I'll be the first to admit that lately, Dirt City Chronicles has been focused more on Las Cruces and Southern New Mexico. It all started with the roasting My Genuine Find's Bobby Mares over a bed of coals followed by a picture postcard look at Lost Cruces and a kinder gentler critique of Ronnie Johnson, next it was a glowing appraisal of blues traveler CW Ayon and an announcement about the upcoming Silver City Blues Festival. If you've never been to Silver City, this would be a good reason to do so. Be forewarned it's a good five hours from Albuquerque, but this year's lineup is pretty damn good. Silver City is a quaint place, set on the edge of the Gila Wilderness, there you have Mormon ranchers and old school hippies rubbing shoulders with snarly Hispanics, who in this part of the state always wear camouflage. They all seem to go out of their way to avoid interacting, while cautiously eyeing each other around town. Silver City has never been the most racially harmonious of places, and the downturn in the economy and the subsequent down scaling of the mining industry hasn't made things any better. Yeppers, it seems that some of the luster has rubbed off the old burg, but it's still a good place to pretend you're somebody other than yourself. And if I'm on the subject of S.W. New Mexico, I can't leave Deming out, that's the subject of my next article. Deming is near and dear to my heart, alternately cloaked in dust and baked by the sun, Deming was once known as "Little Chicago" and like the second city, it works. Naturally, it would be wrong if I ignored the psycho ward next to a body of water that is Hot Springs (T or C) I'm long overdue to write about Carlos Trujillo and his uniquely skewered (some would say sick) view of life and romance. The focus of DCC isn't shifting south, I'm just going through a southwestern phase, I'll pull out of it soon. Then just like a census taker, I'll return, Albuquerque will not be spared the wrath of Aguirre.
