Albuquerque

Track 12, 12:00 minutes

Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in
the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from
Jerry's Bait Shop... you know the place... well anyway, back then life was
going swell and everything was juuuuust peachy... except of course for the
undeniable fact that every single morning… my mother would make me a big ol'
bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast… Arggggh! Big bowl of sauerkraut!! Every
single morning!! It was driving me crazy! I said to my mom, I said, "Hey! Mom!
What's up with all the sauerkraut??" And my dear sweet mother, she just looked
at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train, and she leaned right down next to
me, and she said, "Unhhhh... It's goooood for you!" And then she tied me to the
wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth and force-fed me nothing but sauerkraut
until I was twenty-six and a half years old. That's when I swore that someday,
someday I would get out of that basement and travel to a magical, far-away
place where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer
and the towels are oh-so-fluffy... where the shriners and the lepers play their
ukuleles all day long and anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for
a nickel. Wocka wocka doo doo yeah. Well, let me tell you, people, it wasn't
long at all before my dream came true, because the very next day a local radio
station had this contest to see who could correctly guess the number of
molecules in Leonard Nimoy's butt. I was off by three, but I still won the
grand prize... That's right, a first-class one-way ticket... to Al…buquerque!
Al…buquerque! Oh yeah… You know, I'd never been on a real airplane before, and
I gotta tell you, it was really great… except that I had to sit between two
large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor, and the little kid
in back of me kept throwing up the whole time, and the flight attendants ran
out of Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts, and the in-flight movie was "Bio-Dome"
with Pauly Shore, and three of the airplane engines burned out and we went into
a tailspin and crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant
fireball and everybody died… except for me… you know why? 'Cause I had my tray
table up… and my seat back in the full upright position, had my tray table up…
and my seat back in the full upright position… had my tray table up… and my
seat back in the full upright position… Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! So I crawled
from the twisted, burning wreckage… I crawled on my hands and knees for three
full days… dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my
tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky
autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel. But finally I arrived at the world-famous
Albuquerque Holiday Inn where the towels are oh-so-fluffy… and you can eat your
soup right out of the ashtrays if you wanna. It's okay, they're clean! Well, I
checked into my room and I turned down the AC and I turned on the Spectravision
and I'm just about to eat that little chocolate mint on my pillow that I love
so very, very much when suddenly there's a knock on the door. Well, now who
could that be? I say, "Who is it?" No answer. "Who is it?" There's no
answer. "Who is it??" They're not sayin' anything. So finally I go over and I
open the door, and just as I suspected… it's some big fat hermaphrodite with a
Flock of Seagulls haircut and only one nostril. Ohhhh, man, I hate it when I'm
right. So anyway, he bursts into my room and he grabs my lucky snorkel and I'm
like, "Hey! You can't have that! That snorkel's been just like a snorkel to
me!" And he's like, "Tough!" And I'm like, "Give it!" And he's like, "Make me!"
And I'm like, "'kay!" So I grabbed his leg and he grabbed my esophagus and I
bit off his ear and he chewed off my eyebrows and I took out his appendix and
he gave me a colonic irrigation. Yes indeed, you better believe it. And somehow
in the middle of it all the phone got knocked off the hook and twenty seconds
later, I heard a familiar voice, and you know what it said? I'll tell you what
it said. It said, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator... If you'd like to make
a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, hang up and then dial
your operator..." in Al…buquerque! Al…buquerque! Well, to cut a long story
short, he got away with my snorkel. But I made a solemn vow right then and
there that I would not rest… I would not sleep for an instant… until the one
nostriled man was brought to justice. But first I decided to buy some donuts.
