Category: ABQjournal

Hey, now that’s cool!

It’s no secret I’m a bit of a baseball fan. My team’s season ended in a blaze of humiliation, some 18 games out of first place. To make it worse, two teams from our division, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies made to the post season.

Oh the pain of watching the competition extend their season.

Been having a hard time deciding who to root for in post-season games. I think I’m loving the under-dog, whooda-thunkit magic season of the Rockies. So in the NL, they are my team (not a tough decision given the lightening in a bottle they have working), especially after rolling over the Diamondbacks in four straight games.

In the AL, it’s harder to decide. I mean, I like the Indians, they are a ne’er do well and know the pain, like my beloved Giants, of going to the World Series and coming home empty handed. I have a good friend who is from Cleveland so out of respect to her, I’ve been mostly cheering on the Indians. However, in previous years, I’ve been a post-season Red Sox fan. So I guess all this is by way of saying I’m waffling…..

In today’s ABQjournal I read an interesting article that I’m now taking into account while sitting on the AL fence.

While the young man mentioned in the article, Jacoby Ellsbury, isn’t a New Mexico native (cuz then I’d be off the fence and on his side in heartbeat), he does have ties to New Mexico.

Plus I just think it’s pretty damn cool that he’s the first Native American of Navajo descent to play in the majors. He was called up to Boston in August when Coco Crisp went out with an injury and so wowed critics and fans that Francona added him to the 40-man roster in September. Now in his first year in the bigs, he’s playing on a post-season team trying to get to the World Series. He’s been praised for both his speed and enthusiasm and is a pretty good hitter.

Damn, that rocks. Gonna have to squint at the screen a little more now to get a look at this up-and-comer. Maybe he can log some playing time in the ALCS and I’ll just have to root for him.

I always did love a story of someone living the dream.

The times, they are a changin’

Just because it’s time, almost over due, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sense of disbelief that an era is over.

According to the ABQjournal, Senator Pete Domenici will announce his retirement later today. He has been Senator for 36 years, just a few years less than my lifetime. Growing up in New Mexico, Domenici’s name was always in the news. He went from a “who is that” to a fairly powerful guy on Capitol Hill. I was always happy for a New Mexico guy to make good, make a name, so people knew we had smart folks from New Mexico over there.

I know lately he’s fallen out of favor for a variety of misdeeds. I’m not much of a political person, honestly. I can’t talk articulately about Domenici’s career, the high points, the low points. I’ll leave more of that to my friends Avelino at his Live From Silver City blog and of course former Mayor of Albuquerque Jim Baca at his Only in New Mexico blog.

My lament today is how much things in my world seem to be changing. Today we have a lunch to see off one of my best and favorite employees. She’s moving on to a great job and we’re all really happy for her. It’s a big blow to our team. But change must happen.

There are a lot of huge changes going on in my personal life too, most changes for the better, but changes nonetheless.

My “woo woo” teachers would say that’s the hallmark of Fall. The days shorten up, the ground goes cold. Circle of life. Death and rebirth. All of that.

Give me time, I’ll be philosophical later. For today I’m just sad. Ok, not that I’m all broke up about Domenici leaving office, just the huge change it brings (just skeered as hell that Wilson might get that seat).

I remember my days working at Sandia where we called him “Saint Pete” because he was always able to finagle funds to keep Sandia rolling, despite all the protests to reduce funding to the nuclear labs. How far he’s fallen…

Anyhow, I guess it’s owing to my sign of Taurus that change is troublesome. I’ll follow my family tradition and worry myself sick about it. Then, I’ll rebound, get perspective, and be fine.

I’m always fine, eventually.

*sigh*

Well…off to the going away lunch…..

Ok, this is not funny….

…and yet it is.

ABQjournal reporting today about a peeping tom not only getting caught but getting whacked in the head by the angry father toting a baseball bat.

Apparently the jerko was looking in the window of a FOURTEEN year old girl in South Santa Fe. The girl’s brother spotted the creep and told his dad. They took up a broom handle and a bat went outside to catch the pervert. Dad whacked the loser upside the head. Police found him, fly open, “conscious but unresponsive”.

