I’ve developed a passion over the past couple of decades for nu-jazz, candid photographs of people smiling, RM William Black Boots, Holeproof black hipsters, and the colour of royal purple.

Add to this the Dagwood Bumstead inspired big big ‘man’ sandwich. I discovered a great variation of these some years back when transiting through New Orleans (about four weeks prior to Katrina).

But what really rings my bell (other than Sherlyn Fenn in her heyday and empowered lusty MILFs) are vintage maps. Historical and modern maps. All sorts. Maps that tell a story or illustrate how man arbitrarily draws boundaries and lines and says’ “that bits mine - the other smaller bit - that’s yours…for now’. The geo-political ones are always good as well as those detailing new world explorations. My fav’s are the city-specific maps. I like to see how they have evolved over time (like a really really long Sim-City game for real) across a number of maps.

There are some Disneyland and Disneyworld maps that touch on this but despite many hours’ googling and ebaying I’ve never secured them. I recently visited the Yacht Club at Disneyworld and they had some splendid maps framed and under glass - but sadly not for sale. In fact when I enquired with a number of staff across the various Parks the response across the board was a glazed eyed, ‘Joker’-like smile and a declaration that ‘may all my dreams come true’.

Great! No map and now Sherlyn pouting for me in my room, rolling about and greasing up the couple of million dollars piled up on the bed while seductively toying with a full rack of babyback BBQ Bourbon ribs. Bloody Mouse.

My real soft spot is transportation maps - specifically of the New York subway, the Paris Metro, and the London Tube system. The NY Subway fascinates me with its ghost-town art deco stations hidden deep under ground and its soap opera evolution with various competing for-profit businesses building the different subway lines. Only in America. Public transport, hospitals, education… for mine these are not the best bedfellows with capitalist practices but that’s for another post.

What I find kinda disturbing and yet strangely compelling is a ‘map’ I came across that details the 16 ‘castas’ of people in Mexico drawn up by the Spaniards. So they could easily categorize those that weren’t… well you know.. fair dinkum Spanish.

Fundamentally I find this sort of proactive racial typing so bizarre that it’s kinda hard to imagine people were serious. But of course they were. I guess it’s always been important for man to be able to make sense of his world - it is nice to know that some of us have advanced from this.

The graphic isn’t so flash but the ‘casta’ breakdown is as follows:

1. Mestizo: Spanish father and Indian mother
2. Castizo: Spanish father and Mestizo mother
3. Espomolo: Spanish mother and Castizo father
4. Mulatto: Spanish and black African
5. Moor: Spanish and Mulatto
6. Albino: Spanish father and Moor mother
7. Throwback: Spanish father and Albino mother
8. Wolf: Throwback father and Indian mother
9. Zambiago: Wolf father and Indian mother
10. Cambujo: Zambiago father and Indian mother
11. Alvarazado: Cambujo father and Mulatto mother
12. Borquino: Alvarazado father and Mulatto mother
13. Coyote: Borquino father and Mulatto mother
14. Chamizo: Coyote father and Mulatto mother
15. Coyote-Mestizo: Cahmizo father and Mestizo mother
16. Ahi Tan Estas: Coyote-Mestizo father and Mulatto mother

Talk about making things complicated. now we don’t have to make these lists - we can just sit back and watch CSI with it’s ‘casta’ casting and wait slack-jawed for the inevitable: - a ‘no-shit-sherlock’ profound statements made by David Caruso as he takes off or dramatically puts on his shades to The Who guitar riff blast to a song I can never place. It does however also serve to remind me that the Tea I wanted sometime ago but not so much now has been bleeding in the cup of hot water in the kitchen for way too long. I think I’d like to find or develop a map that can provide a graphical typing service for shades of acceptable and unacceptable Tea. Tea for Me Tea for You.