RegularOccurrences

4 La Vida Local

4 Thumbin’ It

5 Soap Box

6 Top Story

8 State News

10 Drinks Up

11 Murder Ink

12-13 Stuff to Do

13 Ask Rachel

14 Free Will Astrology

15 Classifieds

15 Haiku Movie Review

Ear to the ground:

“What’s a Speedo?”

– Some of the tougher questions parents find themselves answering on the last weekend of the ski season

Order up

Is it us, or has there been a lot of activity in Durango’s restaurant scene? And no, we’re not talking about the new McDonalds in Three Springs to be built near the creepy gas station off in the distance. In any case, here’s our attempt (in no particular order) to track it all.

• In March, Gazpacho owner Matt Arias sold the restaurant to three of his staff members: Sadie Christensen, and brothers Brennan and Shane McManamon. Gazpachos, which has been around since 1991, is a local staple for New Mexican cuisine.

• April 1, Andy and Abby Snow, longtime owners of Nini’s Taqueria, sold to new owners, including the owners of Himalayan Kitchen. But no fears – the delicious burritos and famed Southwestern Chowder will remain largely unchanged.

• And, Chimayo Stone Fired Kitchen fell into new hands, though requests for comment were not returned Wednesday.

• “Public House 701” opened in the spot of the closed Fur Trappers/Mutu’s at the corner of 2nd Ave. & 7th St. Requests for comment were also not immediately returned, but it appears they are open for dinner Tues. - Sat.

• Wondering what’s to become of the old Home Slice on N. Main? Taste Cafe and Bakery will now occupy the space, moving from 11th St. Station. It appears Taste also will continue on at Lola’s Place on E. 2nd Ave.

Lightening up

Low- and no-proof spoofs you’ll thank yourself for in the morning

by Lucas Hess

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On the cover

While we all might be officailly ready for spring, the La Plata Mountains present a reassuring sight this week as we head into summer./ Photo by Andy High

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• We’re not done yet. Remember the gem in Mancos, Olio’s? It’s been announced that Dave Stewart and Jenn Lyndes, formerly of the Boathouse at Electra Lake, will take over. It’s not clear when the restaurant will reopen.

• Also, we’ve heard on good authority that a burger joint is coming to the building catty-corner to City Market North, because if Durango needs anything in the cuisine scene, it’s a place to get a burger…

• From a recent Durango Herald report, an Indian taqueria and electronic dance bar is coming to the old Francisco’s, 639 Main Ave.

• And finally, thanks to the Telegraph’s own deep investigative reporting (walking downtown), we’ve spied a sign that says, “Opening Soon! Beef Jerky Experience,” in the 900 block of Main. Can’t wait?

Results are in (kind of)

According to results of the Durango City Council election, it appears Gilda Yazzie has secured a seat. The race for the second seat, however, is too close to call between Harrison Wendt and David Woodruff. Final results will be announced April 18.

Nothing to fear but fur

Shedding new light on my couch pillow, the rising sun transformed its upholstered surface into what appeared to be a shabby dog blanket, sans dog. It confused me, because I don’t own a dog, so I had to believe either the sun was playing early morning tricks or a swarm of floaters in my eyes like the ones that often appear when I spend too much time without my sunglasses had just been released into my field of vision.

I squinted twice and rubbed my eyes: the mirage still lingered. Then I closed their lids like curtains: gone. I walked over to the couch and ran my fingernails across the pillow. A tangle of grey hairs caught under a fingernail, which turned out to be an exact match for the ones still left on my head.

I wasn’t losing my mind, just my hair. This shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise. My father wore a rather obvious hairpiece at age 65 when he went out to meet the public, unlike my mother whose tresses as she aged transformed into a mass of ringlet silver. I scratched my head. Isn’t baldness strongly associated with the “X” chromosome, which is inherited from the maternal side of the family? Just my luck.

Unfortunately, MPB doesn’t stand for Medical Benefits Package, or even Monthly Basic Pay. It translates rather effortlessly into what I suspected: male pattern baldness, a medical condition doctors have labeled androgenetic alope cia, which must be a linguistic Latin trick to avoid frightening the patient by announcing that you’re beginning to look like your father.

