Photo via Concept Trends

One last post about Taos.
A friend suggested I look out for "Intentional Communities" (after Waco communes sought a new name) as we travel for free places to camp in exchange for a music concert by the boys.  I scoped out the Taos area and the only one was the Earthship Community.  I emailed and called and called and finally got someone on the phone to arrange a small corner of land to park our trailer for a couple nights, check out the community, and play a little music.  A recap of my conversation with the Earthship representative after I made my proposal of music for a place to park:
"Um yeah, we don't really do that but you can stay in one of the Earthships for $230 a night"
"Oh well, we haven't much money to spend on housing while we make our documentary.  Is it possible to just camp for a night on a small square of land?"
"Uh yeah, well...yeah, we don't really do that either but there's a camp ground down the road for about $20 a night."
By that time I was like, "Woman!  You're entirely missing the point here!"  But I let it go.

 Photo via Treehugger

     So while we were staying with the boys' parents rented Garbage Warrior, a documentary about the Earthship Community and Micheal Reynolds, the visionary architect behind it all.  It was a really good film and the people behind the community looked awesome-my kind of people.  Plus, all the aid work they do for countries hit by natural disasters is amazing!  They're doing a bunch of work in Haiti right now.
     While in Taos, I dragged everyone up there to scope it out and at least go to the visitor center...haha, no such luck.  They charge $5 to just walk through the model home and are kind of uptight in general.  The sane people that we hung out with in Taos (aka: the potters) were all of the opinion that the Earthship people are "chappy-asses".  So it's a total shame because I really love what they're doing but geez, I wonder why they're so uptight.

Taos Vortex

I've decided that Taos has to be on par with the Bermuda Triangle as a inescapable vortex.  We took off down the road and passed by the Earthship Community (something I'll write about shortly), when all of a sudden the gas peddle stopped working.  Trying to be a proper filmmaker I whipped out the video camera in time for Conner to flip his shit.  He shook the steering wheel and yelled, "Fuuuucckkk!"  I got it on film.  In the back, Dan and Kat fussed at me that "now probably isn't a good time to do that".  We pulled off the road and started making plans for Dan and Kat to hitchhike back into Taos to try and find a fuel pump--the thing Conner said was busted and without which we wouldn't make it back to Colorado.  He also was pissed off because he figured we would be stuck on the side of the road, 15 miles outside of Taos, for another week while the correct fuel pump for Breathless came in--it's a small town without much car part variety.  To top it off, it's New Mexico and we didn't have cell phone service.  Once they climbed into some unnamed car we wouldn't know what happened to them unless they came back.  Du-duh-duhnn...

We're going over how much food we have, how little water we have, and how long Conner and I should wait before we start to worry.  I go across the road to take a photo of this amazing light, which I couldn't seem capture on film, and I hear behind me--"Huh, huh, uh guys...nevermind.  I guess I'll check under the hood next time before I freak out.  It's cool...just the air filter fell off because these New Mexico roads are so shitty...I'll just screw it back on and we should be fine." 

We wipe our foreheads and think, sweet, calamity averted.  And yeah, the roads in New Mexico are notoriously shitty.  They're all so full of potholes or badly done patch jobs that it shakes Breathless something aweful--when they're paved.  A lot of the time it's just gravel.  In fact when we tried to find the cool free hot springs, we made it 2 miles down the road (and 20 min later), holding on to the doors for fear that she would rattle apart, before we all decided to bail and turn our backs on the hotsprings.

So we get back on the road, relieved, and singing along to Weezer.

