Police raided the Krazy Kat record store this week in the culmination of a five month investigation of the business. Krazy Kat was allegedly copying music onto CDs and then selling them at a fraction of the original price.

Selling more then seven pirated CDs is a fourth-degree felony.

Local reporters and cameramen in attendance and were able to capture this rare poetic utterance from a surprised city employee. "When I came here, I came to go to the bathroom. And then all of a sudden, they came in here and I'm like, 'Holy (guess which expletive went here), what's going on here?"

Fascinating.

Customers were allowed to leave because, interestingly enough, it is not against the law to buy a pirated CD. Only to sell them. I guess as long as you're giving your money to someone, the RIAA is happy?

Nobody was arrested or charged in the raid, police are planning on filing charges after they sort through all of the seized items. Apparently the store has been warned in the past to stop copying CDs.

As much as I hate the RIAA I think they might be in the right here. This is the kind of thing they should prosecute. A store profiting off of CDs without giving any money to the artists. Plus, they had been warned before.  This is a whole different league than some teenager downloading the new Paris Hilton album.

My heart goes out to the cop that has to listen to/index that for evidence.

Specifically, I’m referring to the ingenuity with which many inhabitants of Las Cruces and surrounding Doña Ana County have managed to assault, kill, and otherwise terrorize one another. Because there’s simply so much material to work with, I’ll confine myself to a few incidents that have taken place throughout this past month, as reported in the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Don’t get me wrong--not everyone aspires to greatness. For many, attacking or killing is a pedestrian act, no more deserving of exertion than any other daily routine. That appears to be the case for someone like Robert O. Soto, who’s been indicted for doing nothing more interesting than allegedly causing the death of a motorcyclist with his SUV while drunk. I can’t even give him credit for managing to commit this outrage on his very first attempt at drunk driving, since he was convicted of another DWI in 2000.

Similarly, I’ll admit that I am none too impressed by the gang violence that allegedly led Enrique Gumoro Vega a.k.a. Gomero Vega of Anthony, NM, to hospitalize three men with a handgun. We hear about rival gangs tearing up their neighborhoods every day, so where’s that special something, that spark that makes this crime stand out from all the rest? At least the residents of the mobile home where the shooting occurred were treated to a nearly four-hour SWAT standoff. (I bet that was neat.) And since Vega is still at large, the excitement level has some potential. And if you happen to know where he is, you can participate in the fun by calling 575-525-1911 or 575-526-0795.

However, other stories show a more inspired criminal element. For example, if you’re going to ruin your life with a DWI, there’s simply no credible artistic way to do it that doesn’t involve an epic journey and extensive damage, as one man knows well:

According to DASO investigators, James Naylor, 36, of the 960 Block of Aloe Vera, allegedly lost control of his vehicle, a 1998 GMC Jimmy SUV, causing it to travel 220 feet down an embankment, over a berm, through some mesquite bushes, crashing into a residence located at 4290 Rocky Acres Trail. Naylor's vehicle sustained extensive damage.

But to really hit this one home, I think we’ll need some senseless endangerment:

At the time of the crash, Naylor had with him as passengers in his vehicle, his children, age 7 and 8.

 
In a thankful twist ending to this endeavor, the kids didn’t sustain life-threatening injuries. I’d put Naylor in the “amateur” category, but with alleged antics like these, he could well be on his way to bigger things.

In a trend solidifying southern New Mexico’s reputation for independent spirit and innovation, other criminals are choosing to eschew such routine weapons as cars and guns. Instead, they follow their own paths.

Some simply use what’s most readily at hand, in deeply disconcerting ways. One man, not to be deterred by an apparent lack of weapons, not only became “physically abusive” with two police officers, but he allegedly spit into the face into the face of another.

Spitting in a cop’s face. Powerful, a universal symbol, but still visceral and surprising. You know, like art.

And Joel Garcia invoked a pageant of high tragedy in Berino, NM when he swung a pickax at his wife.  He missed, embedding the pickax in the wall behind the couch where she’d been sitting. Then he continued his maniacal performance by attempting to hide in a dumpster. When the authorities arrived, he emerged brandishing a barbecue steak fork. Alas, it was not enough to keep police from subduing him.

A story like that has a hardscrabble grittiness to it. Like a folk song.

But the work of a true artist is not just innovation. It’s also illusion. Some people accomplish that in small ways, such as Karissa Bonilla.  Her target may have only been the presumably overworked and underpaid manager of a local discount store, but she inspired terror by brandishing a weapon of apparently mysterious and unknowable qualities:

Police said Karissa Bonilla, 18, allegedly used either a knife or screwdriver to threaten the manager of the Dollar General Store, 2300 N. Main St.