I won’t drag you too far down the medical rabbit hole, which incidentally is not where hares hang out, but since I looked a few things up I hope it won’t hurt to pull a few facts loose.

Women also encounter baldness (FPB), but the cultural practice of growing longer hair may distract us from realizing losing one’s hair is really a genderless issue. Granted, more men deal with baldness than women, but women have traditionally resisted any fashionable trend like growing a beard, except in the case of P.T. Barnum’s bearded lady Annie Jones who became rather famous for doing so in the 19th century.

Other factors besides gender may also lead to balding, such as nutrition, stress and illness, which brings to mind chemotherapy. Iron or protein deficiencies may also occur, even an excess of vitamin A. But nobody talks about working for 30 years as a public school teacher. It’s worth mentioning that a

Thumbin’It

Durango 9-R’s Board of Education siding with students to allow them to carry Narcan, which is used to treat narcotic overdoses in an emergency situation.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife extending winter wildlife closures because… well, winter has not loosened its grip in the Southwest. The closures are now in effect until April 30.

A newly debuted electric Ram pickup truck with up to 500 miles of range per charge. That should be enough to satiate most Durangoan’s adventures, no?

hair-pulling disorder called trichotillomania is a mental difficulty that prompts one to pull out one’s own hair, a condition thankfully more common as an expression than a disease.

One more mental hairball for people – especially men – is a sensitivity about losing one’s hair. Like it or not, confidence and strength are socially linked to luxuriously thick hair, so the skull becomes more like a chia pet for a multi-million dollar hair loss and growth treatment industry, stoking sales by advertising even more uncertainty about one’s purported withering prowess and sexuality. Of course, entirely shaving one’s head is an economical alternative to living with a treatment addiction. The look has become more common and more fashionable than when “skinheads” first emerged in the 1960s as a working class statement from a subculture in London.

A more heroic symbolic association with baldness can be drawn from the American bald eagle which is not actually bald but still reigns as our nation’s emblem of masculinity. It’s a bird of prey with talons and an enormous wingspan. Referring to it as bald is simply a truncated translation of an old English word – piebald – which means white-headed. Once I watched a half dozen eagles not flying or swooping, but stooped and motionless over an open spot in the ice on a mostly frozen Mississippi River. At first, they looked to me like a group of old men assembled for an afternoon of ice fishing. Then I realized I was partially mistaken: they were eagles, but they were also ice fishing. Perhaps the most lyrical words about baldness were first delivered in 1917 by a literary character named J. Alfred Prufrock, a dramatic monologue written and published by T.S. Eliot. The musings by this indecisive middle-aged narrator who is wearied by his perception of an age-induced diminished life are noteworthy. It’s a beautiful poem to read, but certainly not to emulate.

“Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”

More than 130 lines long, the poem can set the reader into a similarly sullen state of mind, but not me. Every time I read it I just want to go out and buy a puppy.

– David Feela

SignoftheDownfall:

The inability to find a hole big enough to bury our heads in after Trump was charged with 34 felony counts and the ensuing media frenzy that followed.

Saudi Arabia and other oil producers announcing production cuts that could raise gas prices worldwide. Cue the “Thanks Biden” Fox News dad rants.

Kid Rock shooting cases of Bud Light in response to a transgender activist’s post. Imagine that. The man who wrote “Bawitdaba, da bang, da dang diggy diggy/diggy” could not find a more articulate way to express his emotions.

Po-Po Scam

Afroman – the “Because I Got High” rapper who once punched a woman on stage –is being sued by the cops. They raided his house on bogus kidnapping and drug trafficking suspicions last August and destroyed a $20K driveway gate and “confiscated” $5K in cash during the ordeal. So, to get even, Afroman used footage of the cops captured by his home security system for a music video, but the police got their feelings hurt and filed a lawsuit against Afroman for “invasion of privacy,” even though zero cops in this story had their houses raided.