Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

We've Seen Lists of the Best...Here's a List of the Worst

NOB HILL--Both the Alibi and Albuquerque, the Magazine have Best of Burque lists. Now I'm not going to argue about any of their choices. For instance, who would deny that the "Best Local Newspaper Columnist" is indeed Leslie Linthicum? She has turned out to be worth the price of the Albuquerque Journal all by herself.

But all this is only half the story. What we have here is a list of what in the Duke City needs to be Fixed. And let's start with the rest of that newspaper.

Worst Section in the ABQ Journal
1. Sports. With the exception of Ken Sickenger (who can at least write up an intelligent and interesting game summary) the whole Journal sports department should be benched. The failure of the entire team of sportswriters to investigate the Locksley business is hard to comprehend. It took a half hour special on ESPN to convince them there was a real story here. Even the Daily Lobo scooped the Journal on the Locksley story. It wasn't until the Journal gave the story to veteran newsman Martin Salazar that the matter was given its due. Here's an idea: next year give those football press passes to Leslie Linthicum. Her story about the coach's choking incident was hilarious.
2. Editorial Page. Don't have to say anything here. Just shaking my head...daily.
3. Front Page News. Does anybody see anything wrong with two front page pictures of our future mayor as a 'regular guy'? Probably not. Even if it was just a little too cute. One picture showed him playing basketball with his son in his driveway. The other showed him praying over lunch. "There's only one thing missing," I told my wife. "Where's the picture of him playing with his dog?" It turned out to be on Page Two. But to be fair, the Journal does have some writers doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially John Fleck and Winthrop Quigley. Their analyses are generally tops. And Quigley's series on healthcare was the best analysis of the issues I have read anywhere in any publication. No wonder he is being featured more and more.

Worst Place to Drive (and When)
1. Downtown on Friday or Saturday nights. Never in my whole life have I heard of a town that closes off so many streets (including the town's main thoroughfare) two nights a week. Ever tried to find your way back to Nob Hill after an evening in Old Town? Sheer hell. And the traffic moves so slowly that you don't even know you are on a circular road to nowhere for the first 20 minutes.
2. Coronado Shopping Center at Christmas. Don't even think about it.
3. Corrales Road at night. The peaceful village of Corrales just north of Albuquerque owns one of the worst roadways in the entire state. Afraid of destroying the rural nature of the village, this narrow, dark, extremely busy route to personal pastures and custom adobes will kill you..unless you're driving a tank with blinking caution lights or maybe a Hummer on fire. And whatever you do, don't you dare ride a bike or walk. Really.

Worst Place to Find a Date
1. The Journal's monthly DWI page. Now don't tell me you haven't scoured those rows of mug shots looking for a potential partner! I know you have.
2. Church. Albuquerque Magazine lists church as its #1 place to get a date. But so many churches project homophobia, right-wing politics, and a sickening arrogance that leads to them seeming to welcome the End Of The World. Forget It. Go to a peace march instead. Volunteer at Healthcare for the Homeless. Join a political party or even a meditation group. Just stay away from those kind of churches as a place to pick up guys or chicks. Besides, would you really want to get involved with someone who attends church because he wants a date?
3. Stores, Gyms, & ABQ Uptown. All three of these are cited by Alb the Mag as reader favorites. Great advice...if you want to date a mall rat. And do you really want to go to a gym that feels like a meat market? Well, maybe. At least looking at great bodies keeps the mind off the clock.

Worst Place to Have to Wait
1. Presbyterian Emergency Room. I'm sure UNMH is just as bad...maybe worse. A friend of mine in her 70's sat in a wheel chair at Pres from 8:30 at night to 5:00 in the morning waiting to be treated and sent home. The waiting room looked like a third world scene. It seemed like a hundred people, mostly whole families, were camped out on the floor and benches. Another 50 sat around outside. Over half were wearing face masks. Don't let anybody tell you we don't need health care reform. My friend had health insurance. Most of those in the waiting room didn't. What is your own Gold Plan health insurance worth in such a world?
2. The pastry counter at the Flying Star. If you didn't want something bad for you when you got there, a few minutes staring at those pies, eclairs, cheese cakes, bread pudding, and the ever deadly Maximum Fudge Density will grab your tongue until you scream, "Gimme THAT!"
3. In front of your computer as the ABQJournal website wanders slowly onto your screen. That website is the pokiest thing in the world. My dog is faster sniffing his way past a Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot. You can click on the website and still have time to make a sliced ham, cheese, & mayo sandwich before the arrow stops whirling. In fact, you might as well open up two tabs and check your bank balance while waiting for the Journal to come up. And that is if you are a subscriber; non-subscribers still have a 60 second commercial to sit through before they can read more than the headlines.

