Some days start better than others

This happened yesterday.

At six o’clock in the morning my ninety-seven year old mother-in-law fell down on the way to her bathroom.  We jumped out of bed, got her up, to her bathroom, and back in her bed.  It took about twenty minutes.

At seven o’clock we noticed a frozen, broken pipe in our backyard.  It had flooded ours, and part of our neighbors yard and was still going strong.  It took me twenty minutes to get dressed, get out, pry the frozen water control cover open and turn the water off.

At eight o’clock I cracked two eggs onto a plate, nuked them, brought them to the table and they exploded.  There were tiny bits of egg on the ceiling, on me, on my wife, in her oatmeal, on the cabinets, windows, walls and floor.  It took us twenty minutes to clean it up.

At nine o’clock I looked out the window, and my car had a flat tire.

It’ll only take about twenty minutes to fix but I’m waiting until Monday.

The English have a way with English

Churchill would have put a nice spin on all the financial deceptions, miss-deeds, outright lies and criminal fraud we’ve just experienced.

He would have said something like; never have so few sucked so much out of so many.

Yeah, I know, that was too easy.

A few of the many

Isn’t it sad that when our politicians claim they’re listening to their constituents they only mean the ones who voted for them?

The idea that once they’re elected they actually represent all of the people in their district has somehow gotten lost.

Wouldn’t it be nice if at least a few politicians actually worked for the good of all?

It would take real courage to vote for something that might nick the few but help the many.

But, here’s why they don’t:

The many, who don’t vote as often, if at all, are usurped by the few, who not only vote, often, but also contribute, more, much more, to the few, who could help the many the most, but help the few the most, while trying to make it look as though the many are the recipients of what is actually more for the benefit of the few.

Most of the few know that a few of the many will know.  But many of the many will never really know that it’s most of the few who have pulled much of the wool over their eyes.  And almost all of the few will vote.  And a few of the many will vote, but it will be too few.

In any case, even the few politicians actually willing to represent the many as well as the few, are few and far between.

But many of you in the many can’t blame the few because so many of you in the many don’t vote, and most of the few usually do.

Is that clear?

That wasn’t very Churchill-esk.

Get out the buckets and sponges

You patient people don’t understand we impatient people.  You don’t get it.  And we impatient people don’t have the time or the patience to explain just how awful and agonizing it is, to be us.

Actual physical pain is involved.  Neck tightening, muscle twitching, teeth clenching, gut wrenching, eye stabbing, especially behind the left eye, nerve clawing pains that cause twisting, trembling, mind numbing, jump out of our skin, be anywhere but where we are, agony.

You patient people don’t get that our minds and bodies feel like they’re in outer space being sucked apart by the lack of gravity.  We try to keep it together but in the end, we know, for certain, we’re going to explode, outward, in equal, evenly spaced molecules, that will splatter our minds and bodies over every square inch of whatever room we’re in, and the cleanup is going to be horrendous.  Really, you don’t get it.

And yes, we know you do it better.  Big deal.

Ants have nothing on us

My studio is a long way from my wife’s office.  I paced it off; it’s forty-six normal steps, to be exact.  To link our Apple computers we bought an AirPort Express and installed it halfway between the two rooms.

Not two minutes after we installed it we got an upgrade message and so upgraded.  Jeeze.  Two minutes?  And we think ants look busy.

Who’s boiling now?

When I go back to Los Angeles it seems to be more intense than it used to be.  I lived in Malibu for seventeen years and drove into the city every day.  Granted, it got a little more crowded and took a little longer every year on the Pacific Coast Highway, but at the time it didn’t seem too bad.

I guess it’s like that experiment:  Put a frog in hot water and he jumps out.  Put him in cool water and slowly bring the water to a boil.  The frog doesn’t notice and he doesn’t jump out.

Are the people in LA like the frog?  Boiling away without noticing?  They used to be more laid back, didn’t they?  And what sick bastard tried that frog experiment in the first place?

Now, God, going to LA is like going to New York.  I lived there for a few years as well, and it was always intense, friendly but boilingly intense.  Don’t get me wrong, everyone in LA is still friendly, but busy, boiling friendly.  Like the frog, you know what I mean?

I guess they’ve caught up to all the boiling New Yorkers.  In any case, I don’t love LA like I used to.

What’s odd is, I still love New York.  Well, not so much in the winter.   And yes, I know boilingly isn’t a word.

Conversation starter?

