Dizzy Gillespie was on stage at the Telluride Colorado Jazz Festival, looking out at the mountains above the town, the red cliffs below, and the waterfalls in the distance. He exclaimed "If this isn't paradise, heaven can wait." He temporarily lost his rhythm. He was moved to exclaim that the Telluride valley, was a unique paradise, far superior than the coast of Spain where he had played for a festival. Most people do lose their life road map and sense of reality, when they come up the valley of Telluride. But are towns like Aspen, Telluride and Sun Valley really paradise? Mose Allison in one of his Blues songs, said, "Whatever happened to real life?" The Beatnik poet cried out while reciting a poem alongside a jazzbo playing the blues on a trumpet at the legendary fountain in Washington Square Park, NYC: "We could be walking through heaven and not even know it." Dizzy thought he had arrived in heaven in the valley of nature's mystical joy called Telluride, the Yosemite of ski towns. Is there a downside to Birdman's life in Aspen, Telluride, Sun Valley, Jackson Hole and Vail? There always seems to be a downside. "Life is the Saturday that always comes but never quite makes it." Gene Shepherd, WOR, NYC radio announcer. The Yogi Berra type saying, "Wherever you go, there you are", is an apt description to all ski towns in the American West. It is true of all visions of the Elysium. In Jackson Hole, in the early 60's Birdman was awarded the honor of cutting down the first pine tree on the ski tram line at the top of the mountain. The Teton mountains looked like heaven from a distance, yet many died attempting to summit the peaks. The rings of Saturn look like heaven from a distance. The word Teton originated from members of the largest and westernmost of the Sioux peoples. Birdman never saw a Sioux Indian while in the Hole. The Indians were forgotten, and their land long ago was taken over by ranchers and cowboys. Birdman did see hostile cowboys in downtown Jackson, jump out of old trucks and pound hapless youth who happened to have long hair, from the hippy days. "Jerks in the History of the West." You may have thought Doc Holliday was bad, a romantic card shark, but these guys were pocket book desperados who looked and acted like slum dog street thugs. Birdman's friend, Jeff, a tough Swedish wrestler and street fighter, took on fist to fist, around 7 of the so-called tough cowboys during the summer of the building of the Jackson Hole ski area. He laid them out easily one by one. He called them roundhouse punchers who didn't really know how to fight. The local ranchers had cults of old-timers who were members of families who were born in the Hole, and did not like outsiders, actually expressed hatred for them, even the mountain climbers from Europe, were glared at and some were beaten up by the elk racks in the park. These cowboys didn't even like themselves. When Wyatt Earp asked Doc Holliday why Johnnie Ringo killed so many men, hated so much, Doc replied, "revenge," Earp said, "revenge for what?" Doc said "revenge for being born". Jackson Hole was more like living in Purgatory rather than Paradise Lost. It is where Dick Cheney, ex V.P. owned property, and probably decided to take out a few hostile cowboys with his miraculous bird shooting ability. Sun Valley was next to a high desert, hot all summer, no cool air descending from the mountains like Telluride, and no rain all summer. The locals were friendly, but the ski town is loaded with cliques from southern California and eastern Blue Bloods. No community coffee house where strangers could strike up a conversation with a local. If you were not part of a group, you were absent of invitations to parties, and trout fishing and hiking were your best choice for a connection to the place. The trout streams have mostly private ranchland for access, except for the Nature Conservancy free stretch to the public on Silver Creek. It was even hot at the streams, which can throw an outdoorsman out of rhythm. A fly fisherman was known to have tried to escape the heat on Silver Creek, waded into a deep hole surrounded by quick sand, and disappeared. Vail was one large traffic flow on the I-70 interstate freeway. Instead of nature's quiet sounds, it sounded more like the turnpike at night by Gary Indiana. The local social scene involved scattered saloons on the main mall area, with Denver tourists packing the seats, loud voices from sports bar hell. Its Bavarian charm had vanished a long time ago, that it once had in the 60"s. Who really wants to ski above an LA Freeway. It would make a great music DVD, called "Skiing to the sound of howling semi trucks." Vail pass is a nightmare in the winter, with people strewn