Nat Baca is a director of engineering and a self-proclaimed nerd. He argues that being an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit behind Wikipedia — qualifies him as a “professional nerd.” He’s also the man behind Nerd Nite ABQ, a group that believes the only thing better than a good lecture is a good lecture with beer.
By way of explanation, Baca sent The Paper. a story from The Nerd Night Handbook, written by Rick Karnesky, Bart Bernhardt and Chris Balakrishnan. Balakrishnan was a student at Boston University in 2003 and enjoyed drinking at the Midway Cafe to unwind during breaks from a doctoral research project he was working on. The project’s focus was the indigobird.
“Indigobirds are messed up,” the book reads. “They will sneakily lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and trick the hosts into raising their young. Many other birds do this, too, in a practice called brood parasitism.”
Balakrishnan traveled often for fieldwork, but back home in Boston, he drank frequently at his beloved dive bar. The bar’s owner suggested Balakrishnan give bar patrons a slideshow about his travels, so he got two of his friends to give presentations along with him.
“Chris got all his friends together, got drunk and rambled about his research while the crowd and bartenders lovingly heckled in the background,” the book reads. “It was absurdly fun and popular.”
Inspired by that surprising response, Balakrishnan founded Nerd Nite, a series of rowdy educational lectures still hosted today in bars in 75 cities around the world, including Albuquerque. The Albuquerque chapter has hosted nine Nerd Nite events since last March.
The next event in the lecture series, which is usually held on the first Thursday of the month, will take place on Feb. 13 to coincide with Valentine’s Day. This will be the group’s second time at Tin Can Alley (6110 Alameda Blvd. NE), a spot Baca calls their “temporary winter home.” This month’s topic of conversation: debunking sexual arousal and desire.
“We want to highlight what makes our city and our state unique by showing everyone the interesting and eccentric sides of the people who live here,” Baca says. “People have a really specific idea of what a nerd is, but in some ways we want to redefine that. As far as we’re concerned, a nerd is anyone with a passion, and by this definition, I think we’re all a bit nerdy about something. This is a beautiful thing.”
Gettin’ Nerdy With It
Baca moved to Albuquerque in September 2023 with his wife — who is an Albuquerque local — and was sad to see that there wasn’t a local Nerd Nite chapter.
“I had been to Nerd Nite events in San Francisco, Brooklyn and DC and had come to love their mix of weird and interesting, so I reached out on their site and decided to start my own,” Baca says. “I wanted to bring this event to Albuquerque to give a platform for all the interesting people here to share their eccentric passions and to put a local spin on it.”
Local Nerd Nite Chapters are run by “bosses” who help to host, organize, promote and find speakers for events. Baca became a boss and founded the Albuquerque chapter of the global Nerd Nite brand. Baca’s “co-bosses” are Andy Torres, a local artist who runs a company that creates designs for clothing and apparel called Mobius Theory, and Rob Olesen, a nuclear scientist with the Air Force.
Baca wears the “nerd” label proudly, and he’s lectured during Nerd Nite events in the past.
“Last year I talked about the history of drinking and Chinese poetry,” Baca says. “Chinese poets drink a lot it turns out and always have for the last several thousand years.”
Nerds Are Sexy Too
If you attend the right lecture, you might discover that sometimes being a nerd can be sexy. Returning for her second Nerd Nite lecture just in time for Valentine’s Day is Lindsay Thorsen, a Doctor of Physical Therapy specializing in pelvic floor physical therapy. Baca said Thorsen’s previous talk attracted a diverse audience and was well-received. In fact, about 90 people showed up for Thorsen’s lecture as opposed to the usual 30 to 40 who usually attend, the biggest turnout for an Albuquerque Nerd Nite to that point.
“I’ve been a lifelong sex nerd,” she says. “I was always interested in it, always wanting to learn about it, and I will educate anybody who will listen to me flap my jaws about it. I was definitely the kid who, when my parents went on date night, I’d say, ‘Let me see what this ‘Skin-emax’ is. It’s fuzzy and is that a boob? Is that a dick? What is this?’”
Thorsen says she is “edging” her career toward blending her expertise in pelvic health with sex education and deeply pursuing a national certification. She primarily treats “vulva owners” — many of whom experience pain during sex — and says her job has made it apparent that people with vulvas aren’t taught enough about their own bodies.
“We’ve known the mechanics and the anatomy of a penis since the ancient Greeks and Romans,” she says. “We got a full MRI map of the clitoris in 2005. There’s a massive gap in education about our bodies. In the most benign cases, it shows up as lackluster sex. In the most significant, it can be dangerous.”
Her lecture, titled “Lust In Translation: Debunking Sexual Arousal and Desire,” fits quite nicely with the February Nerd Nite’s Valentine’s Day theme. She says Hollywood, porn and locker room talk have all given us “a massive load of unfortunate falsities.” Her lecture will focus on types of sexual desire, the fallacy of the sex drive and the ways in which sex is not a true physiological drive.
“By coming to these talks, 100% you absolutely learn something, especially since I like to myth bust,” Thorsen says. “We are being shot a load of bullshit right in our face and all over our hair. Which is rule number one: Don’t get it in my hair, right?”
Thorsen says she was surprised by the diversity of the demographics who came to her last Nerd Nite talk: people of all gender identifications from ages 21 into their 70s. She was particularly impressed with the Q+A session — aside from the occasional creepy guy with a “not-so-important” question — and encourages anyone who attends her Valentine’s Day lecture to try and stump the local sex expert.
We’re All Nerds
Baca says it’s not uncommon for nerds of all ages to sit in on the lectures, and the majority of attendees are women. He says the types of people who take part in the Albuquerque events break stereotypes and illustrate the idea that anyone can be a nerd. A group of seniors once informed him their retirement home organized their trip to Nerd Nite.
“I definitely think there’s been a big cultural shift,” Baca says. “It’s kind of cool to be a nerd now, and that’s great. It’s more talks for us, more people coming to the event and less stigma, which I think is overall a really good thing.”
Nerd Nite Albuquerque #10: A Valentine’s Day Special – Patents and Passion
Feb. 13, 7 p.m.
Tin Can Alley
6110 Alameda Blvd. NE
Free