I bought a new iMac a short while ago.  The computer’s serial number is one measly little number buried in the middle of quite a long string of letters.  Serial letters?

I thought that was funny.  Then I realized they put that one single number in a long sequence of letters so if it ever came up in conversation I could say; “My serial number is seven.”

That’ll really get the ball rolling.

Brain surgery and advertising

 This is a bit from my novel, Burgle Back:

Brad opened the fridge, rummaged around, pushed stuff out of his way.  “They want to rename their shock absorbers.  Well, the idiot Les does anyway.  He punctuated the absurdity by giving it a hand job.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind, just stupid work stuff.”  Brad found the leftover chicken from two nights ago.  He took a chicken leg, which would do nicely for his dinner.  Plus it had the advantage of not requiring a plate, napkin, or anything else Martha Stewart-ish.

“Don’t you always have food at your meetings when they’re in the evening?

Brad chomped the drumstick down in three big bites.  Martha would have been horrified.  “Actually, the meeting wasn’t supposed to last as long as it did.  We weren’t as sharp as we could have been, and the client sprung the stupid Pleasurider surprise on us at the end.  I probably should have taken everybody out to dinner, but I was so fried I just didn’t think about it.”

Kathy frowned as she looked at Brad’s dented case.  “What happened to your briefcase?”

“Oh.  Yeah, well --” Brad sheepishly glanced at her.  “You ought to see the mailbox.”  He tossed the chicken bone in the trash, grabbed the dishtowel from the rack, and wiped his fingers on it.  “Hey!”  Kathy took the towel from him before he could put it back, tossed it in the laundry basket and shook her head.

“Sorry.”  Brad shrugged and dropped into a chair.  “Ah, this is just crap.” 

Kathy sighed.  “Remember, Brad, it isn’t brain surgery.” 

“Yeah, it’s far more important than brain surgery -- it’s advertising.”  Brad laughed.

Kathy ignored his tired old joke.  “And remember, you can’t work late tomorrow.  We're having burgers with Randel and Jewel tomorrow night.”

“Speaking of names -- Randel and Jewel?  Jeeze.”

“They're from New Jersey.”

Randel’s a thief.  Brad doesn’t find out right away.  And when he does, it’s too late.

Doing violence to a mimosa

The other day I got out my chainsaw and cut down a thirty-foot tall mimosa tree in my backyard.  I cut the branches up in ten-foot lengths, small enough to drag around to the front yard, and called one of those grinder folks.  Actually they’re landscape folks who also have grinders.

I cut the thick trunk and larger branches into short enough pieces to wheelbarrow around to the front, figuring to pawn them off on my neighbors as firewood.

When the grinder guys were through ramming the branches into one of the loudest, most violent machines I’ve ever heard, the head guy asked me if I wanted the trunk disposed of too.

Figuring it would save me having to con one of my neighbors I said yes.

I expected him to charge me a little extra, load them on the back of his trick and haul them off.

Instead he picked up a foot thick, foot and a half long chunk of the trunk and tossed it into the grinder.  The grinder barked like a cannon and spit the chips into the catch-bed like they were machine gun bullets.  One loud, violent blast.  Gone in about one second.  Then he and his guys chucked the rest of the chunks of the trunk in, in rapid succession, BBDDDTTT, BBDDDTTT, BBDDDTTT, until an entire tree had been violently devoured.

Scary loud.  They’re all gonna be deaf by next year. 

Beware of the PWRCL’s

We don’t write Christmas Letters for the people who hate them, do we?  There are plenty of Christmas Letter haters out there who just throw them away, don’t they?  Yes they do.

We write them for the people who actually like to read them.  Like my wife.

The People Who Read Christmas Letters, the PWRCL’s, (pronounced Pwerculs) couldn’t imagine anyone not reading them, could they?  They’re just so interesting, aren’t they?  Well…

The PWRCL’s also love writing CL’s.  Like my wife.  This year’s letter took about seventeen drafts (I stopped counting at ten). What with the placing of pictures, the shifting of type once it was on the page, the re-writes when it looked too long and dense, and the last minute sentence restructuring and re-placing of pictures, the effort took a full day and a half.

But hey, it’s the Christmas Letter.  If you got one from us, and your not a PWRCL don’t tell my wife you threw it away, okay?  Thanks.

Better now than not ever

I finally convinced my wife to put the Christmas tree in a new spot.  The spot I’ve been lobbying for, for the last fourteen years.  The spot where we wouldn’t have to move all the furniture.  The spot where you could see all the presents.  Where you could see it through the front window.

