It will be you, Seven. In another twenty years.
Stan obviously you must meet this person you encountered at the post office. He is a kindred spirit, whether he speaks gobaldy-gook or not. Your mystery versus his.
Perhaps he is one of your relatives, seven who floated down here for the divine spirals. I am curious about the invented languages... I checked at the PO and it turns out he is a high number, recent vintage arrival.
When I first got here in 1986 we had less than 300 folk, now it's over a thousand. Not that Fingernails is the perfect place to squat. But the breeding frenzy drives the herd into the furthest corners now.
Well it's balmy and bright here today. I'm watering the dust in hopes of a blade or two of grass. At night the air is rich with a scent of wood incense and peaches, indefinable freshness of mysterious tiny things pushing forth into life.
When I first got here in 1986 we had less than 300 folk, now it's over a thousand. Not that Fingernails is the perfect place to squat. But the breeding frenzy drives the herd into the furthest corners now.
Well it's balmy and bright here today. I'm watering the dust in hopes of a blade or two of grass. At night the air is rich with a scent of wood incense and peaches, indefinable freshness of mysterious tiny things pushing forth into life.
In twenty years, Lex, I will be dust.
Seen any coyote lately, S'tan? I hear there is an overabundance out there recently.
Seen any coyote lately, S'tan? I hear there is an overabundance out there recently.
All the coyote have moved to Provincetown.
Yes, Bobby, but they all tell me that is because of your resemblance to a tasty rabbit.
Binky, Pearl and Beauregard scare the coyotes away. Esp. Binky he is turning feral and vicious!!! He will do badly in the kennel as I'm travelling...
There isn't a Goodie party. Foxy got pneumonia and the schedule went off... and now Romy had to leave town for family things.
Oh well I'll go see all the doctors and hairdressers and fancy restaurants though not knowing where my next meal would come from...
We manufactured our lives
In this New York. Not knowing when our
Next meal would come we knew it would be in a
Fancy restaurant if we just wore the right clothes
And trusted our wisecracks. And beauty we knew
Was just a matter of the right angle and lighting
There isn't a Goodie party. Foxy got pneumonia and the schedule went off... and now Romy had to leave town for family things.
Oh well I'll go see all the doctors and hairdressers and fancy restaurants though not knowing where my next meal would come from...
We manufactured our lives
In this New York. Not knowing when our
Next meal would come we knew it would be in a
Fancy restaurant if we just wore the right clothes
And trusted our wisecracks. And beauty we knew
Was just a matter of the right angle and lighting
No Goodie party at the garden on 2nd Street?!
Boo. Better to do it sooner rather than later. The hideous building that took five years to build right across the street from the garden is now open for 'Luxury Rentals'. That means any party that is thrown at the garden will run in to noise complaints by people who shouldn't even be living on 2nd Street. Or else they will all be walking across the street to be voyeurs.
Anyway, the old town could use an influx of your energy.
Boo. Better to do it sooner rather than later. The hideous building that took five years to build right across the street from the garden is now open for 'Luxury Rentals'. That means any party that is thrown at the garden will run in to noise complaints by people who shouldn't even be living on 2nd Street. Or else they will all be walking across the street to be voyeurs.
Anyway, the old town could use an influx of your energy.
I am safely now back in FIngernails after gritting my teeth through my entire bloodie stay in the olde shitasse towne.
Did more people move to NYC or what in the last six months. I could barely walk down the sidewalks... completely unacclimated now to being in crowds, and suffering humanity walking on my heels and bellowing at each other over the traffic or into cell-phones...
I had fun for about 3 days shopping, then I started imagining I'd never get out, red alert and the bridges and tunnels shut down like on 9/11/2001.... and what was I thinking, is my house safe and I kept thinking --
WHAT AM I DOING>>> WHY AM I HERE>>>>
WHY BOTHER>>>
Everyone I spoke to is having landlord meltdown stories. Sad but ultimately boring: WHY FALL FOR THE CON? The real estate maket there is DEMONIC.
As in banal and stupid money-grubbing, not the interesting iconoclasm of S'tan Demonic.
I'm having a solar hot water system put in...
Turns out the Federal Gov't has woken up and will subsidize the job at 33% rebate!... The plumber today told me everyone he knows is doing it... with the price of gas and propane going up
up up and no end in sight.
There's nothing like being "off the grid!"
That's another thing about NY ... the hideous interconnectivity of services. Too much out-of-control-reality there for me anymore.
Sorry guys if I missed seeing you.
Now you'll just have to come see me.
The Goodie girls will be out here I think this summer, and we'll have a party then...
with We, Ourselves and Thee online.
Love,
S'tan
Did more people move to NYC or what in the last six months. I could barely walk down the sidewalks... completely unacclimated now to being in crowds, and suffering humanity walking on my heels and bellowing at each other over the traffic or into cell-phones...
I had fun for about 3 days shopping, then I started imagining I'd never get out, red alert and the bridges and tunnels shut down like on 9/11/2001.... and what was I thinking, is my house safe and I kept thinking --
WHAT AM I DOING>>> WHY AM I HERE>>>>
WHY BOTHER>>>
Everyone I spoke to is having landlord meltdown stories. Sad but ultimately boring: WHY FALL FOR THE CON? The real estate maket there is DEMONIC.
As in banal and stupid money-grubbing, not the interesting iconoclasm of S'tan Demonic.
I'm having a solar hot water system put in...
Turns out the Federal Gov't has woken up and will subsidize the job at 33% rebate!... The plumber today told me everyone he knows is doing it... with the price of gas and propane going up
up up and no end in sight.
There's nothing like being "off the grid!"
That's another thing about NY ... the hideous interconnectivity of services. Too much out-of-control-reality there for me anymore.
Sorry guys if I missed seeing you.
Now you'll just have to come see me.
The Goodie girls will be out here I think this summer, and we'll have a party then...
with We, Ourselves and Thee online.
Love,
S'tan
Bravo! You got it right honey. I don't miss all those things about NYC. I love living somewhere else or is that " elsewhere" ?
Or maybe we just grew up and realized that city life is for the kids.
Or maybe we just grew up and realized that city life is for the kids.
Like 7 said, NY can use an influx of my energy. Exactly. Key words being: USE -- MY -- ENERGY.
Of course it can USE USE USE, and what does one get back. The specious pleasure/status of 'making it' in Hell.
NY was always an uphill struggle but there was always MORE fun and moments of success... always new creative interesting people gravitating there. But now I don't even think it's for kids anymore Bobby. Unless they are rich rich rich.
I had/have rich friends and poor friends there. Everyone had landlord issues, but nothing like now. The poor get poorer... I even have a friend who IS a landlord, and she's depressed about it. Faced with raising rents on people, friends she know can't afford it. Facing $1700 a month for a place 9 stops out on the L train. Because of taxes, insurance, bullshit all through the roof.
I can't blame my last landlord for selling that little old cute loft dump on 26th Street for $5 million and moving permanently to
Aspen. He got free and now I realize,
so did I.
xoxoxoxo LOVE!!!!
Of course it can USE USE USE, and what does one get back. The specious pleasure/status of 'making it' in Hell.
NY was always an uphill struggle but there was always MORE fun and moments of success... always new creative interesting people gravitating there. But now I don't even think it's for kids anymore Bobby. Unless they are rich rich rich.
I had/have rich friends and poor friends there. Everyone had landlord issues, but nothing like now. The poor get poorer... I even have a friend who IS a landlord, and she's depressed about it. Faced with raising rents on people, friends she know can't afford it. Facing $1700 a month for a place 9 stops out on the L train. Because of taxes, insurance, bullshit all through the roof.
I can't blame my last landlord for selling that little old cute loft dump on 26th Street for $5 million and moving permanently to
Aspen. He got free and now I realize,
so did I.
xoxoxoxo LOVE!!!!
I wonder what artists living and working in London, a city far more expensive than NYC, would think of this thread. What would Justin Bond say? I've been having the "New York is too expensive to survive as an artist" discussion since 1988. Granted the scale is much bigger now, and the Guiliani years stole things that may never return. Yet I am still here after all this time, striving to carve out my own little niche in the creative landscape. Listening to the sound of crickets in some peaceful country abode is a necessary now-and-then. But as an artist my muse still lies in the towers of this stinky, unnatural concrete Hell. So, for better or for worse, here I stay.
At the center of it all is the love affair one has with Manhattan. Are you still in love or not? Once the romance leaves your heart, the marriage is over. But as you sign the divorce papers remember that it takes two to tango. I guess I'm just not over having Sweeney Todd on Broadway or the latest Martin McDonough play or The Armory opening or the Westminster Dog Show Finals or Antony & the Johnsons at Town Hall or Happy Valley or the World Famous BOB's shaking tits all just a 5-minute cab ride away. Or the ocean a short train ride away in summer. Hell, I still get flutters hearing traffic outside my window and seeing the Empire State Building lit up in the night sky while watching my dog play. Maybe it's fantasy. Maybe it's addiction. Either way I still dig it.
