as i said, i was in ruidoso, new mexico, for a week.  the following is a bit i wrote while i was there.  i’ll post another the next day.  and then that will be all.  i suggest reading it in clumps, not at one time, lest pain arise in the back of your head.

july 10, 2004

i was just in the bathroom at the cabin peeing and listening to agent orange.  i was looking out the window thinking about how nobody has probably ever been in this spot listening to this band.  i think all my cousins and family listen to pop stuff, the bad pop.  i’m not going to list them, just turn on mtv. 

i went into this coffee shop owned by a family, i think they might be a mexican family but i’m not sure, i know they were talking in another language but i couldn’t hear them very well.  they have warning signs literally all over the shop.  “no outside drinks,” “do NOT sit on fireplace,” “keep your children quiet,” “do NOT read books before buying them.”  maybe they were jewish.  the coffee was good, but the chairs were hard and wooden and cold and hateful. 

jawbox is playing now, one of laura’s cds.  but i’m more in the mood for…something else, so i put on dead kennedys, live at the deaf club.  i bought it at waterloo and the girl who checked me out said, “just fyi, some people had been bringing their copy back saying the sound was horrible and they exchanged it for another cd.”  (as a side note, i think this is one of the most important policies a record store can have: a return policy, within a certain number of days, which you can return your record if you don’t like it. sure you can just go home and copy it, which is why you don’t let someone do it ten times or something.)  laura and i listened to the cd in my car on the way home.  it sounded fine.  it wasn’t studio recording good–why would it be? it’s punk, it’s live–but it was better than good bootlegs.  maybe people just like bitching too much, or maybe we’re spoiled by overly produced music.  i was playing this cd once with juan in the car and he said “what’s this ska shit?”  he’s my best friend, but honestly he wouldn’t know ska from…anything. i thought about going into the history of punk rock, how the dead kennedys were one of the driving forces behind it.  i didn’t because, well, it’s juan. (shiv shiv)

i’ve been trying to find more bookstores and/or music stores around here.  no luck.  there’s a place called “rare books” in town.  they aren’t really rare books. i’ve been in before, the last two times i came here. the place smells like boiled cabbage, or public toilets right next to a pot of boiling cabbage.  a 60 year old guy lives and works there, and runs it by himself.  it doubles as his house.  instead of actual rare books, it’s books he’s collected over his life, about three room fulls.  laura couldn’t stand the smell last time so she left.  i felt kind of sorry for the guy, standing there in his nasty undershirt with pitstains, and man boob stains, and stain i’d never seen on a person before, and dirty khaki shorts eating his microwave dinner, so i got a few books that he recommended.  the books aren’t organized in any order, nor are they in superb shape, but he knows exactly what he has and where it is.  i’m not going in there this year for two main reasons:  the smell (it’s really repugnant, and you never get used to it no matter how long you’ve been in there) and the fact that, well, he’s not the best recommender of books.  i said i wanted some horror, maybe king or lovecraft, not really because i’m a huge huge horror fan, but because he put me on the spot. he didn’t have anything that i’d heard of though, so he offered one that “would knock my socks off.” i read it.  it was about homosexual male prostitution in new york city.  did he wink at me when he sold it to me?

i did find a music store in the yellow pages, it sounded pretty cool.  i went, and where it was supposed to be was a vacant building.  a note on the door said “days gone bye has moved to P.O. Box 1241 in Alto.” and then included a phone number.  i think it would be fun to go to the post office in alto and sit in front of box 1241 waiting for them to come.  and when they come ask if they will buy some cds off of me. and if they say no i can stand in front of their box and try to bite them if they try to open it. 

back to the jewish/mexican/nazi coffee shop, i asked the kid working the register if he knew of a place in town with wireless internet.  he gave me a really weird look and said no, try the library.  i don’t think he knew what i was talking about. 

then i went into radio shack.  i needed a converter (from rca to coaxial) for an xbox (not mine, i swiped it before i came up here from laura’s brother…hah) because the tv didn’t have rca ports.  a 50 year old guy asked to help me and i asked if there was such thing as an rca to coax converter.  now, before i describe the following events i must tell you, i have never, not once, gone into a radioshack and had the workers treat me like i had anything more than a second grade education (so that i could add a few small numbers).  i don’t ask stupid things or say stupid things because i generally know what i’m talking about, but it makes no difference.  this trip is no different.  he says, “uh, YEAH there’s such a thing.”  then he sighed like i was taking up important time (i was the only customer in there) and he said “you see that panel over there?”  there were four panels so i asked which one.  he sighed again.  “the one with the CONVERTERS on it,” he said, sticking his thick finger in the general direction.  “it’s on that.”  i go over and look at all the stuff on the panel.  nothing even remotely close to what i need.  it’s taken me a while to pour over all this crap, and since i’m the only customer i figure he’ll see that i’m not finding it.  he doesn’t, so i turn around and stare at him from across the room.  finally he acknowledges me.  “find it?”  no, i answer.  he comes over huffing (this actually might be hard for him…he’s a pretty big guy, and it seems there’s a very large stick or pole stuck somewhere in his body) and looks at all the stuff i’ve been looking at.  “what do you need?” he asks after looking at all the stuff.  “rca to coax.”  he goes over to some drawers and looks through them, then slams the last one shut.  “why do you need rca to coax?”  he asks me, as though i have no idea what i’m talking about (in my opinion, if a person knows enough to know the terms rca and coax he probably knows what he’s looking for).  “i have a tv with just a coax port, and an xbox with just rca ports.”  he sighs again. “OH, well…” he says it like i’m a dumb kid and the potential sale is now severely less important.  “you need this.”  he hands me a box which is exactly what i need.  “but,” he says, “it’s thirty dollars.”  he looks me up and down and puts the box back on the shelf.  now, i have thirty dollars in my pocket, and had he been anything remotely close to a good salesman he could have easily talked me into it.  but, even though i’d like to show him up by pulling out my money and paying for it, i am thinking logically, and it’s stupid to pay 30 dollars so i can use an xbox for four days.  maybe when i’m 50 and still hate everyone because i was never cool i can work at radio shack too.  crap.  i never was cool.  i’m almost halfway there. 

have i the right to touch you?  have i the right to feel you?