So far, everyone seems to like it in the new location, even my wife.  She chuckled and said; “I should have listened to you, sooner.”

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I’d have a whole lot of nickels.

I mean a whole lot of nickels.

Funny, you don’t look fine

I took my wife to the eye doctor the other day.  While I waited for her in the lobby an older gentleman, sitting in an electric scooter chair, was called in by the doctor.  The man was a Vietnam Vet.  He was wearing a white cotton glove on his left hand, obviously to protect some kind of skin problem.  He had an oxygen tank strapped to the back of his chair.  The tank had a tube running to his nose.  He wore fairly thick glasses.  He was way overweight.  He was wheezing.  And when he talked his voice sounded like gravel.  The doctor said: “How you doin’ sir?”  He answered: “Just fine.” And drove his scooter in through the door.  Just fine?  Wow.

Stop the presses

I won’t be writing much today.  A pipe burst under one of our flagstone patios and I’ll be fixing that.  I’m not too cheap to hire someone else to do it I just need the exercise.  Well, maybe I’m a little cheap.

My wife’s only comment was: “Flagstones are heavy.”  No kidding.

The Irish Mossad

This is a bit from my novel, Honeymoon Heist:

Frankie and Louie slithered in the front door of the Tamaya Resort, carefully looked around.

Geoff noticed them, but he wasn’t sure if they were the crooks or not.  He whispered to Tina.  “Don’t look, but I think the two guys who just came in might be the guys chasing us.”

Tina didn’t look, she put down her magazine, casually got up, kept her back to the door.  “The bar’s darker -- lets get a drink.  Not too fast, just be casual, very relaxed, don’t call attention to us.”  She smiled, waited for Geoff to get up.  “We’re just casually enjoying the quiet evening.”  She warmed her hands at the fireplace for a moment before they sauntered toward the side door of the bar, away from the two guys.  “Point at the mountains so we can keep our heads turned.”

Geoff pointed.  “Oh -- look -- mountains.”

Tina squelched a laugh.  “And into the bar we go.”

“Wow.  You’re awfully good at this -- were you a spy before we met?”

“Yes, I was in the Mossad -- the Irish Mossad.

“The Irish don’t --” He rolled his eyes.  They sat at a table near the side door.

The waitress walked up.  “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have a white wine spritzer -- not too much wine, lots of club soda, lots of ice.”

“I’ll have a Bushmills on the rocks.”

Frankie and Louie wandered through the lobby casually looking around.  They finally slipped into the bar from the front, sat at a table.  A different waitress walked over, took their order.

Geoff and Tina’s drinks came.

“Would you like anything else?”

“No, I’ll pay now, okay?”

“Sure.”  She set the bill on the table.  He checked it, took out his soggy wallet and squeezed it.  Water dripped out.  He peeled the wallet open, took out the soaked paper money in one big wet clump and pealed off a wet twenty. “Thanks, keep it.”

The waitress took it with two fingers, flopped it on her tray.  “Freshly laundered!  Thank you.”  She stopped.  “Oh! -- You were the couple who came through the lobby earlier in -- different outfits.”  She raised an eyebrow and tried not to look too amused.  “You went swimming, or something?”

“Shhhh.  Yes, that was us.  We’re trying not to be too conspicuous.”

The waitress whispered.  “It’s working -- I didn’t recognize you once you changed.”  She grinned.  “Well, have a nice evening.”

Tina sipped her spritzer and mumbled.  “A little too late for that, I’m afraid.”

The book starts with a wedding in a hot air balloon and a bank robbery, but it’s really about the chase.  The robbers chase them for a while and then they chase the robbers for a while.  They get chased in the balloon, on foot, in cars, in a plane, have a fight on the plane, emergency landing, chutes deploy, running all over the runways, in cars again, on foot again.  Food fight in a bakery.  They get kidnapped, and get away, all the usual stuff.

We’re saying it wrong

You’ve heard the phrase “button your shirt up” or “button up your shirt” There’s even an old song “Button up your overcoat when the wind is cold” right?

Isn’t that wrong?

One doesn’t button one’s shirt, or coat, up.  One usually buttons it down.

I actually start in the middle, but I’ve never seen anybody start buttoning a shirt, or coat, from the bottom, up.