At the center of it all is the love affair one has with Manhattan. Are you still in love or not? Once the romance leaves your heart, the marriage is over. But as you sign the divorce papers remember that it takes two to tango. I guess I'm just not over having Sweeney Todd on Broadway or the latest Martin McDonough play or The Armory opening or the Westminster Dog Show Finals or Antony & the Johnsons at Town Hall or Happy Valley or the World Famous BOB's shaking tits all just a 5-minute cab ride away. Or the ocean a short train ride away in summer. Hell, I still get flutters hearing traffic outside my window and seeing the Empire State Building lit up in the night sky while watching my dog play. Maybe it's fantasy. Maybe it's addiction. Either way I still dig it.
I kept thinking Bobby was writing me but it's you!
I am glad for you and there is no doubt NY is Fun City.
But when circumstances force you out there is something else at work that you see.
Bobby and I both had to go because there were too many factors working against us there.
Living in an apartment all your life can be a drag... I almost left ten times and planned for this so I am done, its imperatives seem immaterial and a relief to ignore.
You also have to ask yourself, how much work do you get done every day on art. How often do you write. I'm just saying think about it and add it up.
Survival is tough, always was, and as you say yes now it is worse. Every day another strata of people can;t make it there. The middle class leaves,which includes most working artists.
But! f you are rich you do not haveto consider survival. Surviving in NY is another kind of life.
When you are a freelancer and suddenly you can't make it -- what are you going to do, have a roommate at 40?
I have been reading Hunter Thompson on the death of culture and he calls them "greedheads." The rule of Moloch started in the 80s and this is the grand denouement, for me anyhow. I came I saw I conquered. Then I got fucked.
Bobby has been 'out' longer than I have. He and I came to NY at exactly the same time. We are the same age and fled under the force of deleterious circumstance. Now we both are out -- it feels great, expansive. Being a consumer of culture in other ways. Reading... For me, it is really something powerful to have Bobby be supportive.
The town just makes me paranoid, the last months there were a nightmare of greedhead landlording... That film, "The War of the Worlds" is an apt metaphor. Something inhuman you can't communicate with that sucks your life blood. For 30 years I could find inexpensive commercial rent. Now you have to buy @ 1/4 Mil.
Yeah, it's an addiction baby and a good one: The Con That Is New York.
I love the past I had there.
I hope you are able to survive there a while longer, not be driven off
by the greedheads, can choose to go (if ever).
love xoxoxox S'tan
I am glad for you and there is no doubt NY is Fun City.
But when circumstances force you out there is something else at work that you see.
Bobby and I both had to go because there were too many factors working against us there.
Living in an apartment all your life can be a drag... I almost left ten times and planned for this so I am done, its imperatives seem immaterial and a relief to ignore.
You also have to ask yourself, how much work do you get done every day on art. How often do you write. I'm just saying think about it and add it up.
Survival is tough, always was, and as you say yes now it is worse. Every day another strata of people can;t make it there. The middle class leaves,which includes most working artists.
But! f you are rich you do not haveto consider survival. Surviving in NY is another kind of life.
When you are a freelancer and suddenly you can't make it -- what are you going to do, have a roommate at 40?
I have been reading Hunter Thompson on the death of culture and he calls them "greedheads." The rule of Moloch started in the 80s and this is the grand denouement, for me anyhow. I came I saw I conquered. Then I got fucked.
Bobby has been 'out' longer than I have. He and I came to NY at exactly the same time. We are the same age and fled under the force of deleterious circumstance. Now we both are out -- it feels great, expansive. Being a consumer of culture in other ways. Reading... For me, it is really something powerful to have Bobby be supportive.
The town just makes me paranoid, the last months there were a nightmare of greedhead landlording... That film, "The War of the Worlds" is an apt metaphor. Something inhuman you can't communicate with that sucks your life blood. For 30 years I could find inexpensive commercial rent. Now you have to buy @ 1/4 Mil.
Yeah, it's an addiction baby and a good one: The Con That Is New York.
I love the past I had there.
I hope you are able to survive there a while longer, not be driven off
by the greedheads, can choose to go (if ever).
love xoxoxox S'tan
My darling S'tan, you know it so well. I agree with eveything you say. When I return there now, it seems like a slow motion dream to me. The New York City that I live in in my memory is better than the real version now. But it thrills me to think about the new young kids that succeed in coming to the city and finding a safe niche to survive in. It means there is hope. I don't want to think that it's over for Manhattan, just that it's tranforming itself into another great period of exciting artistic expression, which may take awhile, with a lot of sand papering until it's smooth and beautiful once again.
But I also think the entire planet is going through the fire too.
As Bowie said " Changes.."
But I also think the entire planet is going through the fire too.
As Bowie said " Changes.."
Working on this new solar installation I am talking to alot of salt-of-the-earth guys, plumbers, propane gas guys, etc. Everyone is talking Apocalypse. No-one can believe the prices being thrown at us... Copper pipes are up 300% for example. All resources are becoming scarce and very expensive. Yes Bobby, the whole planet IS under the fire.... One guy diatribed about bombing Iran, and NO he wasn't for it... It is really something to see these types going liberal... AND solar! They all congratulate me on getting solar electric 16 years ago, though back then they would have been smirking and calling me a nut. The electric company used to come to my house every few months and try to *talk me into* going on the grid. Dumasses, now they are all trying to get up to speed.
Solar water heating is so easy and efficient it is a no-brainer. There is no reason at all to use oil-based products to heat water!
http://www.omega2000group.com/product_info.php?products_id=54
Some people will tell you i" costs $10K to start up, but I've googled and got the figures down to $3K with install. Plus the State now gives you the 30% tax rebate.
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/emnrd/ecmd/SolarTaxCredits/SolarTaxCredits.htm
This is for N.Mex., but I think every state has something like this now.
When working people are paying a week's salary for their monthly gasoline use, they *suddenly* realize something is deeply fucked and wake up " o the real world... We have to stop raping the planet, she can't and won't take it anymore.
The sun on the other hand is Appollonian, detached, generous, inexhaustible.
Solar water heating is so easy and efficient it is a no-brainer. There is no reason at all to use oil-based products to heat water!
http://www.omega2000group.com/product_info.php?products_id=54
Some people will tell you i" costs $10K to start up, but I've googled and got the figures down to $3K with install. Plus the State now gives you the 30% tax rebate.
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/emnrd/ecmd/SolarTaxCredits/SolarTaxCredits.htm
This is for N.Mex., but I think every state has something like this now.
When working people are paying a week's salary for their monthly gasoline use, they *suddenly* realize something is deeply fucked and wake up " o the real world... We have to stop raping the planet, she can't and won't take it anymore.
The sun on the other hand is Appollonian, detached, generous, inexhaustible.
"He Struck and Missed"
Storms lingering over the mesa, all my desert flowers getting a soaking
to wake at dawn unnaturally lush and brilliant... Drive 20 miles south and it's wind-blowing dusty-storming, rain-clouds skitter off to head north and linger over the dammed lake, and suck up bucketfuls to drench my mesa.
When it blows too violently or rains torrentially, my phone is full of static, or dies. I'd had no telephone service for two days.
One and a half miles of line just to service my house, I don't think they bothered to bury it too deep. Just in case a few more folk move up here. Well it took eight years for them to get the phone up here, and it's been another eight and not another soul's shown up... so bury the damned lines already.
For repair I call "Valor Telecom" -- really one of the worse phone companies in the USA.
When Garrett and I accidentally overused the dial-up, and a bill came for $1300., they only reduced it to $700. This was after about twenty screaming cursing phone calls and they still cut off the long distance. Who cared anyhow, because ha ha we discovered Zaptel.com and their 1.9 cent a minute thank you deal...
But Valor's servicemen are totally great pioneer-like dudes, roaming the hills and mesa and arroyos, seeking out the little stranded wires that bring the lonesome freaks back into civil-eye-zation. How many times has Eduardo come up here and found the spot where the road-grader slashed the line - again. Or once dug up a quarter mile of line, looking for the spot a packrat or jackrabbit gnawed.
Today he spent at least 6 hours stomping up and down the mesa and wouldn't take a soda or a beer.
He told me lightning had struck the switching box down at the end, where my line branches off solo from the other folks. He fixed that charred box, but still I'm not getting a tone.
He checks out the box on the side of my house, and calls me out to show me its black charcoaled interior.
"Someone's been barbecuin'," he laughed. I was stunned...
lightning had danced all around the mesa two nights ago, but nary a flash by the house. Or so I dreamed.