We're in the middle of nowhere, winding our way up the mountain pass right by Tres Piedras, and we run out of gas.  The gas gauge doesn't really work at all-it shows full until the tank is empty and then it only shows half-full.  It's dusk and Dan volunteers to hitchhike into the nearest town; Chama about 1/2 hour away.  Conner starts cooking dinner over the propane stove, and I'm trying to be photo-artsy, when we hear this god-aweful sound.  Kat and I are so freaked out that we freak Conner out who tells us to get in the car-not something you want to hear when you're scared.  We're city girls and we aren't super saavy about the mountain sounds; it all just sounds scary to us.  We ate our rice and beans, played a bit of poker, and counted a total of 5 cars passing by the overlook that we had coasted into after running out of gas. 

Man, it seemed like it took forever for Dan to come back.  He caught a ride with some Texans to the gas station and a ride back with a man named Gus.  He was fine but Kat and I had made ourselves nauseous worrying that he would get eaten by bears...reports of attacks seem to be in the Colorado papers all the time...or something worse.  Since our luck had been so crappy all day long we decided to camp out at the overlook and try to make it back to Colorado again the next morning. 

That was not one of our most graceful days.
Sidenote: The cool free hot springs can be found heading north on 522.  Right before you hit the Rio Grande Gorge, hang a right on the dirt road...there's no sign, just the last dirt road on the right before the gorge.  Drive down the road till you see a bunch of cars parked on the side of the road on the right.  Park and walk down the embankment to the springs.  It's a bit of a hike down but there's a path.

Seco Pearl Piano

I just liked the piano decorations at the Seco Pearl...so I took a photo.

Seco Pearl

The other interesting people we found in Taos were at the Seco Pearl; a non-profit artist commune and coffee house that hosts underground bands.  They have a big garden out back and a hostel next door, called the Snow Mansion.  We stopped by one night while they were shutting down and they invited us back the next night to do an impromptu music show, which we totally took them up on. 

Interior shots of the Seco Pearl.

We showed up to find two Seco Pearl residents playing violin with a guest who was on his way from California to Istambul.  The guitar guy had a song book of Eastern European Gypsy music and they were rocking out.  Eventually they started jamming with the boys and it kinda made my day.  We recorded some of the music and hopefully I can put a couple clips up online....

 Jamming at the Seco Pearl

H

Hoola Hooping at the Seco Pearl...some of the residents.

Sane People In Taos

The coolest and most sane people we found in Taos had to be the potters. Since Kat is at Alfred University in upstate New York studying ceramics, she's been hitting up every decent potter she can find.  So the day before we left Taos we ended up hanging out with Scott Carlson in Arroyo Secco ( a couple minutes drive from downtown Taos).  Apparently one day local resident Julia Roberts was trying to avoid some paparazzi and Scott hid her in his studio (next door to this photo) as the photographers lost interest and couldn't find her.  Now she's a huge fan of Scott and buys tons of his work.  So Kat and I hung out and got some Carlson business lessons one afternoon.

Carlson Business Lesson
1.  Create a persona--Scott lives in a tourist heavy area.  He assumes that people come to Taos expecting a laid-back and slightly naughty time.  Scott inebriates people to the point they relax, feel part of the in-crowd, and have faulty judgment regarding matters of taste and money.
2.  Act like you don't give a shit--act like you don't care if they buy your products or not and people won't feel pressured to buy and it'll be beneficial for you in the long.
3.  Whip out "regret"--when you see someone returning to scope out one of your pieces, and you've done the "I don't give a shit" spiel, then hover in on you-don't-wanna-regret-not-buying-that.  This works best on tourists who will leave town and won't be able to swing back by later.  Regret is powerful--harness it.
4.  Act like their friend--when they feel like your friend then they'll want to take something back to their friends to show off with, "Yeah, we hung out with the guy who made this, got drunk, and had a ball."  They'll want to buy it just to show off to their friends.

Works every time.

How We Spent Our Days In Taos

Get up at noon.  Kat reads in the car.

Conner tries to learn a new song. 

Dan cooks breakfast.

And I try to act as musician.

Conner's in the process of teaching me bass.  So far I've got "Hit The Road Jack" by Stevie Wonder under my belt.

