FlamingText

True Crime Tales from the Mean Streets of Seattle

It's a wonder I'm alive today, to hear Officer Bob #8737 of the Seattle Police Department tell it.

  Let me explain. Seattle readers may know that, due to construction of light rail taking place in the bus tunnels that run beneath our fair city, 3rd Avenue has been closed to all automobile traffic and will remain so for the next two years. This is happening because back in the eighties when the city planners were exercising some rarely-evidenced foresight by laying track in the bus tunnels, track that was explicitly designed to accommodate some future light rail system, they laid the wrong kind. So now that it looks like some form of limited and poorly-thought-out mass transit will finally get built in spite of the best efforts of Seattle's civic leaders to put the kibosh on every single plan to build same that has ever been put forward by anybody (goodbye, monorail!), there will be a two year delay while untold millions are being spent to tear up the existing track and replace it with some track that is actually functional, unlike the old track which was merely festive.

  This puts all the buses that used to run through this tunnel under downtown back up on the surface streets, which is why 3rd Avenue is now a bus-only thoroughfare. Starting this week. Which is why this week there is a representative of Seattle's Finest positioned roughly every 15 feet along 3rd Avenue, standing at the ready to pull over any motorists that may not have gotten the memo and slap them with a hefty fine. Which is also why, at approximately 7:55 this morning, after exiting the #49 bus that had just let me off at the intersection of Pine St and 3rd Ave downtown, I crossed at the crosswalk and was subsequently ordered by Officer Bob #8737 to halt and remain in a halted position whilst he wrote me out a $46.00 ticket for disregarding a Don't Walk signal.

  Because, although the light was clearly green when I crossed, there was quite plainly a SOLID red hand displayed in the little pedestrian sign. Had it been a BLINKING red hand, that would have been another matter. But it was a SOLID red hand, and that, my friends, makes all the difference. I guess that I must not have been paying much attention to whether the hand was solid or blinking because I had already determined that the light was green and, more importantly, a visual check told me that no cars or buses were bearing down on me with potentially fatal consequence. In spite of the fact that I was not really endangering myself or others or in fact slowing traffic in any way, I was informed by THE MAN (i.e. Officer Bob #8737 ) that the light is "for cars" only, even though there are of course no cars allowed on 3rd Avenue any more.

  Now, I have been crossing streets my entire life and like to think I'm pretty good at it. I mean, I've gotten this far without being struck by any moving vehicles (knock wood) and have even managed to avoid being struck by drivers who were themselves ignoring a red light by employing this time-honored practice of checking for oncoming cars before venturing out into the street. I should add that this is substantially better than my record behind the wheel of a vehicle, where I have been struck by vehicles that ran red lights. On the most recent occasion where this occurred one of my passengers (the lovely sonya) received a concussion that required a trip to the emergency room, and I lost a perfectly good vehicle (well, okay it was a hatchback, but still.)

  This incident took place directly in front of a police station, the shiny new metal cop fortress that was built soon after the WTO "riots" took place (*cough*) and included numerous riot-ready features such as high ramparts with elevated metal walkways where officers with rifles could presumably be situated, bulletproof windows and, most significantly, a phalanx of outward-facing video cameras poised to record anything and everything that happened within a block of the place. This is an important detail because when my car was T-boned by the other car running a red light, thus totalling both cars and knocking Sonya's head into the rear passenger side window, not only did no police officers come out of the building to investigate the rather loud crash that had just occurred (I guess bulletproof glass is a really effective sound-dampener), but when the other driver abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot a minute after I had walked across the street to get help, no officers were available to chase him down, and apparently after the fact it never occurred to anybody to rewind one of the tapes that those video cameras are recording twenty-four hours a day so as to get a good look at the guy. In fact, the entire case was dropped a year later for lack of evidence. To my knowledge, nobody was ever charged, including the owner of the abandoned vehicle, who hadn't by the way listed it as stolen, and I was basically out one car. Sonya, thankfully, recovered from her injuries after a rough week or two, and went on to become even more awesome than she had previously been.

  So, like I said, I thought that my pedestrian skills were pretty finely honed, as evidenced by my aforementioned perfect record of more than three death-free decades in which I was neither killed nor caused anyone else to be killed as a result of my pedestrianism. But obviously my faith in my own street-crossing abilities was woefully misguided, and so I now must pay for that mistake to the tune of $46.00 American, which is really a small price to pay for a valuable lesson that might one day save my life. I realize now that the solid red hand is not to be trifled with. The solid red hand must be respected; above all the solid red hand must be obeyed.

  So, here's my question: What is up with those mustaches? How come the only people I ever see sporting them are cops and middle-aged gay men? I've been racking my brains for years trying to come up with the connection and all I've been able to come up with is that one guy in the Village People.

"Be safe, now." says Officer Bob #8737.

Still re-evaluating...

Thanks to superdickery.com.