Even worse, when we check all the phones in the house, two extensions are working... but the third, my pretty retro wall-phone next to the pink bathtub... there's a faint fan of black charcoal all around it.
I lift it off the wall... the back of the phone is melted and burnt.
I felt like I did the time the enormous Penitente crucifix I'd placed on
the altar in Stephen's church flung itself at me, and I ducked it by a hair.
Once more had the Wrath taken aim at me - and missed.
I could have been luxuriously wallowing in the tub - just about my only luxury lately - a nightly big tubful of spring water from the aquifer - chatting away nonsensically on the deadly phone. Been fried in an instant. Probably blown up the gas hot water heater too.
And the cats astonished. And my friends going,
Oh S'tan, she loves to be alone... doesn't matter if we don't hear from her for three months. Meanwhile the cats would go truly feral and finish up eating me before taking over the mesa.
Storms lingering over the mesa, all my desert flowers getting a soaking
to wake at dawn unnaturally lush and brilliant... Drive 20 miles south and it's wind-blowing dusty-storming, rain-clouds skitter off to head north and linger over the dammed lake, and suck up bucketfuls to drench my mesa.
When it blows too violently or rains torrentially, my phone is full of static, or dies. I'd had no telephone service for two days.
One and a half miles of line just to service my house, I don't think they bothered to bury it too deep. Just in case a few more folk move up here. Well it took eight years for them to get the phone up here, and it's been another eight and not another soul's shown up... so bury the damned lines already.
For repair I call "Valor Telecom" -- really one of the worse phone companies in the USA.
When Garrett and I accidentally overused the dial-up, and a bill came for $1300., they only reduced it to $700. This was after about twenty screaming cursing phone calls and they still cut off the long distance. Who cared anyhow, because ha ha we discovered Zaptel.com and their 1.9 cent a minute thank you deal...
But Valor's servicemen are totally great pioneer-like dudes, roaming the hills and mesa and arroyos, seeking out the little stranded wires that bring the lonesome freaks back into civil-eye-zation. How many times has Eduardo come up here and found the spot where the road-grader slashed the line - again. Or once dug up a quarter mile of line, looking for the spot a packrat or jackrabbit gnawed.
Today he spent at least 6 hours stomping up and down the mesa and wouldn't take a soda or a beer.
He told me lightning had struck the switching box down at the end, where my line branches off solo from the other folks. He fixed that charred box, but still I'm not getting a tone.
He checks out the box on the side of my house, and calls me out to show me its black charcoaled interior.
"Someone's been barbecuin'," he laughed. I was stunned...
lightning had danced all around the mesa two nights ago, but nary a flash by the house. Or so I dreamed.
Even worse, when we check all the phones in the house, two extensions are working... but the third, my pretty retro wall-phone next to the pink bathtub... there's a faint fan of black charcoal all around it.
I lift it off the wall... the back of the phone is melted and burnt.
I felt like I did the time the enormous Penitente crucifix I'd placed on
the altar in Stephen's church flung itself at me, and I ducked it by a hair.
Once more had the Wrath taken aim at me - and missed.
I could have been luxuriously wallowing in the tub - just about my only luxury lately - a nightly big tubful of spring water from the aquifer - chatting away nonsensically on the deadly phone. Been fried in an instant. Probably blown up the gas hot water heater too.
And the cats astonished. And my friends going,
Oh S'tan, she loves to be alone... doesn't matter if we don't hear from her for three months. Meanwhile the cats would go truly feral and finish up eating me before taking over the mesa.
S'tan my darling, it all sounds so amazing and powerful out there. I keep you in my thoughts and rituals to the Goddess. You sound clear and sharp and fully awake I must say. It is my birthday and I am sizzling like hot wire myself. And Neptune has gone retrograde...uh oh!
sending you love and kisses. xoxox B.
sending you love and kisses. xoxox B.
Lightening, I think, is the state flower. When I was there last September I was caught on a 7,000 foot elevation ridge in one of those storms. Spent one hour running down it with lightening exploding the mesquite on either side of me. I was hoping it didn't have a taste for the electrically charged video cam in my pack. Devilland. And I laughed with that just-escaped-death-again exhaustion at the bottom of the ridge. I think that lightening just likes being close to the spark in your heart S'tan.
eeeehhhhwwww cher fantasiste distingue, let's not get hit by lightning.
Sometimes you don't die but sizzle on in a hideous state, paralyzed, etc...
I heard of a woman who got struck out in the desert and crawled out
2 miles and cannot speak a full sentence anymore.
I am sure it's the State Flower for her... grave.
Walter de Maria's "Lightning Field" sculpture--
http://www.lightningfield.org/
$250. to sit in a little room and see the 400 aluminum poles go zip-zap...
Happy Birthday Bobby! Sizzle badizzle and razzle dazzle on!
Being alone on the mesa is fantastique but once you get off, this place is not that great. Many of its denizens are nightmarish. You cannot believe how they drive.
Today I counted TEN ROADKILL
in the half-hour drive to work. Gore every three minutes. Cat, dog, rabbit, raccoon, skunk, rabbit, jackrabbit, cat, dog, dog...
Once I actually saw some charmer SWERVE TO HIT A SQUIRREL.
Apparently they consider it a sport... and unmacho to tie up their pets.
Yesterday one idiot in a F-150 pulls out onto the highway with his dog happily leaping all around... Cars are careening and screeching and trying to avoid the dancing dog...
the guy just drives away and leaves
his pet wagging his tail in the middle of the road.
The other thing N.Mex. dickhead drivers like to do is play chicken.
You're zipping along and up ahead you see someone waiting to pull out onto the highway.
They wait until you get close to them, THEN they start pulling out at fucking
TEN MILES AN HOUR so you have to deaccelerate from 70 to 30.
Look at their faces, they're grinning with sadism as you shriek and curse and honk.
They want you to hit their shabby car so they can sue you for a new one.
My last 18-mile stretch of road before home is nicknamed "Blood Alley"... decorated with roadkill, and those cute flowery crosses
that show where human gore prevailed, and a fanciful cop or two going 90 and ignoring
the other Corona-crazed speeders.
Sometimes you don't die but sizzle on in a hideous state, paralyzed, etc...
I heard of a woman who got struck out in the desert and crawled out
2 miles and cannot speak a full sentence anymore.
I am sure it's the State Flower for her... grave.
Walter de Maria's "Lightning Field" sculpture--
http://www.lightningfield.org/
$250. to sit in a little room and see the 400 aluminum poles go zip-zap...
Happy Birthday Bobby! Sizzle badizzle and razzle dazzle on!
Being alone on the mesa is fantastique but once you get off, this place is not that great. Many of its denizens are nightmarish. You cannot believe how they drive.
Today I counted TEN ROADKILL
in the half-hour drive to work. Gore every three minutes. Cat, dog, rabbit, raccoon, skunk, rabbit, jackrabbit, cat, dog, dog...
Once I actually saw some charmer SWERVE TO HIT A SQUIRREL.
Apparently they consider it a sport... and unmacho to tie up their pets.
Yesterday one idiot in a F-150 pulls out onto the highway with his dog happily leaping all around... Cars are careening and screeching and trying to avoid the dancing dog...
the guy just drives away and leaves
his pet wagging his tail in the middle of the road.
The other thing N.Mex. dickhead drivers like to do is play chicken.
You're zipping along and up ahead you see someone waiting to pull out onto the highway.
They wait until you get close to them, THEN they start pulling out at fucking
TEN MILES AN HOUR so you have to deaccelerate from 70 to 30.
Look at their faces, they're grinning with sadism as you shriek and curse and honk.
They want you to hit their shabby car so they can sue you for a new one.
My last 18-mile stretch of road before home is nicknamed "Blood Alley"... decorated with roadkill, and those cute flowery crosses
that show where human gore prevailed, and a fanciful cop or two going 90 and ignoring
the other Corona-crazed speeders.
Blood Alley has again earned its illustrious name --
at 10 PM last Monday evening a young State Trooper came round a blind bend without his seat-belt on, and flew through the windshield as his black-and-white plowed into a DEAD COW lying on the roadway -- that some thoughtful previous traveller had left behind. Not that you can call anyone from Blood Alley. It's a cell-phone dead zone.
"Though the officer tried to avoid the cow, his State Police car struck it and rolled over several times, ejecting him onto the roadway.
"A northbound Nissan Ultima then struck him, and the driver of that vehicle remained on the scene. He told investigators that within five minutes another northbound vehicle, a Jeep SUV, came on at high speed and struck the officer again, dragging him some distance, and then fled the scene."
The officer had served a tour of duty in Iraq and was still in local active duty reserves in the Marines.
Brought down by errant beef on the hoof and a pair of out-of-control gas-guzzlers.
