Controlled Violence Lunch at Dion's Pizza

    Eric, a retired Army Ranger, who patrolled streets of Iraq in full battle gear, has told me violence is a way of life  and controlling or neutralizing it was once his mission as well as his livelihood. When I talk with a man who has had to take another human life, regardless of reason, it makes me listen closer. At Dion’s Pizza for lunch, the inscription on the man’s T shirt ,ahead of me in the order line, reads,  simply, “ Deliverance of Controlled Violence. ” I am at a loss to fully understand what this means? Is violence bad, or does it depend on what force is used to accomplish?  If you use violence to subdue a violent person are you breaking the same law they are? Does this guy’s uniform legitimize his kind of violence? State violence- acceptable?  Individual violence not acceptable?   I don’t know violence like Eric ,or this SWAT warrior, but I know about words. You only need to get a few cattle to head for the barn to get the whole herd moving in the same direction. Sweet talk and glorious words beat violence any day when you want to control, suppress, or channel human behavior. The war for our minds is always being waged.  
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LaFonda Hotel Part of the Santa Fe History

    The LaFonda Hotel has been a fixture in Santa Fe going back decades. The current hotel was built in 1922 on a downtown site where the first Santa Fe hotel was built in 1607 when Spaniards came to town. It is on the register of the Historic Hotels of America, was once owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad, and from 1926 to 1968 was one of the famous  Harvey Houses that took care of train passengers riding from back East all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In the 1900’s this was the favored haunt of trappers, soldiers,gold seekers, gamblers and politicians. The hotel, in the 1920’s, was designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and John Gaw Meem and is still a favored watering hole for New Mexico state legislators and government officials who populate Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, affectionately called ” The City Different” by those of us who live in our state. Santa Fe itself has long been a refuge for writers, artists, movie stars, and the local newspaper, ” The Santa Fe New Mexican ” is the oldest continuously operating newspaper in America. The world famous Santa Fe Opera is close by as well as Canyon Road with a gallery every other mailbox. Up to Santa Fe for the day, Joan suggests I visit Boston. I’m thinking the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum would be my cat’s meow. While the LaFonda Hotel is super comfy, charming,historical, quaint, revolutions always ring my bells. Joan misses some ambiance, on the phone, fixing who is watching her kids , and when, with an unaccommodating ex in Boston. Fortunately for me, I haven’t fought in these kind of revolutions, and divorce and wedding bells, remind me of cannonballs whizzing by my ears.  
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New Mexico Rail Runner Rapid transit in a horse and buggy state

    The New Mexico Rail Runner is New Mexico’s foray into mass transit in a state that is rural except for four larger cities along the Rio Grande north to south. In 2018, our entire population was just over two million. The impetus was to spend federal money on a project that was doomed to failure from the start but gave governor Bill Richardson something to crow about besides knowing the leaders of North Korea. The project started in December 2006 and has proved critics to be astute. ” Ridership on New Mexico’s commuter rail system has tumbled so far during the past decade that legislative analysts now recommend closing or limiting service at one location -in downtown Bernalillo….. the state should not open new stations and focus on making the Rail Runner Express more competitive with those commuting by car…. ” (from Train ridership continues to fall in New Mexico, Albuquerque Journal, 2019) ” Last year, the train made 2.8 million on fares, while the cost to operate the Rail Runner was $28.4 million. Plus, the department estimates the total debt repayment over 20 years amounts to $784 million….. “(KRKE News-May7,2015) This train, Scotttreks suspects, will be here long after Scott is gone. Closing the Rail Runner and putting the savings into free health clinics would have been a better return on taxpayer money than subsidizing government workers who lived in Albuquerque but commuted daily to Santa Fe. It’s hard for all of us to find a Doctor in New Mexico, especially when we need one. Knowing this state like we do, residents don’t understand,or like, the waste and abuse of power by their elected officials, but they keep voting them back into office, decade after decade. It takes a lot of hard and dedicated work to stay one of the poorest states in the Union.  
                   

Out with the Old/In with the New At the " River of Lights "

    Part of the Albuquerque Botanical Gardens ” River of Lights ”  package, for $110.00 per couple, is cleansing souls. After the train ride, those who participate, write bad memories from the past year on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and toss it into the fire. They also write positive goals for the New Year ahead, on another piece of paper, and toss them into the flames too. This isn’t as dramatic as the burning of effigies in Cuenca, Ecuador, but it has the same catharsis.. Joan and I throw our goods and bads into the fire and head to the Shark Cafe for dinner. A big lesson I learned in Belize, is that it is better to eat shark than get eaten by them. The big task tomorrow is figuring out how to wrap this night up and put it under the Christmas tree.   
 

