No matter who you are, or where you live, we are quite sure that our neighbor is much cooler than yours. Richard Speedy lives next to us, with his lovely wife Mara, in the other half of the Chocolate Factory, and he is one cool guy, in that wonderful dusty, windburned Clint Eastwood Man With No Name sort of a way.

Richard lives a double existence, spending half his time at the Chocolate Factory as a professional photographer, and the other half of his time deep in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains, riding in on horseback and staying with his friends there, who include Peyote healers. Richard and Mara have set up a fair trade jewelery business with local women from the Sierras, whose gorgeous designs they sell in the U.S., sending the profits back to the villagers who make the jewelry.

Take a look at Richard’s Mexico photographs—they’re really beautiful. In Richard’s words:

“It was early April. Snow was falling. Large flakes blanketing the rocks unlike any rocks I had ever seen. I could only imagine what lay ahead, but I had a sense that something would happen, that this first visit to the Sierra Madre would not be my last. Falling asleep that night I could feel their calm and ancient presence all around me. The mountains, the barrancas, and something else. Life as old and vital as the mountains. The Tarahumara.

My intent with these photographs is to convey some impression of this spirit choked landscape, and possibly to preserve in time a thing that powerful forces, human, political, and otherwise, conspire even now to alter forever. They may succeed in some measure, but they will never subdue the entities that inhabit every rock, every tree, every shadow of this mysterious and fascinating place. They are legion.”

Here are some of Richard’s photographs:

When Henry and Eric aren’t pressing mints and running the biz, they play in a couple of bands, one of which is called Rackett, a six-man endeavor led by Pulitzer Prize winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon’s astonishingly good lyrics. Rackett played last night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at Pete’s Candy Store, a venue that resembles an old train boxcar, small, narrow and warmly lit. The crowd, filled with literary, bespeckled grad student types, nodded along knowingly to rhymes like “Polenta / Oscar De La Renta”, and “Gucci / Pucci / Balducci”.

Saturday night was the rockin’ second gig of Rich & Royal (Henry and Eric’s band) at the Old Bay, in lovely New Brunswick, New Jersey. About 200 people showed up to hear their favorite neighborhood mintmasters rock out. Highlights included R&R favorites “Lodestone” and “June”, a tight Bowie Suffragette City, and Henry, in a moment of exultation and extreme lucidity, proclaiming, “YEAH!!!! NEW BRUNSWICK!!!! BEST CITY IN JERSEY!! (apologies to Trenton and Newark). A few snapshots, for your viewing pleasure (note the Sigmund Freud action figure in Henry’s pocket)...

Henry Rich, President of Oral Fixation Mints and Eric Lybeck, C.O.O. will have the debut performance of Rich & Royal, their band this Friday, April 22nd. Rich & Royal will play Tent State University , a five day protest in support of educational funding at Rutgers College Ave Campus. R&R will be closing the protest. Performance starts at 11PM. For information and directions contact richandroyal@oralfix.com.