Adjunct article: "Loose livestock on highways cause 700-900 accidents per year in New Mexico -- primarily mule deer, pronghorn elk, black bear and mountain lion cause fatalities."
This article was embellished with a horrific image of the hind legs of a deer sticking out of
a windshield, at just such an angle you knew it was face to face with a defunct motorist.
Let us not forget however a sometimes greater terror: WHITE PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS...
those small flimsy things fly across the road constantly and stick in the cactus and
trees everywhere... and send me into a swivet when I'm driving late at night.
I had just watched "CRASH" again, twice, on a Cronenberg kick -- when this accident was in the news.
Violent choreography well-visualized, a seat-beltless victim cannonballing through a windshield. We all have this fetishism for the car, speed, traffic accidents...
but can't admit it. The car cannot be given up. No matter how much gas costs, we
have to speed at 70 MPH to go wherever...
"the modification of the human body by technology," seems how cool --
as long as you end up just modified.
Just to consider this 27-year old Dad of two, handsome young Hispanic shot out of
his primo vehicle...tangling with beef, battered twice by crazed gasoline engines...
after surviving the blood-for-oil nightmare. Shot out onto the haunted maelstrom made of the curves of Blood Alley's free American roadway.
The next day there are chalk lines and arrows and encircled shapes on the death-spot...
here's where the cow was, another shape, a leg? a circle for a head...
the asphalt glittering broken glass spectacular in the morning sun.
Already the pathetic cross is up, covered with flowers.
Two days later I'm driving out of town around 5 PM, there's what looks like 100s of cops in full dress blacks standing out on that bloody bend. As I head south I pass dozens more cop cars, all heading for the next-to-the-road memorial service, as it turns out.
So this week the Police Blotter is full of reports of calls made to police on that day that were never answered.
Well what the hell, just another bunch of the same overdoses, same wives beating the same old husbands, crank calls about people smoking pot, and needles in the shrubs at Long John Silver's. And Espanola's "Foremost Drunk" hassling people again at Lowe's SuperSave.
Was anyone going to speed to save their sorry asses
at 10 PM last Monday evening a young State Trooper came round a blind bend without his seat-belt on, and flew through the windshield as his black-and-white plowed into a DEAD COW lying on the roadway -- that some thoughtful previous traveller had left behind. Not that you can call anyone from Blood Alley. It's a cell-phone dead zone.
"Though the officer tried to avoid the cow, his State Police car struck it and rolled over several times, ejecting him onto the roadway.
"A northbound Nissan Ultima then struck him, and the driver of that vehicle remained on the scene. He told investigators that within five minutes another northbound vehicle, a Jeep SUV, came on at high speed and struck the officer again, dragging him some distance, and then fled the scene."
The officer had served a tour of duty in Iraq and was still in local active duty reserves in the Marines.
Brought down by errant beef on the hoof and a pair of out-of-control gas-guzzlers.
Adjunct article: "Loose livestock on highways cause 700-900 accidents per year in New Mexico -- primarily mule deer, pronghorn elk, black bear and mountain lion cause fatalities."
This article was embellished with a horrific image of the hind legs of a deer sticking out of
a windshield, at just such an angle you knew it was face to face with a defunct motorist.
Let us not forget however a sometimes greater terror: WHITE PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS...
those small flimsy things fly across the road constantly and stick in the cactus and
trees everywhere... and send me into a swivet when I'm driving late at night.
I had just watched "CRASH" again, twice, on a Cronenberg kick -- when this accident was in the news.
Violent choreography well-visualized, a seat-beltless victim cannonballing through a windshield. We all have this fetishism for the car, speed, traffic accidents...
but can't admit it. The car cannot be given up. No matter how much gas costs, we
have to speed at 70 MPH to go wherever...
"the modification of the human body by technology," seems how cool --
as long as you end up just modified.
Just to consider this 27-year old Dad of two, handsome young Hispanic shot out of
his primo vehicle...tangling with beef, battered twice by crazed gasoline engines...
after surviving the blood-for-oil nightmare. Shot out onto the haunted maelstrom made of the curves of Blood Alley's free American roadway.
The next day there are chalk lines and arrows and encircled shapes on the death-spot...
here's where the cow was, another shape, a leg? a circle for a head...
the asphalt glittering broken glass spectacular in the morning sun.
Already the pathetic cross is up, covered with flowers.
Two days later I'm driving out of town around 5 PM, there's what looks like 100s of cops in full dress blacks standing out on that bloody bend. As I head south I pass dozens more cop cars, all heading for the next-to-the-road memorial service, as it turns out.
So this week the Police Blotter is full of reports of calls made to police on that day that were never answered.
Well what the hell, just another bunch of the same overdoses, same wives beating the same old husbands, crank calls about people smoking pot, and needles in the shrubs at Long John Silver's. And Espanola's "Foremost Drunk" hassling people again at Lowe's SuperSave.
Was anyone going to speed to save their sorry asses
ah real life, merlin remembers. no fashion news? no gossip about who is dating whom? no art news? just the local police blotter?
you are in the middle of no where.
you are in the middle of no where.
Oops - this is Chi Chi posting, daddy must have been logged on to my laptop....
Hi S'tan-
We are in Ptown - I have to get this far away to catch up on the Motherboards - that's a statement about NY right there!
But I love your dispatches from Fingernails, it was such a beautiful dreamlike place when we visited and your posts bring it back. Remember the Native American Rocky Horror event we were invited to? I've always regretted missing it!
Smooches from Ptown
Hi S'tan-
We are in Ptown - I have to get this far away to catch up on the Motherboards - that's a statement about NY right there!
But I love your dispatches from Fingernails, it was such a beautiful dreamlike place when we visited and your posts bring it back. Remember the Native American Rocky Horror event we were invited to? I've always regretted missing it!
Smooches from Ptown
ah yes, new mexico, after college merlin had the chance to move to Sapello just north of Las Vegas just an hour east of Santa Fe, in the mountains with a mix of green and upper/lower plains where the desert meets the mountains. and was given the chance to stay, and turned it down for the lack of funds and the range wars that were heating up between the local mexicans and the hippies. saw more than one pickup full of locals each caring a rifle driving by the place.
the house was rustic and gorgeous, only one room had wood floors with a big cooking stove in the middle for heat and food. there were small windows in each wall with drippy glass. the other rooms were used for storage as they had dirt floors. there was no electric so we burned kerosene lanterns on the porch in the evenings. the out house was behind this ancient adobe house with walls built up about three feet, so one would have a view of the whole valley while on the throne in the cold with snow comming down sometimes in the winter.
new mexico was extremely poor and i would have had to have gone on welfare to stay and knew very few people and didn't have a lover at the time. so merlin moved on. later when visiting an X in Santa Fe, merlin got to a clearer view of the local poverty and the disjointed wealthy part time imigrants from Texas and the celebrity-hood of California. most of my friends were working three part-time full time jobs just to make ends meet. it is a hard life for the locals and everywhere people would be walking in the heat to get somewhere for lack of transport.
when tourists ignore the local poverty it's a great place to visit. when you see the lack of education that comes with the poverty and see the life styles of the locals its both ancient beautiful and very difficult. the tourists help the economy very much, they also help with the economic rivalry between them for land to live on. there is no feeling that anyone is going hungry, just living very hard lives.
in love,
merlin
the house was rustic and gorgeous, only one room had wood floors with a big cooking stove in the middle for heat and food. there were small windows in each wall with drippy glass. the other rooms were used for storage as they had dirt floors. there was no electric so we burned kerosene lanterns on the porch in the evenings. the out house was behind this ancient adobe house with walls built up about three feet, so one would have a view of the whole valley while on the throne in the cold with snow comming down sometimes in the winter.
new mexico was extremely poor and i would have had to have gone on welfare to stay and knew very few people and didn't have a lover at the time. so merlin moved on. later when visiting an X in Santa Fe, merlin got to a clearer view of the local poverty and the disjointed wealthy part time imigrants from Texas and the celebrity-hood of California. most of my friends were working three part-time full time jobs just to make ends meet. it is a hard life for the locals and everywhere people would be walking in the heat to get somewhere for lack of transport.
when tourists ignore the local poverty it's a great place to visit. when you see the lack of education that comes with the poverty and see the life styles of the locals its both ancient beautiful and very difficult. the tourists help the economy very much, they also help with the economic rivalry between them for land to live on. there is no feeling that anyone is going hungry, just living very hard lives.
in love,
merlin
Hi Chi,oooh wish I could jump in the ocean! It's 98 - 105 here every day...
Merly, I have to disagree about police blotters and nowhere. Though the place is yes still poor as dirt and it was reported recently that Santa Fe was a "Indian Theme Park..." Hardly though it is pathetically overpriced. A friend has been house-sitting a $7M mansion for five years, and not ONE rich asshole has come to look at it to buy.
