September 2010

On the road in Santa Fe

The traffic was fast, heavy, and unforgiving. This place was losing its battle with the automobile; it had the common arterial clog in common with everywhere.

I enter the plaza and realize that the last drop of charm was being wrung from this place. I find some next-generation, trust-fund hippies (whom I love dearly even if they don't recognize me) who were busy rejecting material society. Their politics a fusion of Art Bell, Timothy Leary, and Joseph Stalin, but they smelled better than we had and their pot was stronger.

I wander into some art galleries and am spotted admiring the bronze of a young woman. As I obviously am not going to buy anything, the matron, looking like a well-dressed 2x12, is free to bathe me in acid contempt, which passes through like radioactive buckshot. I casually mention that men have always been the best artists because of models like her. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself - it's like having Tourette's). A man in the gallery gives me a glance that says, "You will never get laid in Santa Fe again."

I stroll into a hip coffee shop, and order a tall black to go. A short person, covered in organic fibers with something growing out the side of a shaved head, fixes me with a suspicious glare that never lets me go during the 20 minutes it takes to make my coffee. I wonder, Did I do something to you? Do we know each other? A gangster struts by. I have plenty of amends to make. Do I owe you one?

I walk out, scorn following me. There was something strange here; an old man saw a dusty Calvary officer with a bottle of whiskey, as I walk by. I push through the crowd in the plaza, Have I been here before? Something has shifted - the adobe is cracking. The town I used to know is avoiding me. I remember an old joke about Santa Fe: My rich friends are richer than your rich friends, but I will sleep with you anyway.

The subtle shades of gray from an Ansel Adams photograph have been replaced with High-Def and Blu Ray. I realize I am in a construct, a mirage. Something designed to lure fresh-faced young Midwesterners off the interstate, steep them in some elite derision, lash them with a little skillful distain, and turn them into permanent card-carrying members of the GOP.

The car was winning; it always wins.

- Legendary

Great Quotes

When Rocky Garber was asked, "What would you do if there was a nuclear war?", Rocky responded, "I'd go elk hunting in the national park, but I wouldn't be the only one."

"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." - Al Capone

"Vote early and vote often." - Al Capone