Notes, September 17 2005

  Looking out the window through the iron slats of the fire escape I can see the full moon peeking through the clouds that hang in the sky above a brick building across the way, where somebody has leaned out over the edge of the roof to paint the word "loser" in black and white block letters that cover the fading white letters of the old "Holmes Business School" sign. In the foreground, affixed to an awning on this hotel's facade, a flag emblazoned with the Seal of the Great State of Oregon flaps in the breeze alongside its companion Old Glory. The Seal is rendered in gold filigree on a field of royal blue and features an eagle with its wings spread over a scene depicting, among other things, a covered wagon and a big three-masted sailing ship. On the reverse I can just make out what I'm pretty sure is a beaver, but the whole thing is fluttering around too much to be certain. Somewhere in the distance a car alarm is going through the familiar sequence of jarring sounds that all of us urban dwellers now know by heart, like a jukebox that only has one song, a little ditty called "help somebody's trying to steal me!"

  C'mon everybody, sing along, you know the words: "HELP me! HELP me! Somebody's trying to steeeeeal me! To steeeeeeal me! They're taking the STER-eo! I'm SER-ious! Please call the po-LICE! po-LICE! po-LICE! They're Steeeeealing Steeeeealing me! STEAL-ing! STEAL-ing! STEAL-ing! Me! Me! Me! Me!"

It occurs to me that my favorite part of the story of the boy who cried wolf is the ending when he is eaten by wolves and everybody within earshot can finally get some peace and quiet.

  The noise stops and the night is peaceful again. Down below a streetcar rattles by without incident and when it's gone there's nothing but the faint sound of conversation filtering up from the kids on the corner of Stark and 11th who are sitting in the doorway of the Red Light passing a bottle around. Across the street well-dressed boys are queuing behind a velvet rope, waiting to get past the doorman and into the strobing, throbbing, thumping interior of Boxxes.

  I am at loose ends on this Saturday night, my travelling companions having made other plans for the evening and leaving me to my own devices. Earlier tonight I went over to Machine Works and used my festival pass to get into the DaDa Ball, but there's only so much enjoyment I can derive from standing amidst a crowd of strangers dressed in their artfully decrepit ensembles of tattered ballgowns and brocaded testicle harnesses and duct-taped nipples. It's all very nice but I feel like a voyeur, like somebody's square uncle who decides to check out this Burning Man thing he's heard so much about just to see what the big deal is. And really, let's face it, I've never been good at striking up conversations with strangers in these kinds of settings, especially a stranger that's dressed as a six-foot tall go-go dancing Wonder Woman. If Wonder Woman were into bondage and domination. (Wait a second -- golden lasso? Magic bracelets? Holy crap, Wonder Woman was into bondage and domination! I may need to reevaluate some of my childhood memories.) So I came back "home" to this hotel room after a brief stop in a too-rich-for-my-blood teakwood and polished brass hotel bar for a ham-with-mustard panini and a ten dollar scotch.

  Now I'm sitting here looking down on the corner of 11th and Stark through the faint amber tint of overpriced whiskey, basking in the simultaneous sensations of captivity and freedom that arise from being completely alone in an unfamiliar city. Behind me 100 channels of basic cable beckon but for now my attention is hooked on this program. What it lacks in plot development it makes up for in richness of theme and subtext. Two blocks down the brightly-lit Powell's sign welcomes late-night book browsers. The cars and people continue to trickle past, the streetcars glide by on electric rails and the beggars on the sidewalk ask passers-by for change. Deep sigh as I look up to where the full moon is slowly rising and shining down on everything in the city regardless.

Questions prompted by reading this story about a Chinese cosmetics company selling high-quality, low-cost collagen products made from the flesh of recently-executed prisoners:

1. Although the article states that the company producing these products cannot be named for "legal reasons", could the authors give us a hint? For example, does the company name contain the word "soylent?"

2. Does this stuff really work? I mean, will it smooth out the Furrowed Brow Syndrome (FBS) crease I'm getting that becomes more pronounced with every passing year? Or the "Holy Shit!" Shocked And Dismayed Eyebrow Syndrome (ShADES) lines that etch themselves a little deeper every time I pick up a newspaper?

3. Is the process whereby real life is becoming indistinguishable from a dystopian science fiction nightmare world actually accelerating, or is that just me getting older and falling out of step with the times? Will worrying about it make me less attractive? Could botox help?

4. Angelina Jolie's kissable, "bee-stung" lips: Suspicious?

5. Say somebody was in the market for some kind of over-the-counter Firming Cream, one that helped eliminate cellulite from the area around the buttocks and thighs and shaped as it lifted, but didn't cost an arm and a leg -- are there any American companies, say Wal-Mart for example, that sell a low-cost product such as this? I'm asking for, uh, a friend.

6. Chinese agricultural interests have been actively seeking "Organic" certification for certain crops grown for export to the U.S. and Europe, in spite of a lack of any practical means for verifying the conditions under which said crops are grown. Could this cosmetics company apply similar logic to ship their product with a sticker that says "Cruelty Free: Not Tested On Animals" alongside a graphic of a happy, fluffy bunny? If the answer is "no", could they appeal to the WTO?

