We at the Alibi recently heard about a little basic cable show called “Breaking Bad” that seems to have acquired something of a local cult following. Since we always like to position ourselves at the cutting edge, we knew we had to jump on the crest of this wave and bring you all the latest “Breaking Bad” news and gossip. Imagine our embarrassment when we found out that the show ran its course over a year ago! So, yeah, sorry, it’s over.
We decided to drown ourselves in Heisenbergian swag and find the best places for you to shop for the Walter White fanatic in your life.
But that doesn’t mean it’s gone away. Far from it. People all over the country, and even abroad, are just as “Breaking Bad”-crazy as ever, and as the new spin-off series “Better Call Saul” approaches its February 2015 premiere date, there’s reason to believe that mania will continue into the foreseeable future. We may be too late to dish the news on the series, but with Christmas coming, we decided to drown ourselves in Heisenbergian swag and find the best places for you to shop for the Walter White fanatic in your life.
This long-lived Old Town candy shop is surely the epicenter of “Breaking Bad” paraphernalia, helped in no small part by the fact that owner Debbie Ball was contracted to make the actual blue rock candy used as meth on the show itself. In addition to the candy, available in “dime bags” for $1 each, the shop has expanded into a full line of unique “Breaking Bad” t-shirts, aprons, mugs, artistic portraits and even one-of-a-kind Pez dispensers.
The connection may seem tenuous to some, but bath salts and sky blue meth were meant for each other from the beginning. The guys over at Bathing Bad thought so too and have a line of salts and bathing bars (all sky blue, of course) that reference the show. And Bathing Bad is prepared for the future too, with products that capitalize on Bob Odenkirk’s spin-off series. For instance, a “Better Call Saul-ty” concoction that will not only make for a relaxing bath, but also magically wards off legal troubles with a touch of Louisiana voodoo. For the not-so-hygienically inclined, Bathing Bad also offers a Los Pollos Hermanos-branded bucket of fried chicken batter and a line of spices and hot sauce that would make even Gus Fring drool.
Rivaling only the Candy Lady in terms of “Breaking Bad” variety, Guerrilla Graphix has gone crazy printing Walter White, Jesse Pinkman and Saul Goodman on anything and everything. T-shirts, aprons, coffee mugs, shot glasses, etc; if you can put a picture of Heisenberg on it, the designers at GG have. If you’d rather dress up your car, you can get bumper stickers and even license plates (THE CAPN for the street rats, LWYR UP for the more sophisticated criminally inclined).
If someone on your gift list needs to live a little of the Walter White lifestyle, Breaking Bad RV tours offer as close as you can come to the experience without winding up in jail, rotting in a shallow hole in the desert or dead on a warehouse floor. For $75 ($65 if you enter the word CRYSTAL on the website) you can careen around ABQ in a down-to-the-last detail Fleetwood Bounder RV, taking in the locations from the show. If you’re more spook-inclined, there’s even a “Breaking Boo” tour, because, dammit, some of those locations are bound to have a few ghosts floating around.