Anyhow, the NY Post's "Police Blotter" has nothing on the Rio Grande Sun's for depth of content and style.
Some of my recent favorites -- All entries are verbatim:
Wednesday June 7th
8:45 am -- A caller reported a marijuana plant growing on the north side of Espanola Hospital.
5:24 pm -- A Calle Vigil woman said her cousin was fighting with her mother and that her mother was hitting the cousin with a belt.
5:29 pm -- A caller reported Espanola's "Foremost Drunk" was panhandling at Lowe's Super Save. Police went to the scene but this time he wasn't drunk.
7:42 pm -- A Pajarito woman called to say her white Buick Le Grand had been stolen. She did not know the license plate number. She called later with the number but when the police checked it was registered to a man with a different last name.
10:46 pm -- A caller reported people throwing rocks at cars on Riverside Drive from the Walgreen's parking lot.
11:54 PM -- A caller said a man was not letting his girlfriend leave. The girlfriend had hurt her finger and did not know how. The boyfriend was arrested for false imprisonment.
Thursday June 8th
4:49 am -- A caller said people were throwing furniture off the roof of El Paragua Restaurant.
10:46 am -- An Apple Valley woman called to say her neighbors were throwing rocks at her house.
12:36 PM -- A Las Lomas woman called to say a man who goes by the name "Mushy" called and threatened her life.
2:41 pm - A caller reported a man passed out, not breathing with blue lips in front of Big Dawg's restaurant. He was taken to the jail for detox.
[Must have been the Dawg Burger.]
2:52 pm -- A woman was caught shoplifting from Walgreens when she locked herself out of her car.
5:49pm-- A Wal-Mart manager reported some of his cashiers were being harassed by a man who was threatening to come back and shoot them.
6:10 PM -- A caller reported that one of the car hops at Sonic was $100 short.
Friday June 10th
12:00 am -- An officer reported that gang members were planning to intercept the transport of a homicide suspect.
2:01 am -- A caller said a man was walking north on Onate yelling and not making any sense.
10:43 am -- A Calle del Pajarito woman called to say people were harrassing her. She said she didn't know if thy wanted sex or drugs or both. According to police she was inventing the incident and advised her to call Housing if she has further problems. The woman called back later to complain about the responding officer.
12;01 PM -- A man called to say someone stole his cowboy hat. The purported thief was found wearing it behind Lowe's Super Save and was taken to jail for detox.
2:44 PM -- A Chili's manager said a woman was drunk and left without paying her check. Police found the woman in the Wal-Mart parking lot and drove her back to Chili's to pay her tab.
Saturday June 11th
12:50 AM -- A caller said a man and a woman pushing a baby carriage along Riverside Drive were flagging down cars and asking for money.
[This is reported almost every week.]
7:53am -- A Bellas Lane woman called to say an unknown male was calling her to say he was watching her, and loves her, and other strange things.
[It's probably "Mushy" calling.]
5:48 am -- A woman called to say a man driving a red Ford F-150 with a Virgen de Guadalupe on the rear window was driving drunk. Police located the vehicle and arrested the driver for driving under the influence. a passenger as also taken to jail for detox.
8:21 am -- A caller said a fight was being planned for the Kleen World Car Wash parking lot and kids were collecting rocks to throw.
8:20 AM -- A woman called for the second time to report that Mexicans were stalking her. Police were advised that the woman was off her meds and not to answer her phone summons.
7:03 pm -- A caller reported a man passed out in a booth at McDonald's. He was taken to jail for detox.
9:47 pm -- A Rio Vista woman called to say she was in the middle of fighting with her boyfriend and he hadn't checked in with his probation officer for two months.
11:45 pm -- A woman called to say she had taken some pills and she had no idea who or where she was.
Sunday June 12th --
7:55 am - A Calle Loma man said another man was assaulting his grandmother and asking for money. He also said the other man had a marijuana plant growing in his backyard.
9:20 am -- A caller said a man who goes by the name "Scrappy" was tagging the walls of the Lovin Oven Bakery.
12:08 PM -- A woman called to say she woke up to see that someone had egged her house.
12:49 PM -- A man called to say he was in the process of driving to the police station with his ex-girlfriend's father giving chase. The caller said his mother called him to say she was following the ex-girlfriend's father in another car and that she would "take care of it" if the police didn't.
2:50P PM -- A woman called to say her husband was in a room at Super 8 Motel with another woman.
5:52 PM -- A caller reported that her two brothers were "at it again." Police took them to jail for detox.
6:29 PM -- Police retrieved hypodermic needles from the flower bed in front of Long John Silver's.
8:01 PM -- A woman called to say her son was beaten up in the back of Pizza Hut where he works.
10:30 PM -- A caller from the Senior Center said an event was finishing up and they wanted extra patrols to come over in case of a fight.
Merly, I have to disagree about police blotters and nowhere. Though the place is yes still poor as dirt and it was reported recently that Santa Fe was a "Indian Theme Park..." Hardly though it is pathetically overpriced. A friend has been house-sitting a $7M mansion for five years, and not ONE rich asshole has come to look at it to buy.
Anyhow, the NY Post's "Police Blotter" has nothing on the Rio Grande Sun's for depth of content and style.
Some of my recent favorites -- All entries are verbatim:
Wednesday June 7th
8:45 am -- A caller reported a marijuana plant growing on the north side of Espanola Hospital.
5:24 pm -- A Calle Vigil woman said her cousin was fighting with her mother and that her mother was hitting the cousin with a belt.
5:29 pm -- A caller reported Espanola's "Foremost Drunk" was panhandling at Lowe's Super Save. Police went to the scene but this time he wasn't drunk.
7:42 pm -- A Pajarito woman called to say her white Buick Le Grand had been stolen. She did not know the license plate number. She called later with the number but when the police checked it was registered to a man with a different last name.
10:46 pm -- A caller reported people throwing rocks at cars on Riverside Drive from the Walgreen's parking lot.
11:54 PM -- A caller said a man was not letting his girlfriend leave. The girlfriend had hurt her finger and did not know how. The boyfriend was arrested for false imprisonment.
Thursday June 8th
4:49 am -- A caller said people were throwing furniture off the roof of El Paragua Restaurant.
10:46 am -- An Apple Valley woman called to say her neighbors were throwing rocks at her house.
12:36 PM -- A Las Lomas woman called to say a man who goes by the name "Mushy" called and threatened her life.
2:41 pm - A caller reported a man passed out, not breathing with blue lips in front of Big Dawg's restaurant. He was taken to the jail for detox.
[Must have been the Dawg Burger.]
2:52 pm -- A woman was caught shoplifting from Walgreens when she locked herself out of her car.
5:49pm-- A Wal-Mart manager reported some of his cashiers were being harassed by a man who was threatening to come back and shoot them.
6:10 PM -- A caller reported that one of the car hops at Sonic was $100 short.
Friday June 10th
12:00 am -- An officer reported that gang members were planning to intercept the transport of a homicide suspect.
2:01 am -- A caller said a man was walking north on Onate yelling and not making any sense.
10:43 am -- A Calle del Pajarito woman called to say people were harrassing her. She said she didn't know if thy wanted sex or drugs or both. According to police she was inventing the incident and advised her to call Housing if she has further problems. The woman called back later to complain about the responding officer.
12;01 PM -- A man called to say someone stole his cowboy hat. The purported thief was found wearing it behind Lowe's Super Save and was taken to jail for detox.
2:44 PM -- A Chili's manager said a woman was drunk and left without paying her check. Police found the woman in the Wal-Mart parking lot and drove her back to Chili's to pay her tab.
Saturday June 11th
12:50 AM -- A caller said a man and a woman pushing a baby carriage along Riverside Drive were flagging down cars and asking for money.
[This is reported almost every week.]
7:53am -- A Bellas Lane woman called to say an unknown male was calling her to say he was watching her, and loves her, and other strange things.
[It's probably "Mushy" calling.]
5:48 am -- A woman called to say a man driving a red Ford F-150 with a Virgen de Guadalupe on the rear window was driving drunk. Police located the vehicle and arrested the driver for driving under the influence. a passenger as also taken to jail for detox.
8:21 am -- A caller said a fight was being planned for the Kleen World Car Wash parking lot and kids were collecting rocks to throw.
8:20 AM -- A woman called for the second time to report that Mexicans were stalking her. Police were advised that the woman was off her meds and not to answer her phone summons.
7:03 pm -- A caller reported a man passed out in a booth at McDonald's. He was taken to jail for detox.
9:47 pm -- A Rio Vista woman called to say she was in the middle of fighting with her boyfriend and he hadn't checked in with his probation officer for two months.
11:45 pm -- A woman called to say she had taken some pills and she had no idea who or where she was.
