Autumnal Equinox: A Bad Meat Scene Report from Riot Fest 2014

     I suppose that venues up in the Rocky Mountains are no strangers to live music.  There's an annual New Age music fest and flowing spiritual happening up there.  But that one takes place, I believe, on privately owned land.  Music fests on publicly owned land are subject to county approval.  One such festival, Riot Fest, made its debut last year on county land.  This year, the county denied the fest a permit.  The county didn't come out and say that Satan has kids into punk rock, thinking that Hell will be fun, but those of us who saw this movie '(Punk Rock vs. Municipal Government') some thirty years ago are familiar with culture's relationship with music which Quincy referred to as "a killer of hope."  I never thought that I would be thanking Quincy for influencing a generation of local government saps, but as a direct result of a certain vote by a certain county board, Riot Fest was moved to just up the street from where I live.  Thank you Satan for a jaunt back to my youth.
     I didn't make it Friday or Saturday.  Saturday morning, I was on a bus home from work with three drunks, one of whom mentioned the "heavy metal fest.  Slayer played last night."  According the schedule, they were on right after the Flaming Lips.  I flashed back to a show at the VFW in Norman with the Lips and local heavy metal band Oliver Magnum.  On Friday you could have watched Slayer, or on another stage at the same time, you could have seen Primus.  All played earlier in the afternoon.  Most of the bands I've never heard of.  On Saturday, Descendents and Social Distortion played.  The Cure closed the the evening with a two and a half hour set.  Sunday afternoon was in the 60s, and an overcast sky meant that there was no burning sun.  Out on Federal Boulevard, tricked out diesel engine pickup trucks were drag racing each other.  They were cherried out dude, it was sweet.
     I wasn't planning on going, but I saw that Bob Mould was in the line up.  I decided to at least see if single day tickets were available.  I saw Sugar when they came through town in the 1990s.  As far as I can remember, this is the first time I've stepped foot in the parking lot of Sports Authority Field.  Never been to a game or seen the psychic who was here last autumn, didn't see the president accept the nomination here in 2008.  The place is kind of a modern self-indulgent trip.  As you walk toward the steps to the box office, there are big sculptures of individual pieces of football equipment.  And the name of each municipal area county has its name on a pole.  The parking lot was host to four stages, carnival rides, merchandise, miniature golf, food vendors, and a line of Porta Potties.  There were attempts to make it feel rural.  Hay bales were everywhere to sit on, as well as a couple of tractors.  I found my way past a long banner with an illustration of a corn field.  I found the May Farms Stage just as Bob came bounding out.  He plugged in his turquoise Fender, and once again the air was filled with the psycho-sonic vibrations.
     His CD Last Dog and Pony Show comes with an extra disc.  It has an interview in which he has decided to give up the heavy rock performance stuff.  "That's a young man's game," he describes it.  In his grey beard and David Letterman spectacles, Bob is no longer a young man.  But he is far, far from the end of his game.  With his band, including a drummer who looks a little like Grant Hart, he blasted through songs both old and new.  For the next short 45 minutes he hopped and bopped all over the stage as the lot was swept with his beloved layers of electric harmonies.  He describes his sound as "almost like a Gregorian chant."  All three band members, rather than tired (Riot Fest is in just a handful of cities), appeared to be having a great time as they slowly won over the crowd.  And as he won me over once again.  A song from Sugar, Changes, as well as I Apologize, Celebrated Summer, Something I Learned Today (which I last heard live precisely 30 years ago).  These are some old, old songs.  (Some of us there are just as old.)  Where does the time go?  But they didn't sound old.  Because neither did Bob.  The sound was like a light, like a force.  I remember a radio broadcast from Hank Hannagraph, the Bible Answer Man, talking about some church service.  Was a rock band there?  The congregation was "as if subject to a nuclear fire.  People tore at their clothes as if on fire."  I didn't see anyone tear their clothes off, but hands went into the air.
     Bob has never been a rock guitar god, either in any conventional kind of sense or popular mold (no pun intended).  It's been written of him that "he can play rings around" any performer whose hype was far more widespread than his own.  'Twas the nature of punk's relationship with the establishment to court no establishment record labels.  If I can borrow a line from a Saturday Night Live sketch, I want to throw up in my mouth a little bit when I think of popular music from the 1980s.  But Husker Du was inching toward pop music, their lyrical story telling compared with that of The Beatles, and eventually signed with Warner Brothers.  And Bob would go on to play with Pete Townsend.  Forming Sugar in the 1990s, he played during a decade when bands which he had inspired found commercial success.  During the previous decade I lost touch with Mr. Mould.
     Now, here I was standing in the midst of the spinning sound.  They closed the show with Chartered Trips, at the end of which Bob took off his guitar strap and began spinning his guitar in front of the amplifier stacks and throwing it around.  A roadie sneaked out to pick up the strap and Bob almost knocked him down.  Watching over the entire affair were two two fifty foot images of Denver Broncos players attached to the top of the stadium.  I didn't stay for Violent Femmes or anyone else.  I didn't get the T-shirt which reads "Stay Positive and Hail Satan."  I had what I came for.

