrio, the good guys and bad guys alike visit the nearby Iglesia de San Hipólito to buy San Judas statues at the kiosk just outside the church doors, or light candles and request favors at the popular shrine erected within.

When I first decided to come to Mexico City I got a tip from Philly party promoter and icon of awesomeness Tommy Up. It went something like this: Have you seen the newspaper American Apparel puts out? It's all about Mexico City. It's so mysterious.

So yesterday I hung out with AA employees and Mexico City Monthly contributors (from left) Julio Pineda, 25, and Mariano Rocha, 24, who filled me in on the movement behind the mystery.

Celeste is the top glossy fashion/art mag in Mexico City. It's a quarterly. They have a slightly more indie sister publication babybabybaby that comes out just twice a year. American Apparel ads can be found on the back covers of both.

One day AA's infamous boss Dov Charney is in Mexico City and is flipping through an issue of babybabybaby when he sees they've run an add showing his ass. He's thrilled. I've gotta open a store here, he says.

Not long later, American Apparel tells Mariano (who works at babybabybaby) they're going to open a store in Mexico City, and Mariano tells his friend Julio. Julio researches the brand—its workplace environment, its favorable policies towards Mexican immigration, its opportunities for employee advancement. He sends in his resume, becomes part of the Mexico City team, and while working 20-hour pizza-and-Red-Bull-fueled days getting the store ready for opening, drops out of university (where he was studying communications at UIC) to commit to American Apparel. He says he had an immediate connection with the store and has been very happy ever since.

“Dov is always calling, always asking what we need," he says. "He trusts a lot in Mexicans and he knows we’re going to do a good job here. And Iris—she's a big head here in Mexico City. She’s really amazing.”

So the Mexico City American Apparel store opens in August 2005; (the only other AA location in the country is in Playa del Carmen near Cancun). Iris Alonzo, a beautiful and idea-filled twentysomething who's Charney's #1 assistant, falls head over heels in love with Mexico City—finding inspiration everywhere and collecting 1968 Olympics memorobilia, vintage porn, and creepy finds from markets all over the city.

Alonzo comes up with the idea to start a free monthly bilingual newspaper in the city. There's no alt-weeklies here, nothing really anything like it. They can produce it out of the Celeste offices and distribute it in every American Apparel store worldwide. Freelancers can write features on interesting markets where you can find crazy/funny items. Hipsters and urban dreamers will be attracted to the cool lifestyle features. Include a "Survival Guide for Güeritos" and a daily/nightly calendar of events so foreign visitors can use it as city guide. Renowned Mexico City porn-ish fashion photog Napoleón Habeica (Celeste, Black Book, i-D, Elle, Wallpaper, Nylon, etc.) can shoot the fashion spreads. And wham! Mexico City Monthly prints its first issue in January 2006 and Julio and Mariano not only contribute short features but happily agree to take charge of all deliveries within Mexico City.

They paper a truck with MCM issues and drop off stacks at universities, bars, restaurants, boutiques, galleries, indie videostores, sex shops, hostels, taquerías and lavanderías—about 200 locations citywide. They grab a dolly and walk through the zócalo distributing issues hand-to-hand. They've just acquired two mountain bikes to which they'll attach baskets so when the December issue rolls out they can begin door-to-door deliveries paper-boy-style.

And delivering newspapers all day isn't a downer?

“[MCM] is something we make and how better you can see the reaction of the people," says Pineda. "For me it's really gratifying because I can see what we are making they love.”

Protesters from across the country flooded the streets of el centro today, on the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, to show their support for the "legitimate" president Lopez Obrador. Meanwhile, president-elect Felipe Calderon awaits his inauguration ceremony December 1.

Lopez Obrador Declares Himself President

The first time I rode the metro in Mexico City a man got on wearing a backpack backwards on his chest. In one hand was a stack of bootleg mixtape CDs he was selling for 10 pesos ($1) apiece. With the other hand he fumbled around inside his bag, hitting the play button to a set of speakers protected within. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the music blasted forth from the backpack hit my ears. It was (very) loud chanting, some kind of goth mix. And weirder still, several buyers immediately pulled out their coins to make the purchase.