 
According to police, Bonilla became aggressive after the manager and another store employee confronted her about possibly shoplifting.

Not only that, she then “identified herself to police as Teresa Ramirez, police said.”   Like many other great artists, Karissa/Teresa can’t seem to be confined to just one identity.

Still, compared to some, she’s small change. Take, for example, this guy:

Philip J. Herron, who lived alone at 5036 Apex Mine Trail, was found dead Friday evening, surrounded by loaded guns and having appeared to overdose on prescription medication, said Doña Ana Sheriff's Office Sgt. Joe Reynaud.

Sure, it’s a little dramatic. But what really makes this story special is that before he offed himself, Herron called his brother in Virginia and claimed that he was going to commit “suicide by cop.” His brother contacted state police, leading to a six-hour SWAT operation and three-hour investigation comprising 50 law enforcement officers from all around the state. But Herron was already dead when they showed up! Whether it was a final grandiose act of performance art, or some other form of artistic commentary, his independence of thought is clear. As Doña Ana Sheriff's Office Sgt. Joe Reynaud said,

suicide by cop is not very common and we don't see it very often in our area.

It seems like the truest artists, the most creative ones, aren’t content to merely beleaguer others. Like Herron, Juan Carlos Rivas turned the sword of vengeance upon himself when he allegedly bashed his own head against the side of his car and poured transmission fluid all over himself.  But unlike Herron, his motives weren’t exactly suicidal. Instead, Rivas was attempting to convince his wife and authorities that he’d been kidnapped.  Why?   He couldn't admit that he’d spent a night out with other women.

Rivas… initially called his wife, in Canutillo, Texas, the morning of July 3 and allegedly told her he had been abducted by three subjects and placed in the trunk of his car. According to El Paso authorities, his wife called 911 and emergency dispatchers then contacted Rivas on his cell phone. He repeated the abduction story to dispatchers.

 
Later the same day, Rivas appeared disoriented when he was located near San Miguel in Doña Ana County.

Rivas has been charged by authorities in both Doña Ana County and El Paso County, making his artistic range of influence truly impressive.

Obviously, not everyone can aspire to the creative life. Just like everywhere else, the vast majority of people living and working in Doña Ana County are not cutting edge artists or cultural innovators, but just good, honest folks, not willing to take on the challenges of a life of crime. They lead their quiet lives and never end up in the journalistic limelight of the Las Cruces Sun-News. Still, it’s a comfort to know that some select few in the rugged landscape of Doña Ana County are ready and willing to commit to exceptional modes of thought and boundary-pushing actions.  Keep your eye on Las Cruces!

- Lisa Barrow

In New Mexico, a state known for its balloons and not without its violence, it should not be too surprising that someone has managed to combine the two.

In March of 2008, fifty-five-year-old Thomas Hickman of North Richland Hills, Texas, drove his Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo west into New Mexico, until his vehicle ran out of gas and sputtered to a halt just southeast of the town of Santa Rosa.

There, it seems this West Texas Director of Operations for the fast-food seafood chain Red Lobster walked out into a desert field carrying a handgun, a Smith & Wesson Airweight, that had been partially filed down so as to weigh as little as possible. He filled a number of white helium-filled balloons, tied the balloons to the gun, covered his mouth with duct tape, and fatally shot himself in the back of the head.

Investigators have since found that Hickman’s life insurance policy would pay Hickman’s wife $388,000 upon his death, or twice that if his death was deemed an accident.

It seems that Hickman had intended for the gun to float away after his suicide, making his death appear to be a murder—which it could have been a part of as well, if the gun had floated over to, say, the home of a family with small children—but instead the weapon proved too heavy for the attached balloons and quickly became entangled in a group of nearby cactus plants and bushes.

So that didn’t work out.

And what’s worse is that even before the story recently went public—in the Dallas Morning News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, among other papers—a lot of people began talking about how similar it all seemed to an episode of the popular forensics show “CSI.” His plan hadn’t worked—and it wasn’t even original.

Still, it’s strange. And sad. A guy’s friends have lost their buddy. A wife has lost her husband. A son has lost his father. And a man, for whatever reason, has given up his life.

As depressing as suicide can be, even a weird one like this, it’s almost never as depressing of an act to imagine as it is to imagine just how terrible the victim/perpetrator must have felt right before ending his life. This guy had really thought this out—filing down the gun, buying the helium, buying the balloons, driving out into the desert—and it would seem he had basically put a price on his life of $388,000 to $776,000, deciding his family would rather have that money than have him, deciding that that was worth more to them than he was.