3 On A Match Albuquerque Sunport

    This group belongs in cabarets in Berlin, London, Paris, after World War 2, without the smoke, SS Officers and floozies.   A first response to new music is often to discount or find faults with it because it is new. Another response is to recognize new music as new, overpraise it, and find no faults at all. I  leave criticism in my back pocket. If all music were the same, or all posts, or all websites, or all opinions, or all people, it would be a sadder world. During one of the songs, vocalist Tina Panera, holds a hat up and sings a sad song about ” this old hat..” I am enchanted.and drop a crisp bill into Tina’s old hat so she can buy herself a less comfortable new one.  Musicians know lots about tip jars, old hats, sad songs, war and peace, love, injustice. You hear some great music in airports when you least expect it. I’m getting whisked back on a time trip in the Albuquerque Sunport International Airport and I don’t even have to go through security or board a plane. Wars experienced vicariously are much better than those you have to fight in.    
   

Cooped Up Stan's Chicken House

    Stan has had back yard chickens for a few years. They weren’t something he wanted as a childhood dream, but his adopted kids wanted chickens so he built them a first rate coop, feeds them, keeps their cage clean, and can’t kill them because his daughter would cry. ” Do they lay eggs in the winter, ” I ask? ” They slow down, ” Stan says, ” they lay eggs four or five years. ” ” Then what? ” Stan takes a moment and judiciously answers, ” Leave the coop and the gate to the back yard open and hope they take a trip and forget how to get home. ”  Chickens are eaten all over the world, but looking at them makes me uneasy. Why do I want to eat an animal that lives in a cage and pecks in the dirt for its food?  What does Stan do with the cage when his kids grow up and leave home? The coop is too small for Mother-In-Law quarters and it doesn’t come with a big screen TV.  
     

Sax Rats- Video Holiday Stroll, Old Town, Albuquerque, 2018

People come to the Old Town Plaza for the annual Christmas Stroll, saunter down lumanaria lined sidewalks and blocked off streets, shop and eat, enjoy friends and family, stand under Christmas mistletoe, lick candy canes, and listen to street musicians.. If they like what they see and hear, they stop and listen.. If they really like what they see and hear, they drop money in the tip jar. Chris solos, Dan(tenor sax), Scott(alto sax) and Sara(alto sax) provide accompaniment..  With music, seeing and hearing it live is hard to beat. Playing in the dark is part of a musician’s territory. It’s not much of a Christmas thought, but, playing ” Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” I’m wondering why Santa comes and night and sneaks down the chimney? Is this someone we want in our house?  
       

Santa Plays his Sax Holiday Stroll, Albuquerque Old Town -2018

    Sax Rats is our saxophone quartet – two alto saxes, a tenor sax, and a baritone sax.  It is cold this evening as we load into Dan’s van, drive down, set up, begin our first music set at the Holiday Stroll in Old Town, Albuquerque. ” In college, ” Chris tells us, ” I did gigs and made $50.00 a night and was happy to get it ”  ” The other day, ” he goes on, ” I did a jazz gig and still made fifty. ” he laughs. Chadd, my saxophone teacher, has a sign on his studio door that describes a musician as a person who will work most of their life to get enough skills to play music in public, play a several thousand dollar instrument, drive a hundred miles to a gig in a six hundred dollar car, spend fifty dollars on drinks, gas, and food out of their own pocket, make seventy five dollars for the night’s gig, and wake up the next morning with a hangover and barely enough money for huevos rancheros.. I expect we will be back at the Holiday Stroll again next year. Latest government stats say the U.S. doesn’t have any inflation. Musician pay certainly proves their point.  
     

Making the News KOAT, Channel 7, ABC, Albuquerque

    Growing up in the 1950’s, there were only three channels on our new black and white TV. The programming was sports, talent shows, westerns, game shows and nightly news.The broadcast day ended at midnight. In the 1960’s,Johnny Carson got people to stay up later and tucked his audiences into bed. Back then, we went to our television sets like an older generation went to their radios before us and listened to TV anchors tell us ” how it was.”  In those days, we trusted our institutions to do what they said they were doing. At Wal-Mart this morning, Scotttreks runs into a TV crew filming a segment for the local evening news. These days, entertainment and political correctness saturate each nightly news story and finding truth comes last in third or fourth place. ThIs news production, promoting a Wal Mart sponsored winter coat drive for kids, is only seconds long but takes a crew of five most of the morning to produce. I don’t watch news anymore.  News people want to do all my thinking for me and make sure I don’t have trouble coming up with my own answers. Discerning truth from fiction, I believe, is still my responsibility, as a living being. Newsmen and used car salesmen have much more in common than we previously thought.  
       
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