Tattoo Tammy

On the road between Santa Fe and Madrid (Madrid as in "mad" at you and get "rid" of that damn cat) is a little wide spot in the road. Tammy Lange has weird-assed collection of trash, highway refuse, road-kill, piano guts, halloween decorations, propane bottles, and anything else she can find. The space used to be a putt-putt course, and the green astro-turf is gone, but the Tammy has used the little structures for her own art.

Tammy sounds "eccentric" at this point, probably.

Tammy Lange, nicknamed "Tattoo Tammy" is a hard drinking, hard living woman of about 50 who wears camoflouge tights and a denim skirt with two zippers in the front, something my ex-husband used to call a "quickie" skirt. Tammy wears a leather cowboy hat the squashes down out of control hair, and her animated smile reveals the fact she's missing a lot of teeth. She has kinetic energy and waves her arms wildly when she talks and uses her laugh as punctuation. Two-Tooth Tammy isn't for the faint of heart.

Tammy is in the process of taking apart her signature on the putt putt course since a dispute with the landlord has escalated to the point where Tammy's ready to put a match to the whole lot. Saturday evening was supposed to be the night when the bonfire would start, but when we came by at sunset, Tammy was nowhere to be found, and the weird-assed collection was was still there.

Tammy shares her philosophy on life, but on her terms. Give her 20 minutes. Then she'll be ready. She'll talk your ear off, maybe even give you a hug, and then she's done. Give her 20 minutes. Then she'll be ready. She'll talk your ear off. Again. Speculation abound as to what she's doing with those 20 minute breaks when she disappears into the trailer that's had the siding taken off and sold to the recyclers for money.

Out by the arroyo that's behind the property, there's a half full bottle of Jack Daniel's and a 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola sitting on a sun-bleached picnic table and everything looks like it's been there a while. She bums a cigarette and reminds people to put money in the donation box. Money, cigarettes, whatever, she doesn't care.

One of Tammy's favorite mediums is road-kill. People bring her road-kill or tell her where it is and she goes and gets it. She laments about how hard it is to hitchhike with road-kill.

The putt putt course also comes with a river of glass, and Tammy encourages people to find a bottle and throw it into the river and she reports you'll feel better right away. She's also generous about letting people take whatever they want from her collection. A stack of skulls grace a pyramid of junk and she lets the new adopter know it's okay to rename the skulls, even though they already have names.

Locals corroborate Tammy's story about the blue-meaney landlord. She is regarded as a embarrassment by the upper-crust hotel owners and as harmless as a stray cat marking its territory by the everyday folk.

I really wanted to see the junk go up in flames.