I always knew rock was big in Mexico, but I had no idea how many goths sprouted up in this part of the world. It's big—really big—here.

Just stop by El Chopo—a market held every Saturday where goths (and some rockers, see cool kids above) and more goths converge to buy industrial CDs, heavy metal T-shirts, black leather overcoats, cuffs, belts, jackets and more. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Mostly teenagers, mostly just looking at CDs and milling about South Street-style, or gathering in front of the stage in the back, waiting for the rock show to start.

The pictures posted here don't do justice to the numbers, but believe me...there are a LOT of goths in Mexico.

"Donde esta Mistico?" asked a little boy, about 9 years old, seated in the row behind me as he stretched his neck to try to place his favorite hero, the shirtless masked hardbody in glittery white and gold spandex pants. "Oh...Mistico!!!" the question turned into a desperate plea.

Mistico, a favorite good-guy luchador loved especially by the kids, finally got up from where he'd been dumped outside the ring, and turned his attention to his patner Negro, who was currently getting an beating from the bad-guy duo known as Mephistos.

It's Friday night at the Arena Coliseo, and PW's copyking Jeff Barg and I have ringside Lucha Libre seats. Vendors selling ice cream, Coronas, and Cup o' Noodles blend into the commotion of bikini babes, folding chair whacks, pyrotechnics, tight pecs, horns and hollers everywhere.

"Oy!" the little boy behind me gasps, as Negro, wearing just black underpants, receives another smack against his chest.

"Oy!" again, as Negro gets thrown into the ropes.

"O-oooy!", as Negro is bodyslammed to the ground.

But Mistico has finally reentered the ring, ready to unleash his (actually very impressive) acrobatic kicks, twists and tackles, landing on the ground with one of the Mephistos' heads clenched between his thighs.

"Que increible!" the little boy behind me, stunned, whispers to himself, before launching into a refrain he and his friends repeat periodically through the rest of the match, until at last the final bell sounds and Mistico and Negro are declared winners.

"Mephee-sto! Pu-to!"

El Gatito's debut as an official PW art critic coincides with the release of the fourth and final design in Nike's Lucha Libre series, designed by Mexico City's own Da Flow.

Pics from the release party at Shelter ...

The final round.

Viva la Lucha.

Heads up: Da Flow (left) and Shelter's Kriste.

More kicks than karate flicks.

The kitschy bar Malverde in trendy Condesa proudly displays an altar to Mexico's #1 narcosaint, Jesús Malverde. One of the country's most beloved santos populares, Malverde was a legendary turn-of-the-century bandit who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Coming from Sinaloa, the heartland of Mexico's drug trade, Malverde has become the patron saint of drug traffickers. There's even a chapel in Culiacán, Sinaloa devoted to him, where narcotraffickers openly pay their respects and give him thanks when large drug shipments make it safely across the border into the U.S.

Supposedly in Culiacán the young men involved in the trade wear medals and necklaces bearing Malverde's face. And the corrido singers—(corridos are Mexican gangster music that often pays homage to the local drug kingpins)—leave copies of their latest hits at his altar.

More to come on Malverde when I head to Culiacán later this month...

Cholo basically refers to the Mexican gangster-type—the guys in the baggy pants, the bandannas pulled low over their eyebrows, with lots of tattoos, rosary beads and Virgin of Guadalupe imagery.

Cholos, along with skatos (skaters) and punks, are the subject of an awesome exhibit of photos by Federico Gama up at the Alianza Francesa in Polanco. The show, called Top Models Mazahuacholoskatopunk, documents the various youth subcultures that have risen up in the last 5-10 years among the rural indigenous Mexican kids who move to the capital for work and adopt new urban styles and trends that are completely different from the kids that are from here.

Gama's interest is in the hybrid identities the kids create and how their look reflects both their indigenous roots and their modern city life. (The bandannas, for example, are a symbol of their families' campesino roots working in the fields).