around the freeway, pushing their sedans up the pass, nimrods from no snow city. Powder skiing would vanish, what there is of it, in minutes from the crowds. Vail's biggest claim to fame was Gerry Ford, who played football without a helmet, and played golf like Richard Nixon on steroids. He was observed by Birdman at a tournament playing golf with Bob Hope, who had a great sense of humor about the silly game. How could one call mountain adventure, chasing around a little white ball. Birdman heard and saw Bob Hope look at a white golf ball in disbelief and say"You silly little ball." A tourist on the sideline ran for his life when Ford walked up to a ball with a 3 wood. Aspen is closest there is in ski towns to heaven, at least it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s and part of the 90s. It was a community of local ski patrol, dozens of regular working people that were friendly and drank pitchers of beer at the famous Red Onion saloon. That colorful community of ski bums, patrol, and workabees were friendly and drank pitchers of beer to the sounds of Neil Diamond. Some holdouts for the Aspen life style from the old days, still meet at the Hickory House for breakfast. They look like they are getting ready for an AARP Convention. Ninety Nine percent of that era of Aspenites have left town. Then, wealthy nimrods replaced the barstools with velvet couches, sat around with uncool cigars, wearing phony cowboy hats. They looked like they were about to attend a gay cowboy rodeo. Birdman has looked at dozens of old photographs in storefronts and museums of real working cowboys in the very old west, from Texas to Montana, and never saw one hat that looked like those worn by the yuppies that took over Aspen. Tom Horn would never have been caught dead or alive wearing one of the Ralph Lauren, purple hats with bells. He would have shot up the new Aspen with his 45/60 Winchester. The skiing is heaven, especially at Snowmass which is a monstrous glade area, and a powder hound has a pick of bowls, glades, couloirs, and expert in the Wildcat area. Most of the cool skiers gather at Aspen Mountain to say "I skied Aspen." One morning a drunk skier from Iowa yelled, "Heaven is 2 feet of powder snow on the Big Burn." He was right, the glades there are supurb, with placement of small pine trees as good as it gets in western ski towns. Birdman walked into the Ute City Bank (called the "meat rack") a few years ago, not one working local in view, and joined a group of cigar smoking wealthy ski bum wannabes. Their cigars were at least 14 inches long and you know the saying in Texas, "Big cigar, big hat, no cattle." Birdman was asked several times how much he was worth. They wanted to do a deal. After the bank meltdown, ski towns were devastated. None of the previous rich who crowd the bars and restaurants of Aspen, have anything now, not even mountain adventure memories. That is unless you flew in on a golden parachute from a Wall Street Hedge Fund. Telluride is still plugging along, although the devastation and wipeout of the real estate and construction business requires one to be worth 10 million in Treasury Notes, which are lucky to get 1.3% now. A good and creative real estate agent used to make that working 4 hours a day, and ski or fly fish in the afternoon. Telluride still has a community that is slowly vanishing, it has one main street, called the street, by locals. Locals are friendly and do talk to one another in front of coffee shops, and once every two months, a Hollywood legend will wander by. In Aspen the legends of Hollywood wander by at least twice a week, especially at Christmas. That is, until off-season when they vanish for months. One astounding fact of ski town life is that two-thirds of the homes are owned by absentee owners. From late September to mid June, a resident may not see anyone familiar, except the hard core locals who are too broke to change their mind and go somewhere. The surviving rich, have left for their 5th home in Hawaii or somewhere south on a coast, to the other paradise, keeping track of their dwindling net worth, bragging about their trophy home in Aspen or Telluride. It may snow for a day or two weeks, nonstop in all of these towns of historical renown, these legends of paradise. But who knows, one man's paradise is another man's hangover, and that could be anywhere in America, even East Lansing Michigan,the former home of the longest, oldest, surviving ski patrolman at the Telluride Ski Mountain. There is trouble brewing in Ski Town Paradise, stay tuned.
"Life like a dome of many-colored glass, stains the white radiance of Eternity." Shelley, the English Poet
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