A white guy walks into a movie theatre...massacres a bunch of his own people... ..."White on White Crime." You ever heard that term? Neither have I... Notice, when a black youth shoots up a jazz festival, his entire community takes the blame... Social scientists draw connections between gangsta Rap, single mothers, and crack sales.. Elected officials talk about getting "tough on crime" and uprooting gang violence. ...and soon everyone is talking about the resurgence of "black on black crime!" - Denver Urban Spectrum, 9/2012
I'm at the bus stop on Labor Day, a stop between where Obama stepped out into a football stadium four years ago and where he visited a neighborhood high school a year ago. Am I living in his neighborhood? I'm just gong up the street to pick up some photos and some diet green tea. At the stop with me is a guy in a Denver Broncos football jersey. I see so many people in Broncos gear around here panhandling that I wonder if the Broncos donate some of their merchandise. This weekend, downtown is usually a mess of a mass of people. I heard on the local news that a couple of people on the pedestrian mall got into a frickin' knife fight. But here's evidence of why we are a "world class" city. Speaking of that stadium, Saturday or Sunday of Labor Day weekend is a college football game between the University of Colorado and Colorado State Universiy. Going on for the duration of the weekend is 1) an annual sale at a downtown sporting goods outlet, which customers begin lining up for as much as ten days before. The city attorneys' services were requested to find a way around this "world class' city's brand spanking new overnight camping ban. What to do, what to do. Nothing this happening city can't handle. Now move along, nothing to see here. 2) There's is also the annual downtown Taste of Colorado festival, which among Denver's outdoor summer festivals has somehow become its most popular, and takes place in the same park where the homeless have slept overnight, between the capitol and the state house. At the other end of downtown, there may be a music festival, possibly in yet another sporting goods outlet parking lot, I can't keep track of these things. The confluence of visitors to these events creates...a knife fight I guess. The guy in the jersey at my stop wants to know if downtown is a mess. I tell him only if his bus has been detoured around the festival. He says that he has to catch a bus downtown tomorrow. That's interesting. Tomorrow, everything will be back to normal. Why is he worried about this today? When the bus shows up, he asks the driver if she is going downtown. Not today. but he can transfer to get there. He asks about another route which goes downtown during the week. But on Sundays and holidays, it doesn't even come to this stop. So what is this guy doing here, or at any stop, today?
Train station. Waiting on a train in the dark. Staring at the back of an empty warehouse across the tracks in the short distance. It must be the Home Depot. A big garage door is open. Light spills out from inside. I can see big orange metal shelving inside. A forklift drives inside, and I watch as the door slowly closes with automatic definiteness. Thursday, 5:30 AM. I've never seen anyone ride a motorcycle in a cowboy hat until just now. On the train, I'm looking out my window at a parked cargo hauling train which we are passing. The scene is pitch black, except what appears in a flash through the spaces between cars. A slowly shifting perspective of individual streetlights. Superimposed on this is the reflection coming through the opposite window of a different pattern of lights.
Denver has continued to really blow up this year. Breakfast joints seem to be all the rage. ...a little bit of national recognition as a serious food town... I'm sick of hearing people say that Denver lacks great restaurants. ...the day, my mood, where I am and how much time I have - all that. I love having two great new breakfast spots in my neighborhood , neither overrun with hipsters or douches. And we're seeing cool things like old motor homes being lifted onto the rooftop patio...which has a great view in the city. ...you can go around the corner to the absolute worst strip club in Denver, Dandy Dan's... - Westword Dish, 9/12
Maybe Dandy Dan's is the worst. I don't know. I haven't been in a strip club since I was 21 or 22. A place in Tulsa I think, called the Stables Lounge. The funny thing about that was, it was 1987, and what was being called the Iran-Contra scandal at the time was the subject of good old fashioned televised congressional hearings. Inside, at one of the tables, was a guy who appeared to look suspiciously like former congressional investigative committee guest General Secord. But I digress. I catch the bus most mornings just yards away from Dandy Dan's. This fine late summer morning is my day off, and I am on my way to the gas station across the street. At his usual post is a panhandler. A passerby says to him that he saw him forty blocks up the street. He replies, "I get around." Later in the day, I come out of a small grocery store nearby. A guy goes by and says, "How's it goin' man." He has a tall can in a brown paper bag. As I am coming up the street toward the same corner, I see a middle aged guy with a cane is being helped across the middle of the boulevard by someone who appears to perhaps be his son. The guy has on a T-shirt for a local wrestling tournament.