7. What exactly does a country have to do to not receive most-favored nation status?

8. Do Universal Human Rights make my ass look fat?

9. Which is a better value for the money? The Falun Gong Skin Treatment or The Counter-Revolutionary Vanishing Cream?

10. Free-market advocates have long contended that the best way to improve conditions in countries with longstanding institutionalized disregard for human rights is to conduct open trade with those countries, because the rising tide of economic prosperity will inevitably lead to reform and democratization. What are these free-market advocates smoking, and how might I go about obtaining some?

11. Will this posting cause my blog to stop showing up on Google and Yahoo searches in some parts of the world?

Conversation Starter

  I first heard the comment from some of my fellow passengers on the #2, back when I lived in the Central District and used to take the #2 to work downtown. It was always a pretty lively bus, lots of friendly conversation, some occasional trash-talking, and on one or two occasions a bright-eyed entrepreneur in the back offering prescription pills to his fellow passengers at deep discounts.

  I overheard a middle-aged black women joking with her friend about how you know you're in the white neighborhood when you get on the bus and nobody's talking. White people just sit on the bus and read or stare out the window; They generally aren't so much about the talking with their neighbors. I looked up from my book for a moment when I heard this, considered it, and then went back to what I was reading.

  A few months later I moved to Ballard. Following immediately on the heels of my days riding the #2, my experience on the #17 and the #43 provided a study in contrast. The ride from Ballard into downtown was, by comparison, funereal. Punctuated by occasional quiet conversations between passengers who boarded the bus together, it was a overall a twenty-five minute exercise in quiet newspaper reading and discreet social avoidance. Very little talk among strangers. Sometimes I did a crossword.

  No doubt this rich comic vein has already been thoroughly mined by stand-up comedians on BET, but unlike a lot of observational humor about white folks and their mysterious ways in this case I have actual anecdotal evidence that it is indeed funny because it's true. White folks don't talk on the bus. Or so I thought until recently. Yesterday it dawned on me that somebody's finally figured out a way to get white folks to talk on the bus: It's called the cell phone.

  Perhaps you've heard of them? It's a phone with many of the essential attributes of an ordinary phone, but with the crucial distinction that they are not plugged into anything, which allows people to talk on them wherever they happen to be and whatever they happen to be doing, whether they're riding the bus, standing around at a funeral home, merging on the freeway or attending a performance in a darkened theatre. It's really quite extraordinary!

  While the ability to call or be called at any time and any place is certainly a huge advantage over old-fashioned land lines, the best feature of this new cellular technology is one which you never hear mentioned in any advertisement: By far the most appealing aspect of cell phones is the way that they allow everybody within several meters to hear one half of private conversations being held among complete strangers. Meaning one can be privy to all the juicy details of other people's lives while a convenient social barrier prevents any awkward obligation to offer comment or in fact to acknowledge that one can hear what is being said at all.

"So you finally gave notice? Good for you. You hated that job."

"Really? A yeast infection? The worst ever? Ew, gross."

"The bus? Me too! No, I'm on Pike, just past the Convention Center. The #10. Yeah, I know, right? Such losers. Like the guy sitting across from me. Doing a crossword puzzle. Oh wait, he just stopped -- he must be stuck on a word. Maybe he needs a clue. Ha! So anyway, I'll see you in about ten minutes? Alright, bye!"

  When I got on the bus last night, I noticed that everybody on all sides of me, white folks included, everybody was chatting away happily, cellphones pressed up to their ears. Every one of them was holding a seperate conversation with some distant, invisible party speaking from an unknown location. I've never seen so many white folks talking on the bus at once, at least since elementary school.

  Apparently the key factor is that with cellular technology, one can talk to people of one's choosing instead of being forced to interact with those in one's immediate environment. One can be on the bus but not of the bus. While ostensibly they are tools for communication, cell phones have the potential to be so much more: A means of constructing a social bubble around oneself that prohibits any interaction with outsiders and provides a convenient excuse for pretending they are not there at all. It works even better than a crossword puzzle.

  To be fair, not everybody on the bus was talking on a cell phone. Some were listening to iPods.

Three Feet High and Rising

  Finally heard back from my brother and his family. They made it back to the in-laws' house in Alabama and are alright. They pretty much threw a change of clothes into a bag and got out of Dodge. My niece "misses her stuffed animals." My nephew, her older brother, is passing the time by "wandering around devoting his attention to learning the reflexive property of addition and multiplication." Yep. He's a Banjo, alright.

  For her part, my very youngest niece is probably too busy making those weird baby noises and throwing up on her mom to notice much of what's going on, other than the fact that Mom and Dad seem a mite anxious.

  Today my brother is driving back into town to see if they still have a house or not. Signs, according to him, are not favorable. Other houses nearby at similar elevations were flooded anywhere from 1 to 15 feet deep. They're not sure where they're going to live. Maybe in a FEMA trailer.

He says "Today is our 9th anniversary. Some anniversary, huh?"