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

This message has been edited. Last edited by: daddy,

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

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.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

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!~

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

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.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hatches,

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.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seven,

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.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

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.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: seven,

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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!

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.

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!!!

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.