JB has gone South...

Jerry Barnes(JB) and his wife, Shelly, have officially removed themselves from these Essential Climes to roost just North of Puerto Vallarta. I've been trying to get JB, who is a very talented writer, to contribute to my travel website.

Unfortunately, his latest dodge ball move is to hide behind a fictitious bot, while he and his wife wander through their village, aimlessly drifting towards lunch, dinner, margos or whatever.

The guard who protected their construction site is named Don Cleto and though getting on in years is immensely respected, owing mostly to the 3 foot machete that he handles as deftly as a toothpick in the hands of a dentist.

I relay JB’s note only with the deepest and most enduring respect and admiration to the Don, who I might meet, accidentally, at some point in my life.

"DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED MESSAGE

This is an automatic response to your email generated by AutoJibBot. The person or persons to whom you sent your email cannot respond as they are deeply under the spell of paradise and cannot move a muscle save to fix Cuba Libres, Margaritas, or, their latest fave, rum and tonic, which, for lack of a better name, shall be called a Cuba Jibre.

Any and all attempts to rouse the person or persons to whom you sent this email from their idyllic stupor will be summarily answered by a short, stocky Mexican wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a 3-foot long machete, answering to the name of “the Don.” DO NOT LET HIS AGE FOOL YOU. He is armed and very, very dangerous. If you answer the door, the first things you will notice are your ears traveling in a lazy arc over the Don’s head and into the bushes, even though he appears to be completely motionless. Do you have too many arms? Offer him one in a friendly handshake motion and watch the Don’s inventory reduction technique in action.

If and when the aforementioned person or persons ever escapes the gravitational pull of their hammocks and figures out how to turn on the computer and actually write anything, there is the wee slightest chance of receiving some communication in a form other than triple-DOD encrypted code buried up a worm’s ass at the bottom of a bottle of mescal."

So, folks, what should I do?

My best instinct is that I should fly down there dressed like a ninja, jump over their broken-glass capped high stone wall, then leap across the scorpion trench and sit myself under their palapa and ring the bell.

If you like my thoughts, please send your contributions to: Save JB from the Rot, C/O Lance Pugh. Email me for the correct bank, which I change daily. Stay tuned for more riveting events in The Daily Tidings on Mondays and daily at http://essentiallyashland.blogspot.com/.