Sunday June 12th --
7:55 am - A Calle Loma man said another man was assaulting his grandmother and asking for money. He also said the other man had a marijuana plant growing in his backyard.
9:20 am -- A caller said a man who goes by the name "Scrappy" was tagging the walls of the Lovin Oven Bakery.
12:08 PM -- A woman called to say she woke up to see that someone had egged her house.
12:49 PM -- A man called to say he was in the process of driving to the police station with his ex-girlfriend's father giving chase. The caller said his mother called him to say she was following the ex-girlfriend's father in another car and that she would "take care of it" if the police didn't.
2:50P PM -- A woman called to say her husband was in a room at Super 8 Motel with another woman.
5:52 PM -- A caller reported that her two brothers were "at it again." Police took them to jail for detox.
6:29 PM -- Police retrieved hypodermic needles from the flower bed in front of Long John Silver's.
8:01 PM -- A woman called to say her son was beaten up in the back of Pizza Hut where he works.
10:30 PM -- A caller from the Senior Center said an event was finishing up and they wanted extra patrols to come over in case of a fight.
I guess if you were downwind from town you'd hear a lot of incoherent yammering and be bowled over by the smell of boozy upchuck.
Just like weekends in the East Village except
they have a plentitude of rocks to hurl.
btw that last item excluded the fact that several octogenerians were caught amassing pebbles and were promptly taken to jail for detox.
The not-so-funny-haha thing is -- there is NO JAIL in Espanola.
It was closed down for being a shithole.
Santa Fe won't take the overlfow of cases anymore. Neither will Tierra Amarilla, 60 miles away. So the wastrels are being hauled four hours away to Grants. This leaves fewer cops on the streets for the 8-hour drive, etc. ... the town is overrun with Mexican heroin and every kind of pill... it's in an uproar. I even saw teenage hookers cruising the avenue outside Sonic one memorable 5 AM! Oooooh.
Tomorrow I am going down to see what has become of the Hell Hotel. Disney has taken over Madrid, planted artificial flowers all over the town, invented a diner on someone's porch and in their living room, repainted many houses pretty pastel shades over the divine negligence.... grrrr. Also parked 50 motorcycles in Brown Pauls' gay-rage to the tune of $10K the fucker, and tried to pass out mouse-ears to the stoner denizens, who promptly began to decorate them with obscene slogans and MJ iconography, and wear them to the Mineshaft. (Yes that is the name of the local bar.)
The movie is called "Hog Heaven" about middle aged bikers. Stars John Travolta. The Brown One tells me he swishes and is real gay. yawn.
Later!~
they have a plentitude of rocks to hurl.
btw that last item excluded the fact that several octogenerians were caught amassing pebbles and were promptly taken to jail for detox.
The not-so-funny-haha thing is -- there is NO JAIL in Espanola.
It was closed down for being a shithole.
Santa Fe won't take the overlfow of cases anymore. Neither will Tierra Amarilla, 60 miles away. So the wastrels are being hauled four hours away to Grants. This leaves fewer cops on the streets for the 8-hour drive, etc. ... the town is overrun with Mexican heroin and every kind of pill... it's in an uproar. I even saw teenage hookers cruising the avenue outside Sonic one memorable 5 AM! Oooooh.
Tomorrow I am going down to see what has become of the Hell Hotel. Disney has taken over Madrid, planted artificial flowers all over the town, invented a diner on someone's porch and in their living room, repainted many houses pretty pastel shades over the divine negligence.... grrrr. Also parked 50 motorcycles in Brown Pauls' gay-rage to the tune of $10K the fucker, and tried to pass out mouse-ears to the stoner denizens, who promptly began to decorate them with obscene slogans and MJ iconography, and wear them to the Mineshaft. (Yes that is the name of the local bar.)
The movie is called "Hog Heaven" about middle aged bikers. Stars John Travolta. The Brown One tells me he swishes and is real gay. yawn.
Later!~
Yes I did notice the recurring theme of the hurling of stones. Very biblical out there in the desert, no. I eagerly await the appearance of this trend in NYC.
I was also rivetted by the fact that most of the trouble tends to occur in and around these large national (and even global) chain corporations-- Lowes, Chili's, Pizza Hut, etc. Perhaps concerned citizens should band together and have these places closed as disorderly premises and bad influeneces, the way block associations in Manhattan go for the nightclubs. But then, there may not be any other businesses in Fingernails that haven't been run out of town by these giants that send their huge profits out of the area and benifit no one but the Sam Walls of the world.
As far as the incident at Wal-Mart goes, who of us hasn't threatened to shoot the cashiers there? Laziness and stupidity are required traits for their employees.
I was also rivetted by the fact that most of the trouble tends to occur in and around these large national (and even global) chain corporations-- Lowes, Chili's, Pizza Hut, etc. Perhaps concerned citizens should band together and have these places closed as disorderly premises and bad influeneces, the way block associations in Manhattan go for the nightclubs. But then, there may not be any other businesses in Fingernails that haven't been run out of town by these giants that send their huge profits out of the area and benifit no one but the Sam Walls of the world.
As far as the incident at Wal-Mart goes, who of us hasn't threatened to shoot the cashiers there? Laziness and stupidity are required traits for their employees.
Well yes but S'tan, the boozy upchuck smell of the EV is leavened with, like, patchouli and bad designer brand perfumes.
I like what hatches mentions about the mega-chain outlets being magnets for lawbreakers and contributing to the general social breakdown. Some city official (despite the obligatory Wall Mart and Chilli's payola they must have taken) should really start a protest and re-zoning referendum. I think Fingernails could be a great negative example other communities could use at town council meetings where it is being decided to accept these omnivorous retail developments. Just show the police blotter and some basic statistics about the rate of arrests outside these establishments, the tax-dollar cost for police, the cost to incarcerate and prosecute the offenders. I've always said the Wall Marts and Costcos are the north-of-the-border maquilladoras -endocolonizing the U.S. with lower than low wage-paying businesses to create the ascendant lower-lower class that is being manufactured by the Little Bush regime.
And speaking of the idiocracy, what's happening around town with respect to the shrill rhetoric frying up the illegal immigrant 'flood' the national politicians are so shamedly playing ping pong with now? I was recently in southern Arizona and Nogales Mexico and on the US side there were large scale traffic stops with cop dogs and big guns out up and down the freeway. The cops have actually plopped down trailer house office compounds on the shoulder of the freeway as semi-permanent check points. It felt like wartime.
I like what hatches mentions about the mega-chain outlets being magnets for lawbreakers and contributing to the general social breakdown. Some city official (despite the obligatory Wall Mart and Chilli's payola they must have taken) should really start a protest and re-zoning referendum. I think Fingernails could be a great negative example other communities could use at town council meetings where it is being decided to accept these omnivorous retail developments. Just show the police blotter and some basic statistics about the rate of arrests outside these establishments, the tax-dollar cost for police, the cost to incarcerate and prosecute the offenders. I've always said the Wall Marts and Costcos are the north-of-the-border maquilladoras -endocolonizing the U.S. with lower than low wage-paying businesses to create the ascendant lower-lower class that is being manufactured by the Little Bush regime.
And speaking of the idiocracy, what's happening around town with respect to the shrill rhetoric frying up the illegal immigrant 'flood' the national politicians are so shamedly playing ping pong with now? I was recently in southern Arizona and Nogales Mexico and on the US side there were large scale traffic stops with cop dogs and big guns out up and down the freeway. The cops have actually plopped down trailer house office compounds on the shoulder of the freeway as semi-permanent check points. It felt like wartime.
Correction: The police blotter action is in Espanola, the biggest town near Fingernails. Fingernails is happily 50 miles from there, sparsely populated, with one measly general store.
There are many stores besides chains - for example, the famous "Saints & Sinners" Liquor Store with its flashing pink and blue neon of a devil and an angel. The Lovin Oven Bakery, tagged by Scrappy. Various little restaurants like the Big Dawg and El Paragua for killer chile. Many are run down and wretched looking, still they warm the heart, versus the massive chains.
EVERYONE gravitates to the chains, because they are new and shiny and cheap. That would include the down and outers, drunks and crazies. The parking lots are so huge it's easy to do a drug deal there, while security is tootling around the other side. Not to mention your second cousin, aunt, or brother-in-law is probably working in one of these places, and will pass a rib eye steak or two through the register undetected.
NOBODY cares about trade deficits or Sam Walt or the politics behind these big stores. They are just glad to have cheap food to eat, and new clothes to wear, so what if they are made in China.
Let's face it the dumbell consumer rules this country, and probably the earth.
Post Scriptum --
The immigration issue is a red herring like gay marriage. Torment some 'peripheral' folk, attract the ire of the masses, so they are distracted from considering why the gas prices, why the body counts & how come Someone's listening in on your phone calls and checking your bank accounts.
