Gone Gloom

A smaller Santa Fe crowd cheered as the 97th Zozobra burned a year of anxiety

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Zozobra Emcee Kenn Garley attended his first Zozobra in 1961, the year he was born, when his parents took him to the annual Santa Fe tradition. Since then, he’s only missed one—in 1984 when, as a college student, he couldn’t miss his shift at the restaurant where he worked to pay for school. He flew back annually during the 11 years he worked in Las Vegas, Nevada as a roulette dealer.

For this year’s event, in homage to the Decades Project paying tribute to the 1980s, Garley donned a Miami Vice-style jacket ala Don Johnson and affixed a mullet-styled wig to his head for the night.

Like so many fans, Garley appreciates the annual tradition of burning the embodiment of gloom because “it’s so unique and it’s so Santa Fe and you don’t find anything like this” anywhere else. He has particularly fond memories of attending with his friends in high school and mounting a Van Halen Diver Down flag so more friends could find their group and share in the six dozen Posas’ tamales Garley and others brought as provisions.

“They knew where to find us and they knew they we would feed them and we could scream and yell all night long,” he said.

Now, Garley is the executive director for the Southwest district of the Kiwanis Club—encompassing about 90 clubs in New Mexico, Arizona and the El Paso area of Texas. “Basically, I pay the bills,” he says. Zozobra’s creator, artist Will Shuster, invented the tradition in 1924 and bequeathed its rights to the Santa Fe Kiwanis Club in 1964. Kiwanis uses the proceeds to fund a variety of nonprofits benefiting youth.

“Santa Fe got really lucky when Will Shuster gave us this,” Garley says. “We bring the community together. We create a unique cultural event that’s been going on for 97 years and the money we’ve raised definitely benefits children.”

Then there’s the gloom. Garley oversees the digital submissions of woe that come in online, printing them all out and ensuring those that have specified placement (head, hair and heart were popular this year, he says) make it into their designated anatomies. By 2 pm the afternoon of the burn, 7,000 to 8,000 were coming in every hour, he said (SFR did not have a final tally by press time).

But plenty of folks showed up ready to drop off their glooms in person, or write them down at the Gloom table where this writer spends each Zozobra as a volunteer. By the night’s end, people were coming in waves, many of whom said it was their first time attending, but who were quickly ready to jump into the spirit. Glooms that were shared included a shirt, whose wearer said it represented a broken heart; a bra worn by a breast cancer survivor; and a pair of white pants, whose meaning remained murky. Texas, mean people and exes also shared in the gloom fest. And, of course, COVID, COVID, COVID.

In the hours before gates opened at 4 pm, Ginger Williams, who coordinates radio communications and the premier viewing spots at Zozobra, was sharing the lowdown on the event with a group of “Rangers” who had driven in from Colorado to volunteer at the event. Williams said the group of eight would be her “bouncers” for the premier areas—they perform the same service at Burning Man, which is not having in-person attendance this year—although Ranger “Uncle Dave” Welly told SFR they are not affiliated with Burning Man.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kiwanis limited general admission attendance to 10,000 for the 2021 burning, and required attendees to produce either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. The premier areas, Williams said, had sold well. “I think people are willing to pay a little extra to a good cause and to be assured a good view,” she said, also noting that the premier viewing spots were helpful for those with limited mobility.

As for herself: “I’m excited about the the pageantry of the show,” she said, “the ‘80s are my favorite decade.” Like many others, her gloom centered on COVID-19: “I’m ready to stop being nervous about the health of the people I care about,” the mother of two said.

Fellow Kiwanis Victor Romero also was focused on health this year. “Cancer and my father going into hospice,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of death this year,” he added, noting that he had lost his aunt “who was like my mother.” Nonetheless, Zozobra provides comfort. “All we can do is keep trying to push through,” Romero said. “It’s fun to see so many people volunteer their time and keep their culture alive.”

Press liaison Lisa Jaramillo traces her involvement with Zozobra back to childhood: She grew up in the same neighborhood as Zozobra Event Chairman Ray Sandoval. “I remember him burning his own mini-Zozobras at Ashbaugh Park, and my family would be invited because they’re good friends with his parents,” she said. “I’ve always loved Zozobra, and one year I saw that glow on Ray’s face and was like, I want to be a part of that.”

Handling the press means answering texts from folks like yours truly at all hours. This year also brought This American Life host Ira Glass, who hung out for a while at the Gloom Table interviewing folks about their woe (and listening to this writer babble on in a decidedly undignified star-struck way). Yes, Glass submitted his own gloom. No, we didn’t read it. We don’t do that.

We also didn’t read Santa Fe Police Chief Andrew Padilla’s gloom because he didn’t submit any. We did run after him (also in an undignified way) to ask what his gloom would have been had he written it down. In short: Padilla would ask for people to remember “We’re people. We’re human too. We have friends. We have family…we have the same worries that the majority of people have.” Most people when they see police, he said, “automatically think something’s wrong. Just because you see a police officer doesn’t mean something’s wrong.”

City Councilor Sig Lindell also did not visit the table, but she had her gloom at the ready when asked: “My gloom is like so many other people’s: Texas, voting rights, women’s rights, the struggle of COVID and the meanness of people at times.”

By 8:45 pm, the in-person glooms had been submitted and the pageantry followed many hours of attendees dancing to ‘80s favorites. The audience briefly quieted to listen to Zozobra National Anthem singer Lucia Porterfield-Ortiz, a senior vocalist at the New Mexico School for the Arts (who did an amazing job). The ‘80s theme infused the traditional ceremony, with Torchbearers dressed as Ghostbusters; Gloomies dancing as Zombies to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller;” and the Fire Spirit vanquishing the city’s arch nemesis to the tune of Rick James’ 1981 hit “Super Freak.”

Mayor Alan Webber welcomed the crowd before the burning commenced and led the crowd in the traditional call to “Burn him!”

“I feel happy,” Webber told SFR from the stage, staring at a vastly reduced crowd from most years (more than 60,000 people attended the 2019 Zozobra), but a much larger one than last year when no in-person attendance was allowed, save for volunteers, officials and press. “This is such a beautiful site,” he said. “It is an “only in Santa Fe” moment in a good way.”