Tourist trapping, dusty strings & Beautiful Losers

by Lindsay Nelson

On a recent Friday afternoon, after a long week of all work and no play, I rushed through cold wind and flying snow into a local chain grocery store, just to grab a few holdover foodstuffs. Shouldn’t be any big thing, right?

It all fell apart in the produce section. I was innocently wheeling past the wilted lettuce, looking for some decent asparagus, when my progress was impeded by a clutch of nylon-covered folks who seemed not to realize that they were in a supermarket, not the apres-ski lounge in Telluride or some damned place. It’s like the National Lampoon’s Colorado Vacation came to Durango. They cluster and clamor and clomp around in a dazed, self-absorbed manner that I find deeply infuriating. The vacationer: bane of the work-a-day Joe. With their stupid ski passes and their $300 jackets and sweaty hair, buying powdered creamer, Splenda and Kleenex for a hot night in the hotel room. I’m lugging a $10 bottle of laundry detergent, for Chrissakes.

Yeah, it’s great that they got to ski all day and they’re visiting Durango and it’s fun and everything, but can’t they see that us working people need to get to the eggplant? Or maybe we don’t have the luxury of fuddering about in the checkout line for 20 minutes? I don’t believe my frustration is rooted in jealousy (I don’t ski), and I can’t honestly say I had good reason to be in a huge hurry. So why is it that every Friday (or Monday or Thursday) when I have to navigate a Camino del Rio intersection or try to park on my own street, I feel that urban rage boiling up? I learned to drive in the Washington D.C. area, land of intense, high-speed traffic and never-ending human congestion. Didn’t bother me then. Durango’s traffic is dandy by comparison. And still it drives me to a few private profanities in the privacy of my car.

It’ll be the same in summer, when you can’t drive or even walk downtown for all the clutches of gawping tourists on the sidewalks and crosswalks. It’s endemic to a tourism-oriented town, that the people who work their foolish buns to the bone in order to spend every day here must be forever confronted with the visage of lazy, dazy vacationers and, exponentially worse, the getaway homeowner who snapped up a Third Ave. house for a cool million and only spends four weeks here a year. I think I’ll move to Waukesha, Wisc., where I can be fairly assured that the other drab and tired humans on the grocery checkout line are also weary, cold and already near the end of their biweekly paycheck. That green-eyed monster sure is a stinker.

But hey! We local fools get to hang out long enough to see some good music shows, and our exhaustion isn’t anything a coupla Stoli Red Bulls can’t cure.

Tonight, March 8, we’ve got the Infamous Stringdusters with local openers Rock ‘n’ Rye, starting at 8: 15 p.m. at the Abbey Theatre. These dusty stringers boast a debut album on Nashville’s Sugar Hill Records, and bassist Travis Book is a former Durango resident, Fort Lewis College student and founding member of the Broke Mountain Bluegrass Band — an outfit that proved to be one of bluegrass music’s top farm teams. Other Broke Mountain alumni have joined such groups as the Larry Keel Experience and Big Fat Gap (Andy Thorn), the Biscuit Burners (John Stickley) and the Wayword Sons (Anders Beck, Robin Davis). You may have caught them last year at the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown, Four Corners Folk Festival, Rockygrass and the North Fork Valley Bluegrass Festival. Their 2007 itinerary includes dates at such prominent national events as MerleFest, Telluride, Strawberry and Suwannee. If you haven’t got your tickets already, come early tonight to get a spot in what’s sure to be a packed house with not a few pairs of overalls in sight.

Don’t spend all your money, because tomorrow night, March 9, you’ll want to visit the Summit for a great double bill of the Beautiful Losers from Dolores, and our very own Lawn Chair Kings, starting at about 9:30 p.m. The two hipster, country-influenced, roots rock bands had a great time recently at the Hollywood Bar in Dolores, so you Durango people had better be at least as cool as those Montezuma County folks.

And if you’re hankering for something different and perhaps slightly more civilized, be sure to check out Yjastros: the American Flamenco Repertory Co. in its 10th season show “Cuando Salga la Luna,” presented by the National Institute of Flamenco, Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Concert Hall. “’Cuando Salga la Luna’ embodies the changing face of the art form by presenting choreographically unique and musically complex group works alongside the intensely personal artistry of the solo performance,” say the artists. I have it on good authority that this troupe is tremendous and that Durango needs to redeem itself from the poor showing at their last show here. Go on out and dance the night away; or just clap politely and watch.

Speaking of clapping politely, it’s campaign time again and I’m not speaking of my own presidential bid. No, it’s local politics at its finest – campaign signs are sprouting up all over, letters to the editor are being penned en masse and it’s only a matter of time before those nice little debates get nasty. Try to stay above the fray people, but please do vote. That is, if you are one of the few, the proud, the City residents. We’re counting on you to make the right choice. Vote or die. Or don’t. Whatever. It’s Durango – I’m on vacation!! •