One can button up a deal, I guess, or batten down the hatches.  I suppose one can either start out, or start off, on a journey.  And one can eat something up, or scarf it down.  One does zip up a jacket, but one doesn’t zip up a lip.  It’s just plain “zip your lip”, right?

Nobody zips his or her lip up or down, do they?

We can hear you all the way in the bathroom

My wife read in the paper that they’re finally going to force television broadcasters to keep the sound levels for commercials the same as for the programs.

It’s about time.

She also observed that when they do, fewer viewers will race for the remote and stab the mute.  She’s probably right.

Smart lady, my wife.

Truth in advertising

One of the best and funniest signs I ever saw was on a tiny little shack of a restaurant down by the bay in San Francisco.  The joint was smaller than a one-car garage.  And the sign read:  “You can’t get food like this in the finest restaurants in Paris.”

I almost fell off my bike laughing.

Is it 1981 again?

Suddenly, the idea of better mileage is sweeping the auto industry.

I still own a Diesel Rabbit that I bought in 1981.  I don’t drive it that often, but it still runs great.  It still gets forty-two miles per gallon on the highway and thirty-eight or nine in the city.

You – meaning most car companies – could build cars that got over forty miles per gallon thirty years ago.  And you – you same folks – are just now creeping up on thirty-two, thirty-three miles per gallon?

And we’re all supposed to be excited about your amazing breakthroughs in mileage?  Come on guys!  What a crock.

Wrinkled tattoos and a good night’s sleep

I drove from Albuquerque to Los Angeles recently.  I stopped in Needles, California for the night and was shocked at how hard some of our smaller towns have been hit by our economic downturn.  I didn’t actually count, but the empty or boarded up stores seemed to out-number the stores still in business.

When I pulled into one of the few Motor Inns still open there were a dozen or so motorcycles parked at the entrance.  I thought about trying to find another motel to get a better night’s sleep, but the trip back through that hard hit town just felt too depressing.

When I opened the door the backs of a dozen or so black leather jackets greeted me.  And their mass hid the desk completely.  They were just checking in and the clerk was having a hard time with their reservations so it was taking a long time.  I got to chatting with a few of the gang while we waited.

They were all Vietnam Vets and were looking forward to a big party at the local VFW Hall just up the road.  Their bellies had seen better days and their tattoos had developed a few extra wrinkles, but they were fun to talk to.  They asked me if I was a vet and invited me to join them.  Not being a vet, I declined.

To top it off, when I went to my room, black leather jackets were going into rooms on either side of me.  We smiled and nodded and I went to sleep early expecting to hear them whooping and hollering their way back to their rooms at some later point.  Turns out, I didn’t hear a peep all night.

What’s this world coming to when you can’t even get a good story out of a biker gang?  And who wants to hear about a good night’s sleep?

It’s hard to run in a wedding dress

This is a bit from my novel, Honeymoon Heist:

 Suddenly the propane tank belched and popped out a final burst of flame.  “Uh oh.”

“What was that?”

“We’re out of gas.”

“Do we have a spare?”

“I wish.”

“Oh God.”

They both looked down.  Geoff frantically pulled on the handle as he watched the ground race up at them.  “Oh crap.  We’re gonna hit.”

“Aaahhh! God!”

The basket screamed toward the trees.  Tina grabbed Geoff.  They hugged each other and screamed.  “AAAAAAAAHHH!”

The balloon dove into the top branches at speed, the basket ripped through the tree.  Snapping twigs sounded like a thousand firecrackers.  “AAAAAAAAHHH!”  Broken twigs flew in all directions, like shrapnel.  Geoff covered Tina with his arms and back.  The balloon’s cloth ripped into the tree making a terrible shredding noise, finally caught in the branches and abruptly stopped with a bounce.  The basket hung three feet in the air.

            After a stunned silence, Tina took a breath.  “Very nice.  I think my spine is an inch shorter.”

Geoff looked up at the giant shredded rag that saved their lives.   “That’s not gonna be cheap.”  He looked down.  “You’re okay.  We have to jump.”

“Oh God.  I had to wear a full wedding dress.”

“You look beautiful, Tina.  Now jump.”

“Easier said than done.  Help me get this thing over the edge.”

Geoff and Tina struggled with her dress.  “It doesn’t have to be pretty now, just shove it up and over!”  They finally got it up on the edge of the basket.

“Here you go -- get your legs up.”

She hopped up on the edge of the basket.  “Get the skirt -- there.”

