Looking back, I realize that at some point in my life I made the most hilarious choice there is in where to go to school. I’d decided to go to the proud University of New Mexico, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The name itself should have tipped me off that I was going to be spending my college daze (get it?) in the craziest place possible. It is however only over the last few months that I have come to grasp that.
If you’ve never been to the University area of Albu-Quirky, where I live, there are a few things you need to know: 1) there is alcohol frickin everywhere, 2) there are homeless people frickin everywhere, 3) the only frickin building material they use down here is frickin adobe and it is FUCKING EVERYWHERE, 4) the wildlife was designed on an acid trip, 5) there is something of a ridiculous rich/poor class divide, but we won’t go into that because the Campus Socialite doesn’t want to lower itself into a forum for political debate (mainly because all arguments would inevitably end in, “Nuh uh, my penis is bigger than your penis!”). Anyway, let’s go through some of those points and maybe casually mention all of the other crazy stuff along the way as it comes up. This isn’t Suburbia anymore, folks. This is a different kind of crazy.
So as I said: Booze, Everywhere. The only places that I haven’t seen hints of alcoholism flooding the city are in, like, flower shops and stuff. They sell liquor at gas stations down here. They only recently banned drive-through liquor stores (SERIOUSLY?). They sell liquor at frickin Walgreen’s. Yes, you can pick up a bottle of Jack with your prescriptions and some Twinkies if you’re feelin’ in that kind of mood. And you will be in that mood, because something about this place makes alcohol taste like maple syrup on the way down.
Here’s where you, my dear reader, might counter that I’m biased because like every college student on every college campus everywhere (except Brigham Young, but fudge that place) I’m surrounded by people like me; that is, drunks. And you’re right, but the difference being that whereas in most places the alcoholism filters out after a certain age, here it stays until you die. And they will serve booze at your funeral, by the way.
The grocery store I go to converts into a liquor store from 10 PM until it closes at midnight. The queue is entirely full of people hauling 30-packs and handles of the hard stuff. If you buy vegetables during this period, people will shoot you dirty looks. Let me repeat that. IF YOU BUY VEGETABLES, PEOPLE WILL SHOOT YOU DIRTY LOOKS.
Now this next one goes hand in hand with the alcoholism that everyone here pretends isn’t happening, because the homeless person’s natural state of being is usually, umm, “inebriated.” First off, let me say that I have nothing against homeless people at all. Shit, I’d take hanging with some homeless dudes over rape-frenzied frat boys any day. But there are a lot of them down here, and sometimes it can get sort of eerie walking the streets at night and realizing that you’re the only person on the sidewalk who actually has a destination.
They flock here for a number of reasons: it’s right off a few major highways, the winters here are relatively mild, there is a steady supply of their favorite beverage, and because well stuff. Before you come to Albuquerque you’d better have an escape plan, or else you ain’t never leavin’.
And what makes the bums here unique is that they have names. Me and my friends trade stories about Son of Paul and Blanket Guy and Chris Who Knew Bruce Lee. That is a thing I’m glad I came here for: to know that these people have stories too. Because they are people, and most of us seem to forget that for some reason.
If you come from anywhere that is not here (like I did), then the buildings themselves will slowly drive you insane. Every, Fucking, Building, Everywhere (with the rare exception) is made of adobe. The entire place is tan. Albuquerque made no attempt to try and distinguish itself from the surrounding desert because when people first settled here I’m sure they assumed that they’d fade away into the frickin sand and wanted to make sure they did so gracefully. Unfortunately, Albuquerque somehow managed to keep its stuff together and now it remains as a single, tannish splotch in the landscape.
Worse – and excuse me for delving so much into architecture here – adobe doesn’t quite sustain itself for really massive buildings, so as a result the skyline is about two stories high, and all of the buildings taller than that seem to be owned by banks with horrible aesthetic taste. And since the buildings are so short, it makes it seem like there are 20 times as many billboards as there are in any normal city. There is a certain lingering romance to adobe that I’m sure I’ll always keep close to my frozen heart, but goddammit after I move away from here I hope I never see that stuff again.
The building style is a mark of the strange-ass culture that exists here, because by god this isn’t some Middle-America stuff. Albuquerque is halfway Mexico. You can spend your entire life here without ever knowing a word of English, and you might even thrive. This place doesn’t really belong to the US. It just happens to be here.
Life in the desert is rough. The primary focus is not to thrive and flourish like it is in other more welcoming places. The focus is to do your best to not die. The plants and animals here have done some amazing stuff to make sure they meet their goal. Most of them look like they were pulled out of a sci-fi movie.
There is a certain species of yucca plant here (pictured above) that for most of its life does its yucca thang and just chills and makes new leaves and smokes bud with all the other yuccas and is just “waitin’ for somethin’ to happen, man, ya know?” And then, once in its life, it gets horny. And it has the most magnificent boner. In the spring, in a matter of two months or so, it shoots up a stalk that is a good twelve feet high. And it is as thick and as firm as an aspen tree. Think about that. Most trees take years to get to that point, but the yucca does it in one desperate moment to get its groove on. And the flowers that then sprout from it don’t look like they were created on this planet. Quite frankly, it’s surreal to witness one of these things in actuality, because it doesn’t seem like it can exist the way it does. And everything down here is like that. It kind of makes sense why the people would be so fudgeed up, thinking about it.
Now if you come from LA or New York or some other bustling frickin metropolis, I’m sure you probably read this rolling your eyes, thinking snidely that your city is ten times crazier. But fudge you. You haven’t seen this place. There’s just something… off about it. It’s subtle and if you don’t pay attention you’ll dismiss it like every other snob. New Mexico’s called the Land of Enchantment, and whoever came up with that didn’t just do a lot of peyote. In addition to all the peyote, they noticed something about this place. That it’s kind of fudgeed up. It’s like some strange time warp, and when you get here you might sit down and stare into space and before you know it twenty years have gone by. And then you leave. And you’ll never quite remember what happened.
Come see Albuquerque. Take a look at insanity as it was meant to be.
