Looks like Justin St. Germain’s NYT essay has found an audience back in Albuquerque, where the president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce opines that violence is bad for the bottom line.
The perception that the local coppers are trigger-happy goons has punched a few holes in business development, chamber boss Terri Cole told The Albuquerque Journal.
“People who wanted to visit Albuquerque or start a business here didn’t do either,” she said. “Clearly that creates challenges for making Albuquerque the type of place where people want to start a business or raise a family.”
Indeed. You may recall that Hemingway wrote of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” rather than “A Bullet-Riddled Shithole.”
The FBI crime stats make for an interesting read, too.
• Late update: In related news, Herself is off on another house-hunting expedition, this time after pulling a full shift at the new job. She’s starting to remind me of Ruby “The Ant” Archuleta from John Nichols’ “The Milagro Beanfield War.” I might have to come up with a new sobriquet for the little woman. The Herminator?
Mad Blog Media 
You can count on the Chamber of Commerce – cue the clip of the crazy Texan with his shootin’ irons from The Simpsons – “If the cops killin’ people is bad for bidness, sumthin’ better be dadburn done about it. Forget about what Jeebus might or might not do, this is the BOTTOM LINE we’re talkin’ about!
Nothing like greed to steer folks in the right direction, eh? Good luck with the move my friend!
Oy, you guys are depressing me. And I’m not moving, yet.
Patrick, don’t mess with her. She is on a mission and will not be deterred. Your new digs will be just capital!
We borderland folks are not easily spooked, and we will be there for the first “Mad Dog Media Duke City Bike and Brewery Tour.”
Sign me up for that tour, Pat….
It has to be good for the brain, all this snooping around, house-shopping, and data-crunching, right? Helps keep that Al Zeimer fella away from your doorstep.
The raw numbers about violent crime and home prices can be a tad harrowing, but I keep stumbling across nifty little bits that I find encouraging, like the city’s bicycling page. It’s head and shoulders over what we settle for here in Bibleburg, despite a bicycle excise tax and the tireless efforts of a few devoted souls.
I went and looked at the city’s bike page a few weeks ago. That Esperanza shop looks interesting, and we would like to ride that trail. We would also like to go back to the zoo, botanical garden, and aquarium. I need to see what the concert schedule is at the garden.
http://www.cabq.gov/culturalservices/biopark/tickets
Al Zeimer? I much prefer the Italians Al Fresco, Al Giardino or even their cranky brother Al Arrabbiata.
Then again, there was the shooting reported in today’s Journal. Some fucktard tries to force his female friend into their truck after a serious argument. Girl and girl’s friend refuse, so nutcase repeatedly rams their car as they flee with his Big Man Truck until the car is in shambles. The fucktard then rams a responding sherriff’s deputy’s car into tatters and gets out of his truck after trapping the BCSO deputy in a wrecked police car, at which point he is blown away.
As my gay friend Brooks, who fled Texas for Honolulu once told me, “some people just deserve killin’ ”
Pictures pretty much describe this one.
http://www.abqjournal.com/441147/abqnewsseeker/clerk-said-he-called-911-in-sheriffs-office-shooting.html
Really? I must admit Albuquerque must have had foresight when they named the streets. “his store on the corner of Gun Club and Coors SW”. Was it near Big Fuckin’ Truck and Crazy Crackhead NE?
I always liked the Tom Waits line from “Nighthawks At the Diner” about “standing at the corner of Fifth and Vermouth” myself. And I think it was Cheech and Chong who riffed on “the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.”
But I gotta admit, Gun Club and Coors … you just can’t make that shit up.
Good Hemingway short story, Patrick. Thank you.
Sounds like Herself and Herself are on the same page. Both are enthusiastically pushing into new digs for the next exciting portions of their lives. Meena often told me she considered Los Alamos to be “camping’, and I guess its time for her to pack the sleeping bags and campstove and move back to civilization. Well, that’s my theory, anyway. Not being a Ph.D. psychologist, I’m probably fulla schitt, as usual.
oh, and to go with the title of this page…
Maybe you guys could rent for a year or so? You may find yourselves wanting to come back in a year or two. Also you could learn about good and bad neighborhoods and traffic flow before putting your cash down.
Was thinking the same thing, Debby. That is an option, at least until the the end of whatever probationary periods, etc, that SNL imposes. Of course, we didn’t wait that long. Silly me.
I’ve never tried renting with a one-eyed dog and two cats. Generally the one dog was enough of a deal-breaker when I was still single-o.
I remember one bozo in Denver who showed me a rental in which he would oh so graciously permit dogs. I took one quick look around and said, “Dude, I wouldn’t let my dog live here. He has standards.”
Got to take care of the ones who give unconditional love to Irishmen who have questionable pasts.
word, o’g
Reminds me of when we came to Sioux City. I thought there must have been some huge tax on interior house paint (car mufflers too) based on the shacks-for-rent we looked at. We got very lucky with the one we finally found. The rental scene was just as bad when we got the ultimatum “buy or move” a few years ago, so we took the lesser of the two evils. Next time we face this kind of crap I’m hoping it’ll be in Italy. Good luck O’G!
It depends on the market. Boulder/Denver is a really tight rental market and if you have pets it eliminates probably 2/3 of the available homes. Maybe ABQ isn’t quite so bad though.
I did find a nice place in trendy, upscale, gunfire-free Louisville a few months ago when I got tired of living in the slums of CrimeMont. I was fortunate to find it. Units go fast here. With my home in Crestone, purchasing a second home up here is out of the question for now.
Good luck with the search, PO’G! I looked into moving there a winter or two ago (I always do that when the temperature goes below zero and stays there). Not much for software jobs down there though.
Just thought I would tell you that “The Herminator” is the official nickname of NASCAR racer Hermie Sadler. Nice guy in public,and highly competitive driver on the track. The nickname was as much a poke at his off-track personality a it was anything else.