But the exhibition isn't just a photo-fashion show. It also marks the first time this marginalized migrant society is presented (photographically) as an interesting and valuable subculture that breathes its own energy into Mexico City.

"Top Models Mazahuacholoskatopunk" is up through December at the Alianza Francesa in Polanco.

Mexico City's assembly passed legislation earlier this week recognizing gay civil unions here in the capital. Gay marraige is still prohibited here and everywhere else in the country, but leading local gay activist Tito Vasconcelos says the new legislation represents "Mexico's entrance into the first world of democracy, along with other countries that recognize this type of union." (In the U.S., gay marriage is permitted only in Massachusetts, while Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions.)

CNN: 'SI' to gay civil union

Tepito, the roughest of rough neighborhoods in Mexico City, holds a certain intrigue for tourists who are regularly warned Do NOT go there! and If you really have to go there you MUST go with someone from Tepito! Tepito is the center of drug trafficking, arms smuggling and every other black market in the city. Even the most street savvy visitors get robbed and kidnapped. The thing is, Tepito is located right in the downtown area, only blocks from the zocalo, and it has an infamous Sunday street market packed with legal and illegal merchandise: porn galore, machine guns, pirated CDs/DVDs, computers, pharmaceuticals, designer knockoffs, stun guns, hand grenades, human bones.

"Do you want to see Tepito?" Kriste asked me, after we'd left our third party of the evening, still not ready to call it a night. We decided to look for the legendary Santa Muerte shrine. His family once owned a building nearby, and it'd been a few years since his last visit.

We drove past corners covered in trash—small dumps with dogs and humans picking through the piles. Dense metal mazes of market stalls were stripped and bare. Drug dealers hovered in front of apartment buildings and cruised around in tinted cars. Zombie-like silhouettes cut across the streets. I turned the flash off my camera.

"Did you look him in the eyes?" Kriste asked, trying to toughen me up as we passed another zombie. "No," I answered. "I was too scared."

We didn't find the Santa Muerte shrine. (Having driven down several streets more than once, we had to leave before we drew attention.) But I did see shrines and altars to dozens of saints and other Catholic idols—homemade temples built of wood and plastic on nearly every block, some as small as phone booths, others as big as garages—all lit up, well kept, and packed with statues, flags, rosaries, flowers and other offerings. In the dark underbelly of Mexico City these boxes of faith mark the spot of infinite prayers and petitions—both good and evil—made and laid at every turn up and down the black streets of Tepito.

Last night was my introduction to La Fresa—the rich preppy kids of Mexico City. They have lots of money, they talk about art, they love to have their photos taken for the society pages, they bathe in chiclets and, oh yeah, they're all white.

I went with my new friend Julia, a freelance art writer living in Mexico City. Once inside the club we had to have our picture taken with the edecanes—the models who greet you at the door of corporate parties. Then we were handed some vodka-based cocktail with lots of salt, lime and chili and ushered into a sea of white-clad party kids listening to Coolio and House of Pain.

The fashion.

The boys.

The girls.

When I told him I'm from Philly, this guy told me he lost his virginity to the blond girl from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I don't watch the show, but it was a nice Philly connection.

Julia ducks out early with her gum-filled gift bag.

Already back in Philly for deadline, PW art director Sara Green lists her favorite things about Mexico City.

Graphic signage.
The graphic but really elaborate signage everywhere. The icons for the subway stops especially—totally gorgeous symbols. Also the step-by-step depictions in every restroom about what do in case of fire and earthquake.

The 90 degree/right-angle aesthetic.
From the Aztec art and architecture to all the modern architecture with flat roofs and boxy buildings.

Hand-painted signs.
Everywhere. Especially the colorful, decorated, brush-painted words (advertisements) that cover the walls along the roads and highway. They're in the same location where, here in Philly, you'd find graffiti pieces but for some reason the graf artists in Mexico keep their work on separate walls.

The fucking clotheslines on every rooftop.

Photos by Sara Green