The eighteen year old was airlifted to hospital with a fractured skull.

Paid the cost for getting his freebie jollies off a child, he did.

Back in “the early years” after I’d graduated college and had my first apartment on my own, I was getting ready for work one day and out of the corner of my eye and between the venetian blinds saw something move on my patio. I looked closer to see a man walk up, bend down and start looking in my windows. I screamed, in a way I never knew I was capable of, and the guy took off.

I reported it to the managing office, and they couldn’t be less concerned. I. Was. Freaked. Out.

Later, I guess after a few more women reported a peeping Tom, they did get security guards. Never knew if they caught the guy.

What I wouldn’t give to have taken a Louisville Slugger to his cranium.

So it’s an evil black humor mirthful laugh I have at the expense of the injured lad. But truly, it’s not funny…none of it is….

Karma being what it is…I think his balance is paid in full.

Sadly

Back in April I had a chance to sound off about the kerfuffle involving the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe and Fisk University.

Fisk is the owner of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection (O’Keefe’s husband) and since the university needs funds, they wanted to sell off a couple things. The museum made an offer and Fisk agreed to sell. Then the Tennessee Attorney General stepped in and said it wasn’t enough money.

Everyone stepped back, negotiations were had, and a new price was agreed on. Everything looked great.

But reading today’s ABQjournal, it seems things have gone south again.

Everybody was happy until one of the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune (with scads of money, no doubt) decided she wanted the painting for an as yet to be opened museum being built in Arkansas.

Long way around the barn, since the museum has rights to the estate of O’Keefe they could have sued to take ownership, and Fisk could have lost the entire collection. A Tennessee judge actually thought the university should risk it. A big risk, I’d say, for a cash strapped university. Not only the cost of legal fees but the risk of losing a big collection. I’m dumbfounded.

In a move that makes me sad, but shows the nature of the O’Keefe museum, they’ve decided to back off. They see no need to punish Fisk in this whole process.

And in the end, no one wins.

Bah!

Here is the painting again…the one causing all the fuss, “Radiator Building— Night, New York”:

"Even for Albuquerque, this is pretty Albuquerque"

A great line uttered in a dark but entertaining movie, “Ace in the Hole” set in New Mexico.

Kirk Douglas utters it with convincing New York callousness to the editor of the fictional Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. (I’m certain it doesn’t apply to the reining king, the ABQjournal….right?)

And I laughed. I think he just called out the rasquache-ness that is my hometown!

I decided I might incorporate it into my lexicon. Expect to see it here, soon, in this blog.

“Ace in the Hole” is a “lost” Billy Wilder film, recently released on DVD. I heard about it in an article in the Albuquerque Tribune. The movie originally opened in 1951 to unfavorable reviews and box office. I can see why, this isn’t a happy Hollywood film. It was nominated for an Academy Award for screenplay, and though it didn’t win, it is a really well written story.

I’m surprised at how prophetic the movie is, a commentary on the circus nature of the media. The story, a man is trapped in a collapsed mine that is part of Native American sacred land. Kirk Douglas, a drunkard reporter fired from a variety of big town newspapers is looking for the big story to earn him back his New York job. He senses the story of the man trapped, convinced he’s being punished by Native American spirits, is the kind of human interest story that will earn him his way back.

His scheme is successful. The news story catches fire and soon people are coming in droves to hang outside the mineshaft, waiting for the trapped man to emerge alive. It literally becomes a circus, complete with Ferris Wheel.

Kirk Douglas plays a truly unlikable character to perfection. And even in black and white, our beauty of a state looks great. The film is shot near Gallup and it has big skies and beautiful hills.

I enjoyed this lost gem of a film, liking it even better for its locale. If you like old films, this is worth the time. Don’t expect to emerge happy, it’s got a lot of bitter lines and hateful dialogue. But it’s well made and enjoyable. And available from Netflix.