This was a project, not an impulse, a planned event, not a spur-of-the-moment action, and that this man's self-loathing or indifference to his own existence could persist throughout the undertaking’s entire duration, that he would work so hard just to end his own self, is...well, the word for what it is certainly isn’t a cheerful one.

Each of them is a potential cause of the largest reported salmonella outbreak in the United States in over 20 years. Forty-two states have been hit, and the number of people who have fallen ill has risen to 1148. New Mexico is one of the top states affected with over a hundred people sick.

Salmonella, despite all of the hype, is not the most dangerous virus. So far only 220 of the infected people have had to be hospitalized and there has been one confirmed death due to the virus. Most people recover without treatment. Infants, elderly people, and those with weak immune systems are most likely to develop serious illness. In extreme situations salmonella may spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and to other parts of the body, possibly causing death.

However, nobody's calling the symptoms pleasant. In most people salmonella causes diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12-72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts 4-7 days.

The interesting part of this is what a hard time the government is having in pinning down the culprit. Originally tomatoes were the main suspect but the FDA and CDC has since widened the search to include cilantro and chili peppers. The problem, they say, is that people rarely remember what exactly they've eaten.

So far all tested samples have proven completely absent of salmonella which is causing some to doubt that fresh produce is the cause at all. Currently the FDA does not consider canned food to be a serious risk, despite canned peanut butter carrying salmonella in 2007.

Until the real cause is found the CDC recommends that you refrigerate your vegetables when not in use, wash them, and, when possible, cook them.

Source: Investigation of Outbreak of Infections Caused by Salmonella Saintpaul (http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul/)
Source: Salmonella Sickness Toll Climbs to 1,148 (http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/07/15/salmonella-sickness-toll-climbs-to-1148.html)

The rock, which can be seen to the left, weighs about 40 grams and appears to depict several lunar phases, a solar eclipse, and a supernova says a recent edition of the Roswell Daily Record. The stone was found on Cedar Hill by Roswell businessman Robert Ridge. Ridge actually found the rock several years ago in September of 2004 and put it in a safety deposit box for safe keeping.

In 2007, during the 60^th Anniversary of the Roswell Incident, Ridge showed the rock to UFO investigators Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer. The two researchers showed the rock around to several experts including some anthropologists who said the rock could not have been scored or drilled without the help of high-tech modern technology such as lasers and speed water-fed grinders and drills.

Roswell Mayor Sam LaGrone handled the rock as well and said in the Roswell Daily Record that the rock adds another element of “the strangeness of Roswell” 61 years after the famous UFO crash.

As for the rock’s magnetic properties, if one puts a compass near the rock the compass needle will spin due to the rock’s magnetic polarity. Also the rock will spin “depending on the position of a magnet over the image surface,” Zukowski said in the Record.

After the above information was published in the Wednesday July 09^th, issue of the Roswell Daily Record several town residents came forward claiming to have seen similar rocks years ago sold to tourists. A few other residents brought in similar rocks to the Record, however, none of those rocks seemed to be quite as sophisticated as the one found by Ridge.

Whether the rock is man made or something more mysterious, the stone is bound to raise more questions than answers. For more information on the rock be sure to check out the two Roswell Daily Record links above.

—John LeMay

 
Oh. No? Not so much?

You’re not alone. The world collectively sighed and shrugged its shoulders upon learning that the entire town of White’s City, NM would be put up for sale to the highest bidder. No one on eBay ponied up a single dime in the auction that ended on July 11^th, even though the Buy It Now price was a mere $5 million.

But perhaps you, and everyone else, have just been biding your time. Starting at 11am on Monday, July 14^th, 2008, the whole thing’s going on the block again in eleven chunks of vintage southwestern goodness. Ten of the parcels are basically vacant lots that will be sold “absolute,” which is fancy auctioneer jargon for “we’ll take whatever you give us.” The prime real estate, however, is White’s City proper (parcel #1), which contains such attractions as two motels, a restaurant, an RV park, a museum, retail shops, and a gas station.

If land isn’t your thing, Higgenbotham Auctioneers Intl., Ltd., Inc. will also be separately auctioning off the contents of the Million Dollar Museum. (That’s right. I said A MILLION DOLLARS.) This mecca of dilapidated typewriters, two-headed taxidermy, “apothecary items,” creepy dolls, wall-mounted steer horns, and mummified human remains will offer its wares to the world over the course of three days beginning in the afternoon on July 14^th.