“Got it.  Go!”  Geoff gave her a little push; her eyes exploded into a startled stare as she dropped off the edge of the basket.  “Aaahhh!”

As Tina dropped down, her dress went up over her head and she landed with a thump.  “Ow!”

Geoff cringed.  “Ouch.”

Tina looked up in anger.  “You pushed me!”

“Sorry, you okay?”

“Yeah, lets get out of here.”

Geoff jumped, landed with a thump.  “Ow!’

“Serves you right.”

“That way.”  Geoff pointed toward the lights and they took off running.  Twenty yards into the brambly woods a deer looked up, cocked his antlers as he watched Tina dodge her way through the trees and brush in her wedding dress.

Tina’s dress caught on everything; it was being torn to shreds.

A few pages later she has to swim the Rio Grande in what’s left of her wedding dress.  No worries.  The river, thanks to the drought, many dams and irrigation, isn’t very deep anymore.

Now? No, not yet

Albuquerque’s new symphony debuted last night.  They were great.  They are the same musicians as were in the organization that went bankrupt, so it was no surprise they played so well.

The audience was very supportive, and a couple dozen of them only clapped at the wrong time in four different places.

Not a record, but nothing sounds sillier than hearing enthusiastic clapping drain away after two or three smacks of the hands.

I’m going to suggest they install a little green light on the conductor’s platform.  That way the patrons who don’t know the difference between the end of a movement and the end of the piece will know when to clap.

You know, give ‘em the green light.

Beware of the hook

Among other things, I write novels.  At most conferences, writer’s association meetings or schmooze’s – I think they call them something like that – I get the impression agents and editors would like the first page of a novel to read something like this:

“As they dumped her lifeless body off the back of the cruise ship and watched her carry their terrible secret to the depths of the sea they looked at each other with fear in their eyes.  Was she next?  Was he next?“

They call it the hook; to suck you in, make you want to buy the book.  That’s fine, I guess.  Formulaic, but fine.

I think the next sentence should read:  “But the body floated, and to make matters worse, they were just pulling into port.”

Lets see you write your way out of that, tough guy.

Hedging the percentages

I’ve heard it said that a marriage works best when the effort is fifty-fifty.  I disagree.  I think it works best when the effort is one hundred percent – one hundred percent.

But that’s just me talking.

I’m guessing my wife would say our marriage is working at about one hundred-twenty percent – sixty-two percent.

And I’m probably being overly generous on my side.

Apples, oranges and bananas

The expression:  Comparing apples to oranges.  Wouldn’t it be more fun to say:  Comparing apples to bananas.  Banana is a funnier word.  And bananas, is even funnier.  As in:  He went bananas over being chosen rodeo clown of the year.  Nobody goes oranges over being chosen for anything.

Besides, the shapes of apples and bananas are more dissimilar.  I’ve never seen a round banana.  And nothing rhymes with orange.  Except splorange.

Grunt think

I read quite some time ago that one can’t have a thought unless the words exist to express that thought.  I guess that makes sense.  Must have been very difficult to be a caveman, though.

Although, since the word very and the word difficult didn’t exist, maybe not.  Maybe cavemen thought being a caveman was just; grunt, grunt.

On a related note: the Eskimos have roughly fifty or sixty words for snow, don’t they?  They must think about snow a lot.

–Be merry and bright, Rudolph the red, mama kissing Santa, knows when you’ve been, dreaming of a white, dashing all the way–

I really like Christmas.  I enjoy giving gifts.  I’m okay with decorating.  I don’t mind shopping.  Well, I mind the hassle a little.  I tolerate the lack of easy parking.  I don’t like the cold.

But what I hate, really hate, is that while we shop we can’t avoid hearing the same sugary renditions of the same, painfully familiar, irritatingly vanilla, relentless Christmas songs we all heard as children, repeated over and over in every mall, market, and Mart.

We hear them every year, as kids, as teenagers, then as young adults, and now as not so young adults.

Those songs are the meat and bones of the saying: Familiarity breeds contempt.

The audible onslaught starts well before Black Friday and relentlessly pursues us through New Year’s Eve.

It feels to me like what the Germans must have felt as the Russians drove them out of Russia that terrible winter of 1944.  No relief, no mercy, no respite from the misery.

Yeah, I know, that’s way over the top.  Our feet aren’t wrapped in rags.

My fellow citizens

I think writing a Blog is somewhat akin to a person in the 1800’s standing on a soapbox in a city park and yelling out whatever was on his or her mind to anyone within earshot.