I'm at the bus stop on another Saturday, for a short ride up the street, and then to a connecting bus to work. It's 5 AM and before sun up. On the bench is a woman I haven't seen before. She wants to know if I have a cigarette. Up the sidewalk comes shuffling a drunk, someone who the woman on the bench knows. As he arrives, he says, "Alright, which one of you wants to sell me a cigarette?" She begins berating someone she refers to as "she" and "they". "Where's she at? She has a cigarette. They're drinking beer. You've been drinking beer too. She's after my son." The drunk asks her if she wants him to "go back up there (and panhandle for money)?" He begins to softly sing to her to calm her down. There are three more of us waiting for the bus. He asks each of us if we have a cigarette, the last one with a "hey bro, hey homie." None of the three of us smoke. On the connecting bus is a kid in sweats and a hoodie. He has Eurospecs, a goatee, and is cradling a bottle of Powerade. We are headed down the drive to the train station. The kid gets up to ask the driver something, and I hear the driver tell him, "The train station is straight ahead." At the station, on a ticket kiosk is a flyer for a yard sale for an organization called ADAPT. It appears to be a disabled organization. Their logo is a stick figure in a wheelchair with its arms in the air. Above the figure it reads, "Free Our People." I grab a train and get off down the track. On the other side of the platform is a guy with a bike and a hoodie which reads "YALE". He points at me and yells, "You over there! Have a good Saturday! Enjoy!" It's a quarter to six AM and still dark. I hear a girl's voice, but when I look toward it, all I see is a sleeping guy on a bench. I realize that it's coming from the roof of a parking garage. There are a couple of girls talking to each other. It's otherwise quiet on this early weekend morning. I rode the time train down with a regular passenger, a guy with mental issues. When I get down to the bench under the girls, the mental guy comes strolling up. He's also talking, but to himself, and punctuating his complaints against vague enemies with "fuck" and "goddamn', and "bullshit". And he speaks loud enough to hear. The two girls grow quiet before I hear them leave for other diversions. Am I having a good Saturday yet? I get up to toss some dental floss in the trash. I wonder if he will react. he gets up and looks in the trash can near him. When the bus comes, he gets on, and says good morning to the sparse compliment of passengers. A middle aged guy in sunglasses and headphones in the dark morning. He says to one guy, "Hey buddy, what's up?" The guy is asleep. He sits down and says to the driver, "Turn on the heater for us please sir. Thank you."
After work on Saturday, I head over to KFC to get dinner for my mom. Right outside the window is a guy who appears to be homeless, dressed up as a bike rider and with a mountain bike. It doesn't appear expensive, but except for a bit of mud it looks brand new. Everything is shiny, the paint, the brake cables, the chain, the rims. The tires appear to be right from the store. The next day I am at a deathburger for breakfast. A guy comes in with a shoulder bag which has a strap made from an old clear plastic bag.He orders breakfast, sits down, pulls out a book to read. Just like me. The following day, I am at the bus stop at the supermarket, waiting for a bus home. Coming across the middle of the street are a familiar couple. They are asking those of us few waiting for the bus for spare change. meanwhile, some guy with a beer can in his hand is digging through the trash. Later on, I am in a deathburger for lunch. Some guy is borrowing their cordless phone. He is speaking in a stilted and loud monotone. "You're my friend. You're my friend. Even though we're not together anymore, you're my friend. And I have a friend in the hospital with serious injury. Goddamn it. Fuck. Hey, want to hear Nickelback? Fuck it. You're gonna hear Nickelback, 'cause you're my friend." Nickelback is coming through the speakers. I say to the girl behind the counter, "You're my friend." When he's done, he hands the phone back to the girl at the counter and says, "Thank you kindly." He walks out to the parking lot and asks a question of someone in the driver's seat of a little silver Mazda pickup, before he goes on his way waving one arm in the air. Sitting next to me is a guy in a white cotton tank top and a name tattooed across the back of his shoulders in Gothic script.
A new week begins with a quiet early morning. A moth lands on my knee. An omen. After work, I am waiting for the bus with a woman who is telling her friend, "Fuck yeah, it's Temperpedic! You got a choice between a couch and a Temperpedic. It's a Temperpedic surface." A couple of days later, I am called into work on my day off. I'm at a different stop, later than I usually go to work. On the corner is a guy in handcuffs. Standing at a short distance is who I presume is his girlfriend. I hear him say, "I need to get me to a bonds man. Baby, why you do this to me?" The following morning is another later start. I wait to cross the street next to a blonde in a little car with a ski rack. She's in Eurospecs and has a Starbucks. This is perhaps a more optimistic omen. When I get on the bus, I'm watching a middle-aged woman reading a book titled "Taming Your Gremlin". Someone in the street is working directing traffic through a construction zone. I don't see a safety vest on her. At first, it appeared as though she was flagging down the bus to get on. It makes it look like a bystander is directing traffic. The end of the week is the second day of Autumn. Early in the morning, I get off the train to work. On the platform I see a big group of what I think are college girls. As pass by, I see that they are middle-aged women dressed in colorful running gear. They are no doubt headed downtown to the Rock n Roll marathon.
