In early 2001 I got my real first job. It wasn’t a job inside the university any longer, no, it was a real job, with social security, taxes, strict hours (the paid ones, at least), and office politics.

I was a “trainee” at Ericsson and I was in a group of 10 people who took 6 weeks of intense technical training for cell phone radiobases. GSM was about to start in Mexico, so Telcel, the major cell phone company in Mexico, wanted in on the game.

Not gonna lie, a lot of those courses went well over my head and I was more interested in writing than in the vicissitudes of cable wrangling and UNIX coding. Still, a paycheck is a paycheck, and if I wanted to be “an adult”, I had to start behaving like one. Still trying.

I used to fancy this woman who lived in Lindavista, which isn’t as far as you’d imagine from my gaff, but since I had no car, public transport was the option and it wasn’t a good one. I had to take a bus, then a metro, then another bus to meet her at the cinemas she usually chose, near her house. The first film we agreed to watch together was Traffic, and luck had it, it was on the same Friday as I was getting my first paycheck.

Idiot me, I didn’t check before arriving to the cinema and after my car was declined, she paid for the tickets. She said it didn’t matter, but I think it did. I felt so terrible and it turned out we all had our wages docked due to an admin error that stopped around 300 people or so getting paid. All of us newbies.

Traffic is a stone cold classic. Yeah, it had the misfortune of being the forerunner of the “piss yellow” filter for anything in Mexico, perpetuated by Breaking Bad. I forgive it, because no one remembers the cold, clinical blue filter applied to all the USA scenes. The only vibrant parts are San Diego, and hey, that’s how I remember the place.

Two things stood up for me: Benicio Del Toro’s perfect acting (let’s not talking about the accent, though), and Cliff Martinez’s ethereal, longing music. It was a release day purchase for sure.

It’s hard choosing one song, and I’m always torn between La Cagaste and Helicopter. To be honest, the swelling synths on Helicopter and those aerial shots of Mexico city are so perfect, that I gotta give it to this one.

Things didn’t work out with this woman, and although we went out a couple of times more, it just wasn’t meant to be. That’s fine, that’s life. At least I got a chance to pay for the tickets in lieu of an apology for the first date.

-Sam J. Valdés López