There are many stores besides chains - for example, the famous "Saints & Sinners" Liquor Store with its flashing pink and blue neon of a devil and an angel. The Lovin Oven Bakery, tagged by Scrappy. Various little restaurants like the Big Dawg and El Paragua for killer chile. Many are run down and wretched looking, still they warm the heart, versus the massive chains.
EVERYONE gravitates to the chains, because they are new and shiny and cheap. That would include the down and outers, drunks and crazies. The parking lots are so huge it's easy to do a drug deal there, while security is tootling around the other side. Not to mention your second cousin, aunt, or brother-in-law is probably working in one of these places, and will pass a rib eye steak or two through the register undetected.
NOBODY cares about trade deficits or Sam Walt or the politics behind these big stores. They are just glad to have cheap food to eat, and new clothes to wear, so what if they are made in China.
Let's face it the dumbell consumer rules this country, and probably the earth.
Post Scriptum --
The immigration issue is a red herring like gay marriage. Torment some 'peripheral' folk, attract the ire of the masses, so they are distracted from considering why the gas prices, why the body counts & how come Someone's listening in on your phone calls and checking your bank accounts.
I think the immigrant thing is something the politicians really want to hide away and the real cause of the problem is based on the large capitalists like the Marriott corp whose owner was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying his business could not exist without the underpaid illegal workers -in effect admitting his corporation, despite all its massive properties, was a marginal business made possible by being illegal. The national politicians ride along on the millions these business owners fork over to finance election campaigns. That is why practically nothing at all has been done about it even after all the huge marches and media attention in the last four or five months. I agree the red herring is the actual illegals themselves but I don't think it is very easy to fault someone if they want to net $50 a week at a Denver hotel as opposed to nothing in Sonora. The real problem is why the US businesses won't find a way to pay a real liveable wage to legal residents to work, and why the politicians could not care at all about it.
It is funny that people are so attracted to a shiney mega chain store. It is a perfect example of what Max Weber called a prestation -a feeling of obligation to an irrational mode of social conduct. As for employee theft, that is actually how I got my first job ever. A friend of mine working at a Sears shoe department was apprehended lifting merchandise, so I knew there was a job opening there. Unfortunately, I quit three days after being hired as the (ex-preacher, ex-marine, ex-cop department manager) boss didn't like the hickey I sported and wanted to fire me despite the intervention of the African American director of personnel who told me flat out, "You are being discriminated against for seeking pleasure."!
-Anyway, I think someone should organize a Gutterfestival in the WalMart parking lot. Just have piles of beer, perscription drugs, trade exhibits by Sonoran heroin cartels and human smugglers wanting to market their products and services, demonstrations of the latest law enforcement techniques by the local constabulary, an 'Adopt a Cactus' outreach program, snake oil salesmen pushing hangover tonics and sunscreen lotions, a Misfit Talent Contest, Miss Teenage Hooker Pageant, Scirhosis Sideshow, and capped off with The Irrelevance of Having Actually Been Born Revival Meeting. You know, a general feel-good, civic boosterism event where everyone gets to practice their highly adapted interpersonal skills and all round self-abnigating talents. Alls you would have to do is just keep away from it, and you'd have a great, peaceful, relaxing day in Fingernails.
It is funny that people are so attracted to a shiney mega chain store. It is a perfect example of what Max Weber called a prestation -a feeling of obligation to an irrational mode of social conduct. As for employee theft, that is actually how I got my first job ever. A friend of mine working at a Sears shoe department was apprehended lifting merchandise, so I knew there was a job opening there. Unfortunately, I quit three days after being hired as the (ex-preacher, ex-marine, ex-cop department manager) boss didn't like the hickey I sported and wanted to fire me despite the intervention of the African American director of personnel who told me flat out, "You are being discriminated against for seeking pleasure."!
-Anyway, I think someone should organize a Gutterfestival in the WalMart parking lot. Just have piles of beer, perscription drugs, trade exhibits by Sonoran heroin cartels and human smugglers wanting to market their products and services, demonstrations of the latest law enforcement techniques by the local constabulary, an 'Adopt a Cactus' outreach program, snake oil salesmen pushing hangover tonics and sunscreen lotions, a Misfit Talent Contest, Miss Teenage Hooker Pageant, Scirhosis Sideshow, and capped off with The Irrelevance of Having Actually Been Born Revival Meeting. You know, a general feel-good, civic boosterism event where everyone gets to practice their highly adapted interpersonal skills and all round self-abnigating talents. Alls you would have to do is just keep away from it, and you'd have a great, peaceful, relaxing day in Fingernails.
As a distorted, inaccurate shadow. And because I am feeling particularly nonlinear here.
This whole dizzied acceleration of reality has of course lowered its standards considerably just by allowing my almost
real recipe for a personality to even
dodge its denial of all objective reality.
But that is what being remote is all about. Disappearance.
This whole dizzied acceleration of reality has of course lowered its standards considerably just by allowing my almost
real recipe for a personality to even
dodge its denial of all objective reality.
But that is what being remote is all about. Disappearance.
The Gutter Festival would totally work in Madrid. There is a dearth of ironic sophistication in other burgs...the Espanolitos would not know what the fuck we were doing -- although the free drug samples would be a big hit with Scrappy and Mushy.
I am going to present your outline to Brown Paul for his next party. This Saturday he is having one, and the whole film crew from Disney is invited. I would love to go, to try to get Val Kilmer to agree to being my slave, but a flying ant bit me on the nose and I look hideous!!! Should I try wearing a veil?
The main drag of town during filming was a deconstructive fantasy. We were walking around and I was going "Nice cactus!" "It's fake." "Are those daisies real?" "Yes." "What a cool biker!" "He's the local speed merchant."
"What about that black biker with the dreads?" "He's French, from LA."
I'm telling you seven Your People definitely dwell in Madrid. I recommend you retire as a Madroid ASAP.
Miz GenGen and Shecky Domination are making another foray out here in August to see if they really want to buy their thousand acres and hide themselves well. Miz GenGen's lungs are expiring in NYC air pollution.
I am going to present your outline to Brown Paul for his next party. This Saturday he is having one, and the whole film crew from Disney is invited. I would love to go, to try to get Val Kilmer to agree to being my slave, but a flying ant bit me on the nose and I look hideous!!! Should I try wearing a veil?
The main drag of town during filming was a deconstructive fantasy. We were walking around and I was going "Nice cactus!" "It's fake." "Are those daisies real?" "Yes." "What a cool biker!" "He's the local speed merchant."
"What about that black biker with the dreads?" "He's French, from LA."
I'm telling you seven Your People definitely dwell in Madrid. I recommend you retire as a Madroid ASAP.
Miz GenGen and Shecky Domination are making another foray out here in August to see if they really want to buy their thousand acres and hide themselves well. Miz GenGen's lungs are expiring in NYC air pollution.
Tell Val I said hi..used to do his hair before he became a big obnoxious star. Plus he is a Christian Scientist.
HEW! Xian Scientist... he gets a free whipping for that.
Farewell Charming Old Dirt Road!
We had a deluge
tonight and Shirley Maclaine's well-groomed 7 miles of well-behaved dirt road be GONE!
I barely made it along the 2 miles I enjoy.
We're back to bedrock, rubble and ruts.
I love it.
I'm listening to the thunder of the rocks tumbling over each other in the rushing arroyos.
Farewell Charming Old Dirt Road!
We had a deluge
tonight and Shirley Maclaine's well-groomed 7 miles of well-behaved dirt road be GONE!
I barely made it along the 2 miles I enjoy.
We're back to bedrock, rubble and ruts.
I love it.
I'm listening to the thunder of the rocks tumbling over each other in the rushing arroyos.
Thunderstorms continue, each day around 2 PM the sky clouds over and the 'New Mexico State Flower -- Lightning' (thank you seven) starts to bloom... sometimes rain falls, sometimes not. Shirleyville's worker ants are every week out on the road shoring it up. It's like I don't even live in the country, what service. The RX7 can maneuver it now, her clearance is about 3 inches!
I've been going to the Ojo Caliente hot springs every week at the end of my work week (Thursday through Monday.) The arsenic baths (Hail Stan!) seem to penetrate you to the core... any ache or pain just melts away. The Iron Pool is nice too, though I prefer the super-hot dip for a shocker. The damage for this total rejuvenation is $12.
Their massage therapists are incredible... one lady, Laurien, is going to teach me Reiki. I think I left my body about ten times during the massage she gave me! I don't even remember her doing my lower half. Where was I and just what was she doing???
I caught a baby rabbit from the Beasts Beauregarde, Binky and Pearl, they must have found a nest because I also found 2 deads ones! Wah. I've got the survivor in a hutch. She is about 3 inches long and likes broccoli.