White’s City, located at the junction of US 62/180 and the Carlsbad Caverns Highway , has been in the possession of the White family ever since Charlie L. White staked out a homestead claim on a spot of land near “the much talked about bat cave” in 1926. He began building on his 120 acres in 1928, but had to dig thirteen wells before discovering water. (The 460 acre-feet of water rights are part of the real estate auction on July 14^th. Quick, buy ‘em now, before the price of gas sends society into a Mad Max-like tailspin of chaos and anarchy. You’ll be glad you did, assuming you survive the apocalypse.) White’s descendants, rather understandably squandering their heritage, say that they’d like to pursue other interests, though you have to wonder how exciting life could be after owning and operating the premier tourist destination of southern New Mexico.

The fruits of my labor at the Los Griegos Library.  It's a picture of Charles L. White and his wife.  In a book!

More information is available on the auctioneers’ website, http://www.higgenbotham.com/, including, supposedly, bidders’ packets. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did; neither of my two attempts at registration resulted in my being emailed the site password I was promised.  Still, if you want to buy land, or you want to buy stuff, this may be your best chance for quite awhile!

 - Lisa Barrow

                                                                                                                             —Megan Walker

It is a testament to the power of words that terrifying true-life events can be made wondrous or manageable or even humorous, simply by converting those events into phonetic units of language—into lines and blocks of black on white symbols.

Truman Capote took the horrifying murders of a Kansas farm family, and wrote them into In Cold Blood, a book of undeniable beauty. Carl Sagan took the universe in all its unfathomable complexity and wrote Cosmos, a book that helps readers begin to comprehend and celebrate the vastness of what is. And John Kennedy Toole took his intense feelings of depression and alienation and somehow wrote A Confederacy of Dunces, a comic masterpiece.

Words are amazing like that. They transform the way we perceive events, people, and places. See the West, then read a Cormac McCarthy description of what you just saw, and then see it again, anew. Words can be transformative, and yet with that power come limitations.

Words change things. Merely by describing something, that something is in a way reduced, contained, simplified, altered. A good writer can make the experience of reading about something feel very close to the experience of living it—for instance, read James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men for a vivid idea of life as a poor white tenant farmer in the 1930s—but something also almost inevitably gets lost in the process. In certain hands, or for certain effects, dramatic facts and events put into words can come out sounding mundane. Expressions of heartfelt love written down can seem maudlin or sappy. And situations brimful of absolutely terror can, once reduced to lines on a page, seem laughable.

Take for example, an incident from the police report of the July 3, 2008 issue of Espanola’s Rio Grande Sun. It reads:

Thursday, June 19

• 12:34 a.m. — Dispatchers received multiple calls from Las Lomas Apartments residents who said a man was yelling "the punisher" and kicking a woman's door. He was gone when police arrived.

It’s funny.

But a large part of this item’s humor is due to words. Here it is, a single paragraph, a couple of sentences, a collection of morphemes and phonemes strung together in a language we can understand, in a way that allows us to assemble a mental picture of this unusual occurrence. But without that reduction, without that diminishing and that packaging, without taking that actual event and paring it down to something so manageable as the formal anecdote above, that really must have been one hellaciously frightening experience. Like: terrifying. Like: the freakiest thing ever.

There you are, a woman alone in your Española apartment, in a town that, judging by its police blotters, is already no stranger to crime. You’re alone, when suddenly, someone begins bashing away at your door, kicking at it, violently shaking it in its frame, on its hinges, rattling the doorknob. The stranger is relentless, and he wants to come inside, bad. He attacks the door, and he attacks the door, and as he attacks, he yells.

“The punisher! The punisher, the punisher! The punisher!”

He is deranged and ridiculous, and he is going to bash at your door until it breaks, until he comes stumbling across your doorstep in a blur of splintering wood and lunacy and his own fists, until he comes reeling across the linoleum toward you. His shouts are nonsensical, but all the more terrifying for their idiocy.

 

“The punisher, the punisher! The punisher, the punisher!”

When the police sirens finally sound in the distance, and the kicking and the crazed shouting finally turn into silence, the man slips away. Perhaps he’ll be back later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a month. Maybe in a year. You will always have to worry about it. Or you’ll have to move.

To the woman in the story, to the one person who has endured this event as a reality, the police account of the event no doubt lacks almost all humor. To her, this event is no doubt an experience she is grateful to have survived, a terrifying and unpleasant ordeal that will forever make her heart race when she recalls it.

Only the rest of us, distanced as we are from the event by its encapsulation into words, will ever be able to just read about it, to imagine the crazy man at the door, and to laugh and laugh and laugh.

“The punisher, the punisher! The punisher, the punisher!”

And to laugh and laugh and laugh some more.

And laugh.

—Mike Smith