Vacation in Taos

You know what, to be frank, Taos was not awesome.  We went down with grand ideas of how this project was finally going to be.  Dan's girlfriend Kat met us there and we thought that with two happy couples in tow it would be like a ski weekend in Vail--pure heaven.  But it wasn't.

It was monsoon season and it rained every afternoon.  We stayed in this paid campground area in the Kit Carson National Forrest which was $5 per night but no one ever checked.  We stayed there a week and only paid $10.  Shady business I know but hey, we cleaned up the campsite that was originally a total mess.

The boys played several open mic nights and yeah, there were some good musicians, but I couldn't find any Native American musicians who wanted to talk to us-period.  So that part was a total bust.

Open mic at Cafe Tazza

For the most part, it seemed like people checked out of the real world, moved to Taos, and now indulge in their eccentricities to the fullest.  For example it was raining-again-and we had gone to Sabroso to have a drink.  I started talking to this older man at the bar and he ended up being Laird Grant, road manager to the Grateful Dead.  I googled him and yeah, he was their road manager.  It seems like a good rule of thumb that whomever you talk to in Taos, be nice to them no matter how weird they are because they're probably going to been someone back in the day and have made quite a bit of money.  And they would've had to make some money to live in Taos because it's ridiculously expensive...drinks, grocery store, restaurants.  Julia Roberts lives there.  Dennis Hopper lived there before he died.  Checking out of reality to be weird in northern New Mexico.

Laird Grant

Like I said, it's monsoon season and it rained every single afternoon.  Thankfully we did have the trailer and could pile in there reading or playing poker.  

I started hanging out at the coolest coffee shop I could find in town called Wired?  One day I was camping out to do a little Photoshopping and I spilled water all over my computer.  Consequently I was sitting next to the owner and he offered me a job.  I was supposed to start the next day but we decided to skip town and head back to Colorado; we were on weird overload.  Whoops, extra gas money missed.  But if you're ever in Taos and need a good coffee shop, head to Wired?

Wired?

We made it a week and then hightailed it back to Colorado--which is another funny story.  This post seems full so I'll put that story into the next post...something I'll call the Attack Of The Bobcat.

Taos Demographics

Because we were in Arboles for so long, I’m now very interested in demographic facts.  So here goes.  Taos population is 4,700, the median age is 41, and for every 100 females there are 85 males.  Artists have always been attracted to Taos for some reason and in 1900 the Taos Artist Community was founded.  There are tons of galleries in town, although most of them are not awesome.  Taos is also home to the oldest Pueblo in the US; which was totally hounded by the Spanish raiders, meddled with by missionaries, and has been the backdrop of numerous bloody battles.  There’s been bad blood for years between the Native Americans and Whites.  So it’s no wonder we're having such a hard time involved in the Native American music community.

The Finished Rig...and on down to Taos

This is our finished rig!  Denny pulled it out of the junkyard and fixed it up; even painted it to match the car.  So this is our fully retro ride down to Taos.

I have to confess that I was a little worried about going to Taos since everyone we've talked to seems to wish us good luck, hopes we come back alive, and warns us to watch out for the crazies.  The southwest seems to be a hotspot for weird people in general; that people come out here to "get away from it all" and to fully indulge in all their idiosyncrasies.  We've been here for about a week and yeah, I think we're going to pack it up and head north.  Unfortunately I think Taos has been a bit of a bust.

And I don't think I'm a huge fan of the southwest landscape.  I think huge trees that you can barely wrap your arms around and lots of green.  I can appreciate the landscape here but I don't love it.

This is the Rio Grande Gorge; on the north side of Taos.  We were just driving along lots of flat landscape, trying to dodge the tarantulas crossing the highway (just the little males, the females are the large ones that I always envision when I think of a tarantula), and then bam, a huge gash in the landscape called the Rio Grande Gorge.  The wedding scene from Natural Born Killers was filmed right over this guy.