Sorry about your bad weather guys! I hope you don't have a blackout.
Love
The Solar-Powered Bitch
I've been going to the Ojo Caliente hot springs every week at the end of my work week (Thursday through Monday.) The arsenic baths (Hail Stan!) seem to penetrate you to the core... any ache or pain just melts away. The Iron Pool is nice too, though I prefer the super-hot dip for a shocker. The damage for this total rejuvenation is $12.
Their massage therapists are incredible... one lady, Laurien, is going to teach me Reiki. I think I left my body about ten times during the massage she gave me! I don't even remember her doing my lower half. Where was I and just what was she doing???
I caught a baby rabbit from the Beasts Beauregarde, Binky and Pearl, they must have found a nest because I also found 2 deads ones! Wah. I've got the survivor in a hutch. She is about 3 inches long and likes broccoli.
Sorry about your bad weather guys! I hope you don't have a blackout.
Love
The Solar-Powered Bitch
Ojo "Hot Eye" sounds divine, S'tan, and of course very Victorian-- bathing in those heavy metals...
In fact, I love the desert... and the badlands. I have been to Santa Fe and Taos-- very briefly during the first "brown" explosion, but most of my desert visits have been to the Mojave and part of the Sonora. Perhaps someday I will make it to Fingernails.
I hope your rescue rabbit has a lot of room in her hutch, as they tend to balloon without exercize! And watch out for those back "fingernails" when she gets older-- sharp as knives. They do use 'em to dig their holes, after all. Does she have a name yet?
In fact, I love the desert... and the badlands. I have been to Santa Fe and Taos-- very briefly during the first "brown" explosion, but most of my desert visits have been to the Mojave and part of the Sonora. Perhaps someday I will make it to Fingernails.
I hope your rescue rabbit has a lot of room in her hutch, as they tend to balloon without exercize! And watch out for those back "fingernails" when she gets older-- sharp as knives. They do use 'em to dig their holes, after all. Does she have a name yet?
Ahhh those baths sound fantastic... arsenic! wow! LOL I don't suppose they have a web site or anything am interested ...
I go to a fab place in Jamaica, up in the Blue Mountains.... course the place is called "BATH" (ha ha ha very fuckin original the Jamaicans are)... the waters are supposed to have magical healing properties... i don't know if that is what rejeuvenates me of the many young local muscle boys in their tidy whiteys that work there (who knows why they don't wear swim trunks but somehow always manage to be in their undies).
Reiki i think can be so hit and miss, like psychics. But when u find a good un its shockin... this woman sounds amazing.
I think we need to hire a bus and take a 'Jackie' vacation to Fingernails!
I go to a fab place in Jamaica, up in the Blue Mountains.... course the place is called "BATH" (ha ha ha very fuckin original the Jamaicans are)... the waters are supposed to have magical healing properties... i don't know if that is what rejeuvenates me of the many young local muscle boys in their tidy whiteys that work there (who knows why they don't wear swim trunks but somehow always manage to be in their undies).
Reiki i think can be so hit and miss, like psychics. But when u find a good un its shockin... this woman sounds amazing.
I think we need to hire a bus and take a 'Jackie' vacation to Fingernails!
Wow, arsnic water.
Very you S'tanly!
The Ojo Caliente experience sounds amazing. Does it stink? The Empress and I went to these hot springs in Oregon (or Washington?). They were great but the smell! I guess it was sulpher.
The lightning and clouds must be incredible over your "backyard". The colors!
For the lurkers:
S'tan lives on the edge (obviously) of a huge cliff. Her "backyard" is about 6 inches then it's like a 10 story drop to a BEAUTIFUL canyon.
Very you S'tanly!
The Ojo Caliente experience sounds amazing. Does it stink? The Empress and I went to these hot springs in Oregon (or Washington?). They were great but the smell! I guess it was sulpher.
The lightning and clouds must be incredible over your "backyard". The colors!
For the lurkers:
S'tan lives on the edge (obviously) of a huge cliff. Her "backyard" is about 6 inches then it's like a 10 story drop to a BEAUTIFUL canyon.
Hie,
No none of the waters are smelly ...
http://www.ojocalientespa.com/
There's arsenic, iron, soda, and lithia waters.
You have to go to the Hell Hotel for nice sulphurous stench, and now and then a gush of real black COAL!
Anna here is another incredible place...
Ten Thousand Waves, a Japanese spa that now offers fancy Japanese-styled rooms to stay in overnight:
http://www.tenthousandwaves.com/
One of Garrett's friends works there, and they told me it's very cruisy there at night. There's a hetero communal pool, but I think it gets overtaken by homo after dark. There is also a women's only communal pool... as well as private.
I've just GOT to try the nightingale-poop facial...
http://www.tenthousandwaves.com/SKIN/nightingale_facials.php
Kid you not
If anyone thinks they will be taking a trip out here please let me know! You can stay at the house
at Edge o'Cliff, Fingernails, on the Mesa Marquesa... or any number of fantastic places. Not to mention plenty of acreage for camping.
Thanks for the info about the fat bunnies, Hatches. She's so bitty I'm not worrying yet. I have to grate up her carrots for her.
Binky, Beauregarde and Pearl I think wiped out her family. FERAL CATS!!!
No none of the waters are smelly ...
http://www.ojocalientespa.com/
There's arsenic, iron, soda, and lithia waters.
You have to go to the Hell Hotel for nice sulphurous stench, and now and then a gush of real black COAL!
Anna here is another incredible place...
Ten Thousand Waves, a Japanese spa that now offers fancy Japanese-styled rooms to stay in overnight:
http://www.tenthousandwaves.com/
One of Garrett's friends works there, and they told me it's very cruisy there at night. There's a hetero communal pool, but I think it gets overtaken by homo after dark. There is also a women's only communal pool... as well as private.
I've just GOT to try the nightingale-poop facial...
http://www.tenthousandwaves.com/SKIN/nightingale_facials.php
Kid you not
If anyone thinks they will be taking a trip out here please let me know! You can stay at the house
at Edge o'Cliff, Fingernails, on the Mesa Marquesa... or any number of fantastic places. Not to mention plenty of acreage for camping.
Thanks for the info about the fat bunnies, Hatches. She's so bitty I'm not worrying yet. I have to grate up her carrots for her.
Binky, Beauregarde and Pearl I think wiped out her family. FERAL CATS!!!
quote:If anyone thinks they will be taking a trip out here please let me know!
Hey sounds good.
I might take a month or two off and come stay at your house.
Thanks S'tan!
Oh goodie I've got
about a thousand rocks I need moved from one end of the acreage to the other.
Hurry on out!
Some choice Police Blotter moments this week:
Wed. July 19
2:38 PM: A child dialling 911 from a Wal-mart pay-phone called the dispatcher "stupid." Dispatch received the same call three more times within the hour.
Thursday July 20
8:52 PM: A Los Lomas woman called to say she could hear a young child screaming its head off for her mother not to hit her. When the police arrived on the scene, the family was having a cookout.
Friday July 21
3:01 PM: A woman reported several males dressed as "Goths" were mooning cars from the parking lot of the Espanola Recreation Center.
Sunday July 23
11:35 PM: A Kicks 66 clerk said a woman was screaming and talking to herself and running through the car wash.
Monday July 24
12:26 AM: Caller reported a soaking wet woman walking on Highway 84 [Blood Alley] talking to herself. Police could not locate the woman.
8:03 AM: Walmart Security reported a car parked overnight contained a Smith & Wesson revolver and a shotgun and shells.
10:06 AM: A Saiz Lane man called to say that a stray cat had been caught in a cat trap. When police responded, a white dog went after them.
about a thousand rocks I need moved from one end of the acreage to the other.
Hurry on out!
Some choice Police Blotter moments this week:
Wed. July 19
2:38 PM: A child dialling 911 from a Wal-mart pay-phone called the dispatcher "stupid." Dispatch received the same call three more times within the hour.
Thursday July 20
8:52 PM: A Los Lomas woman called to say she could hear a young child screaming its head off for her mother not to hit her. When the police arrived on the scene, the family was having a cookout.
Friday July 21
3:01 PM: A woman reported several males dressed as "Goths" were mooning cars from the parking lot of the Espanola Recreation Center.
Sunday July 23
11:35 PM: A Kicks 66 clerk said a woman was screaming and talking to herself and running through the car wash.
Monday July 24
12:26 AM: Caller reported a soaking wet woman walking on Highway 84 [Blood Alley] talking to herself. Police could not locate the woman.
8:03 AM: Walmart Security reported a car parked overnight contained a Smith & Wesson revolver and a shotgun and shells.
10:06 AM: A Saiz Lane man called to say that a stray cat had been caught in a cat trap. When police responded, a white dog went after them.