Don't Get Me Wrong
I am sure there are a multitude of ideas out there: candidates for all kinds of lists. Albuquerque isn't a bad place; it's a great place. It's just that a few things here really could use a Duke City Fix.

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Comment by once banned twice shy on December 1, 2009 at 2:38pm: Sorry, OBTS, but those street closures are helping - not hurting - downtown revitalization.

Mmmmm, sorry, but evidence proves you wrong. Maybe if you're 25 and into bar crawling, that means an activated corridor--but there simply isn't anything else to do other than go to a bar downtown at night. Well, excepting the occasional show at the KiMo or the nasty Sunshine. Please point to one retail establishment that is open after 5:00 downtown. As you know, I couldn't care less about traffic as well (but remember, the Rapid Ride bus stops running at 8:00 at night, so you'd better get on out of there early on). My problem with the blocked streets is that the only sense of place it creates is a big old criminal corral, complete with mounted police and squad cars lined up on the median of Central (and that is the point of the closures--it has ZERO to do with trying to make a cozy Downtown atmosphere and EVERYTHING to do with making police work easier.) Do you really mean to say that people wouldn't walk around on the streets if they weren't blocked off? I just am not buying it.

Also, you should consider that most women do not feel comfortable walking very far after dark alone in Albuquerque, so that's not an alternative for everyone.

Comment by Gene on December 1, 2009 at 5:01pm: Johnny:

That church bit was regrettable.

I really don't get this smirky angle of taking outrageous broadsides at cultures...while trying to say they are 'the problem.' Are you really serious that a peace march - for example - would not find, '...a sickening arrogance that leads to them seeming to welcome the End Of The World????' Are you suggesting these poll voters are delusional? Why would people vote this way if what you say is true?

Kinda surprised by this. Unclear why would you want to be part of the coarsening of the culture problem...

Comment by Phil_0 on December 1, 2009 at 5:52pm: Please point to one retail establishment that is open after 5:00 downtown.

I'm guessing you're not talking about restaurants or the movie theater here, but they're clearly not bars either.

I find the barricades downtown somewhat irksome, but there's no denying they serve several purposes, including most of the ones Benny described. And especially as long as downtown remains the hub of the weekend-cruising universe, it's not like their absence is going make traffic move any faster. The police seem to be congregating elsewhere these days, anyway...

Comment by BurqueBinder on December 1, 2009 at 6:03pm: I liked it for the most part - but I've gotta with others about the church bit and the supposed issues in driving through downtown at night. Downtown ABQ is absurdly easy to get around any time of day, any day of the week...unless you happen to be driving down Central. But, it's not supposed to be easy to get around a downtown by car - the congestion of people walking, biking, and driving adds the liveliness. It should be harder to get around downtown ABQ on the weekends. I do agree that downtown needs more retail and restaurant establishments downtown, but I don't really have a problem with Central Ave being the nightlife zone.

Comment by Brendan on December 1, 2009 at 6:26pm: Hi Johnny,

Love the list. Completely agree on the Church thing.

Comment by Adelita on December 1, 2009 at 8:45pm: I'm going to ditto what Brendan said!!

Comment by SteveJ on December 1, 2009 at 10:14pm: There are much easier ways to get to Nob Hill on Fri or Sat from Old Town---Try Lomas for starters, take a right on University, then a left on Central. You should find your way. Lets please keep Central closed on the weekends. Its better for people to have a place to move around. I wish Old Town was always car free.

Comment by Alicia on December 1, 2009 at 11:05pm: LMAO. Love this! and not only because I have beef with ABQ the Mag, but because your list is pretty accurate.

Comment by JMG on December 1, 2009 at 11:16pm: Great list, Johnny, and great idea.
The biggest lost opportunity in Albuquerque, in my opinion, is the "revitalization" of downtown. Visit other cities that have diverse, vibrant nightlife with stores, restaurants, bookstores (not just bars) and you'll have to agree. The most astonishing worst-of-the-worst to me is the historic Sunshine theater. I spent a portion of my adult life living in the third world. I've done a lot of backpacking and am comfortable sleeping on the ground and relieving myself behind a bush. But the Sunshine did me in. I went to see Ziggy Marley; spent a horrendous amount on a ticket to wait in a line outside in the cold for an hour, got frisked for weapons by security, got inside where there was no heat so still was cold, my feet stuck to the floor and the state of the bathroom made me swoon. El Rey was barely a step above that when I last visited (bad acoustics and sound system and couldn't see the stage unless you're standing in front). Maybe it's improved, but I can't pay the price to find out.

Another lost opportunity... or something.: The Hispanic Cultural Center. Great venue, inside and out, but seems empty most of the time. Really wonderful theater inside. But vastly underused, seems to me.

Comment by JM Johnson on December 2, 2009 at 12:26pm: Somehow I wonder how many of these churches you talk down you've actually attended. I'm guessing few, if any.

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