Like most bloggers, most soapboxers probably had nothing important to say and were most likely ignored.

But some may have had something important to say and drew a crowd.  A few of those crowds probably started some kind of important movement that improved our lives, or animal’s lives, or the environment or something else worthwhile.

Good for them.

And those who had nothing to say at least got whatever they were crowing about off their chests.

In any case we can thank the Internet for our parks being quieter now.

Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Bombs away

This is a bit from my novel, Stealing Time:

A mover came to the door with a powder blue chest on a dolly.  “Does this go in here?  The tag says end of the second floor hallway, but there’s no room at either end of the hall.”

“I’ll have to call you back, Dave.”  Charlie looked at the chest and cringed.  As he stared at it a twisted smile slowly grew on his face.  “Yeah, bring it on in, right over here.”

He checked the chest’s drawers to make sure they were empty.  “Yeah, this is fine.  Okay, lets bring it right over to the window.”  Charlie led the mover over to the window, opened it and looked down.  There was nobody below. 

He grinned.  “Perfect.  Right through here.  You lift that end, I’ll lift this end.”

The mover shook his head.  “I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, it’ll be fun.”  Charlie laughed.

The very confused mover helped Charlie lift it up onto the windowsill and shove it through.  It did a perfect half Gainer on the way down, landed on a corner and smashed to bits on the patio below.

They both stared down at it.  “Yes!”  Charlie pumped his fist.  He leaned on the sill and smiled at his conspirator.  “See, I told you it would be fun.”

The mover stared down for a moment, glanced at Charlie, returned his stare to the pile of light blue kindling. 

Charlie laughed as he returned to his desk.  “Boy, I sure hope you guys have insurance.”

The mover choked out a moment of terror.

“Naw, just kidding.  This never happened -- and you were never here, right?”

The mover chuckled a sigh of relief.  “If you say so, sir.”

“Charlie.  Everybody calls me Charlie.”

“Okay -- if you say so, Charlie.”  The mover finally stopped glancing out the window, stared at Charlie, who was already back at his desk talking on the phone, and walked away shaking his head.  “Rich people are truly nuts.”

This is a story about a robbery, but Charlie isn’t the main character, he’s just the rich guy the story swirls around.

They can make a tie sound like a win

The advertising business has a clever way of using the English language.

When you read, or hear someone say:  “There are none better.”  It probably means theirs are exactly the same as everyone else’s.  Think about it.

The same goes for statements like: “No one can help you more than we can.”  Or: "You won't get a better deal."  Or: “There isn’t a faster acting pill, cough syrup, lotion, hair restorer, laxative, etc, etc.”

Oh, look, another plastic snowman

I like Christmas lights.  We live in the Southwest so we put a line of red chile lights around the front of our house and around the garage doors.  Many of our neighbors put up lights as well.  It makes driving home at night feel friendly, and warm, and peaceful.

Seeing those big, lit, plastic blow up figures, on the other hand, is a real turn off.

It’s rarely one; it’s usually three, or six.   Kinda stuck around the yard in no discernable pattern or order.  And they’re too bright.

They look to me like some dollar store version of the Macy’s Parade that stalled on someone’s front lawn.  Or a Saturday morning cartoon show stuck in freeze-frame.

Plus, they look even worse in daylight, all saggy, or flat as a pancake.  Like some giant plastic creature pooped all over the front lawn.

In any case, stop it, okay?  Get some lights.     

Talk about your sour notes.

To our dismay, the symphony in Albuquerque went bankrupt. 

But the musicians scrambled to form a new organization, and we gladly bought new season tickets to support them.

Isn’t it a sad commentary that, in a city this big, this could happen?

We have a fairly sophisticated population.  (I know what you’re thinking.  I was surprised to learn that too, when I moved here.)

But, thanks to companies such as Sandia Labs, Intel, the burgeoning movie business, the military base, the other secret military base, the Spaceport and dozens of small high-tech companies, the state is crawling with PhD’s, scientists, engineers, actors, artists, writers, Majors, Generals, pilots, spies, doctors, lawyers and Indian Chiefs.

Well, they don’t actually crawl, they drive expensive cars.

One might speculate that the Indian Chiefs might prefer driving Mustangs or Broncos.

Dumb joke, sorry.

Still, isn’t it sad that the arts suffer?  Isn’t classical music one of the things civilizations are remembered for?

Certainly not tacos or green chili stew.  Well, maybe the stew.