So I got in my car and I drove over to the donut shop and I walked on up to the
guy behind the counter and he says, "Yeah, whaddaya want?" I said, "You got any
glazed donuts?" He said, "No, we're outta glazed donuts." I said, "Well, you
got any jelly donuts?" He said, "No, we're outta jelly donuts!" I said, "You
got any Bavarian creme-filled donuts?" He said, "No, we're outta Bavarian creme
filled donuts!" I said, "You got any cinnamon rolls?" He said, "No, we're outta
cinnamon rolls!" I said, "You got any apple fritters?" He said, "No, we're
outta apple fritters!" I said, "You got any bear claws?" He said, "Wait a
minute, I'll go check……………..No!! We're outta bear claws!!" I said, "Well, in
that case... in that case, what do you have?" He says, "All I got right now is
this box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels." I said, "Okay. I'll take
that." So he hands me the box and I open up the lid and the weasels jump out
and they immediately latch onto my face and start biting me all over. Arr arrrr
arrrrh. Oh man, they were just going nuts. They were tearing me apart! You
know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started going
through my head. I believe it went a little something like this: "Arrrrrrgh!!!
Get 'em off of me!!! Get 'em off me!!! Argggggh!!! Get 'em off!! Get 'em off!!
Arrrrrrrrgh... Arggggggghh!!!" I ran out into the street with these flesh
eating weasels all over my face, waving my arms all around and just running,
running, running like a constipated wiener dog. And as luck would have it,
that's exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams. Her name was Zelda. She
was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of
strained peaches. I'll never forget the very first thing she said to me. She
said, "Hey. You've got weasels on your face." That's when I knew it was true
love. We were inseparable after that. Aw, we ate together, we bathed together,
we even shared the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss. Aw, the world was
our burrito. So we got married and we bought us a house and had two beautiful
children, Nathaniel and Superfly. Oh, we were so very, very, very happy. Oh
yeah. But then one fateful night, Zelda said to me, she said, "Sweetie Pumpkin…
do you want to join the Columbia record club?" I said, "Whoa! Hold on now,
baby! I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment!" So we broke up and I
never saw her again. But that's just the way things go... in Al…buquerque! Al
buquerque! Anyway, things really started looking up for me, because about a
week later I finally achieved my life-long dream. That's right, I got me a part
time job at the Sizzler. I even made Employee of the Month after I put out that
grease fire with my face. Oh yeah, everybody was pretty jealous of me after
that. I was gettin' a lot of attitude. Okay, like one time, I was out in the
parking lot trying to remove my excess ear wax with a golf pencil, when I see
this guy Marty trying to carry a big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself. So
I say to him, I say, "Hey! You want me to help you with that?" And Marty, he
just rolls his eyes and goes, "Nooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs
with a chain saw." So I did. And then he gets all indignant on me! He's
like, "Hey, man, I was just being sarcastic!" Well, that's just great. How was
I supposed to know that? I'm not a mind-reader, for crying out loud. Besides,
now he's got a really cute nickname - Torso Boy - so what's he complaining
about? Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to
me on the street and he tells me he hasn't had a bite in three days. Well, I
knew what he meant, but just to be funny I took a big bite out of his jugular
vein. And he's yelling and screaming and bleeding all over, and I'm like, "Hey!
Come on! Don't you get it?" But he just keeps rolling around on the sidewalk,
bleeding and screaming, "Ahhhhh!! Ahhhhh!! Ahhhhhh!!!" - y'know, completely
missing the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can't take a
joke, y'know? Anyway, I uh... Um… where was I?...... I kinda lost my train of
thought. Uh… Well, okay, anyway, I know it's kind of a round-about way of
saying it, but I guess the whole point I'm trying to make here is... I...
HATE... SAUERKRAUT!! That's all I'm really trying to say. And by the way, if
one day you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary,
full of loathing and self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your
pitiful, meaningless existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in
knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy ol' mixed-up universe of ours,
there's still a little place... called Al…buquerque! Al…buquerque! Albuquerque!
Albuquerque! Albuquerque! Albuquerque! I said, A! (A!) L! (L!) B! (B!) U!
(U!) ...querque!! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Querque!!)
Albuquerque! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Querque!!)
Albuquerque! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Querque!!) Albuquerque! (Albuquerque!)
Al…… buquerque!