...we can comfortably use the word "Recovery" when describing...the economy. Being smart and feeling optimistic about the foreseeable future should go hand-in-hand. Real estate is no longer a bad word... The results of the Gallop-Healthways index were based on "Future Livability" with their metrics being based on factors including 1.) accessibility of water, 2.) recreation opportunities, 3.) obesity rates, 4.) and smoking habits. Their "standard of living optimism" saw life getting better, nationally, over the next five years. Colorado was proudly able to boast the #3 position. The Vacancy rate in Denver through the second quarter of this year, has visibly dropped (year over year), and are now standing boldly at 2%. - Denver News, 9/10 - 10/10, 2012
You will get sick on the streets. I mean a lung infection that drags on for weeks. A lung infection that rises from your lungs into your ears and makesWhy don't my boots keep me warm? You really want to hear a voice call down from Heaven and tell you that everything is going to work out your head feel as if it were sculpted out of concrete. You go to a doctor who flatly refuses to treat you because you are homeless! You go to interviews barely able to hear because your ears are blocked with mucus. You have no money for the bus to get back to the shelter. It is an eight-mile walk. You have three hours. If you don't make it back, you are going to spend the night out in the cold. You have to find a job or get out in the next two weeks. You go to a church...to get a bus pass... ...they want to call the company where I would be interviewing to verify...the interview. If they call...I definitely don't have the slightest chance in Hell of getting the job. You start the long six-mile trek up the hill. Why can't the sun come out? . - Denver Voice, 9/2012
It's another Monday. I'm on a later bus than usual, working an odd schedule. Three passengers are all wearing black leather jackets, one a senior citizen. In a few minutes I will see a forth downtown. Another passenger, a middle-aged woman, is whispering to herself, looking out the window with a puzzled expression on her face. She suddenly decides to begin quizzing the surrounding riders, in a voice which sounds as though she would otherwise be imitating someone annoying. "Are those shoes leather? Are they comfortable? Do you have good feet? You must. I would never (wear those shoes)." Someone sits down next to her. She asks, "What's up with satellite phones?Makes the world more dangerous, don't you think?" She asks about the city's football team. More and more people begin answering her questions. A discussion begins about the team. She then asks someone if they have a job. This get a laugh from one of the passengers. She says that she wishes she had a job. She wants to be a bus driver, except she admits that she gets lost, and she believes that as a result she would get fired. I think I hear her ask who the president is. She mentions a name other than Obama. Then she quietly says "shit. They just try to kill poor people." I change buses by the state capitol. I see a gaggle of what appear to be middle school-aged boys on a field trip. They are collected at a corner. They all have white T-shirts and caps on. All except for one of two tallest boys. One of these is wearing a British cap and a different shirt, the cool guy. The other one is smiling at something his friend is saying.
On my birthday this year, my sister got me a membership to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. In the mail today, I have an invitation to one of their gala fundraisers, for the upcoming season's exhibition program. Tickets begin at $300, with the top table reserved for $50,000 contributors.
The following Monday, I am on a different route and a later bus than usual. A woman is telling the driver about losing her kids to Social Services. This driver is the one who honks at the cars which pass her. I don't hear her do any honking this morning. She says that her kids still consider her their mom. The driver mentions Jesus. Another pair of women get on, one telling the other about her relationship with her son "falling apart." I am now listening to two simultaneous and mutually oblivious conversations. "...broken promises crush kids." "I'm not in it for negotiation. Doctors don't know, schools don't know, parents don't know. First cousins by my side. Changin' her name. Givin' her my biological name. She wants her name changed." "I'm doing my volunteer work." "Like a kid in a candy store, you know?" "I did three abortions. That shit gets too hard on me." "Her oldest was tellin' me to get fixed." (laughter) "Make a sound choice?" "That will be special for you then." "Just pray over it."
It's 12 hours later, 8:15 PM at the train station. I am waiting for a connecting bus home. A car drops off a drunk. He pauses in the headlights to pose with his liquor bottle, pretending to take a drink. He's in a plaid shirt which is too long and his jeans appear to be 'slung low'. He looks as though he is my age. He's wandering the train platform. He says to another transit system passenger, "Hi there. Are you okay?" He continues to wander in the dark...
