New Mexico, so far

[burlyprotector]

Got to Albuquerque 90 minutes late tonight; I'm here for a work-related conference. Went out to Burt's Tiki Lounge which I found through researching Albu night life but they did not have food so I went to a pizza joint. After eating I lost myself in the local arts mag, found out I missed Tilly and the Wall. The waitress said "Are you waiting on anything?" and I sorta thought she might be talking to me so I looked behind me towards the cash register and saw no one and, some nine seconds later, realized she was indeed talking to me but was standing directly to my right. I asked her what was up tonight and she recommended an upstairs type bar ("easy to miss" in her words) that had fabulous beers on tap but instead I went to Burt's Tiki to catch some godawful butt rock band...a Mexican man saunters in and orders a Bud, his first drink in three months, he claimed...he comes up to me and motions a lot and shakes my hand, but other than us exchanging basic mutual info (I'm from NYC, is it speedy there, yes, are you from NM, not originally but have been for 30 years) the conversation is completely unintelligible both because of his accent, his drunken slurring and the loud band. He had the scent of not awful cigarettes but seriously, I literally smiled and nodded for twenty minutes, and he kept taking these folded up creased photos of him with the governor and these other ones indicating he was a real estate attorney that had a "partnership" of sorts with the bar owner...and then i split, met three homeless folks (one a woman with no leg, and all three called me "bro") and the place the pizza waitress told me about was dead so I went to a place called Launchpad, they charged me $5 and some band with Irish sounding accents, no drums, just acoustic guitar, synth and some weird multicolored device that looked like that memory retention kids game Simon...and posters on the wall, the Shins opening for GUided by Voices circa 2001, Built to Spill three months before I saw them, for the first time, on 9/11, and I asked the bartender how to play there and he said it's easy to...I stroll up to the band, ask this screaming chanting clapping redhead girl where they are from, she says "Iceland," they finish and her and her friends yell "encore," i say, wow, people really love bands here, i'm from NYC, they don't there, she said, well yeah we're all musicians, i said i figured...i go back to the hotel...the cashier is a sniffing redhead with a domestic partner a geeky girl with a dog...and he talks about how the club I've just been to and will now dream of playing at left an oily rag on its premises that burnt up the neighboring Italian restaurant...oh has that damaged its reputation, I ask, no, he replies, the people in this town forgive/forget so easy...this place is full of idiots..we can't even get a domestic partnership here, the town is catholic it does not honor separations etc etc...

all in all a good night. now i sleep to prep for interviewing medical imaging comps. bleh.