OMNI May 1980

Pierre Lacombe's beautiful cover was offered by OMNI for sale as a print.

September 2014

     Labor Day in the town of Golden.  Golden is now a suburb of Denver, I suppose.  The sister and I stopped there before enjoying the final day of swimming of the season at the beautiful El Dorado Springs natural cold spring.  We had lunch at some cafe.  I ordered "chorizo corned beef hash," and asked if I could substitute toast for the tortillas.  The waitress told me that was fine.  My meal came with tortillas.  I asked her for toast.  She told me that she thought I wanted tortillas instead of toast.  (So why did I mention toast?)  After waiting for my toast, I went inside to find it.  The host told me that he would "see what he could do about it."  My toast came with no butter, and I asked for butter.  When the check came, I asked for a discount.  The waitress said something about "not getting my message" or something.  The discount amounted to at least 75% of what her tip ended up being.  My sister thinks that the host and waitress both appeared to be hung over.
     After our swim, we came back to Golden for lunch.  By then, instead of the occasional biker, there were people lined up outside every joint up and down the main drag.  One place had a fifteen-minute wait.  Another had a thirty-minute wait.  And on and on.  At 2 PM, we finally found a place which was empty.  It had bottles of wine behind class cases and had playing Duran Duran playing over the sound system.  The service was 180 degrees from breakfast.  Through the windows we watched a parade of hippie hikers, bicycle riders, and classic car drivers.

     ...the force of the bureaucracy...like the current of a river as it nears the ocean.  ...the incapacity to be oneself...loosing one's governmental position and respectability as a player...  - Halberstam
     Whether it's a weekend barbecue or a mommy's night out with friends, many of us like to relax with a glass of wine, beer or other alcoholic beverage.  "By the end of the day, it can feel like, 'Where's my time?'"  That's where binge drinking can come in.  - Colorado Parent, 9/2014
     Awareness of the future is not a given in our universe.  This concept...was invented.  ...the future has undergone many revisions...  The future becomes recognizable only when a society begins to record its life cycle through...a structured mythology.  ...passed o by priests, medicine men, seers, or leaders.  Eternity became...a substitute for any real sense of the future.  - Omni Magazine, 4/1980
     By now, all the kiddos are back in school...and our routines return to normal.  For home games, my whole family will be at the stadium early enough for tailgating, as we have been very fortunate to have season tickets since 1965.  ...our moods on Monday highly depend on the outcome of the Sunday game.  If we are celebrating a victory, it will be the main topic of conversation for the rest of the week.  - Women's Edition, 9/2014

     Thursday.  5 AM.  I am across the street from the train station which I currently use to get to work.  There is a deathburger with a burnout waiting for the door to open.  I decide to take a look at the convenience store next door.  It's big inside, but the shelves are half empty.  An employee appears to be restocking, but I decide to leave.  Outside, some construction workers sit on boxes.  A guy with grey hair and a grey beard is in front of a pay phone, picking coins up from the parking lot.  Back at the door to the deathburger, someone comes to open it.  Burnout and I head inside.  He's first in line.  An employee at the drive through window appears not to notice us.  Burnout says, "Immigration!" in an attempt to get her attention.  She asks him what he said.  he says, "How's it goin'?"  She asks him again what he said.  He gives the same reply.  She tells him that he will not be served this morning.  His brain needs a moment to process this before he shuffles out.  5 AM, and this guy has already been turned away.  This place has its own collection of damaged patrons.  There is a guy who appears as if his head full of grey hair and a long grey beard has been attached to a stolen body.  There is a guy in a motorized wheelchair with a couple of Alaskan Huskies.  There is a weathered woman in an outfit which appears as thought it could be from a circus.  I catch my train, which takes me to the stop for my last connecting bus to work.  A guy shows up and wants to know if he missed the previous bus.  I give him the bad news.  "Oh man," he says.  "Well,  guess I'm gonna be late again today.  If I had caught it, I could have had my boss come and pick me up..."  We get on the bus, and as we approach a particular avenue, he gets his boss on the phone.  "Are you near Hampden?" he asks his boss on the phone.  The driver thinks that he is speaking to him.

     If the government...was weak and probably not viable, was it worthwhile...?  ...it would probably stay that way...  Would it make a difference if we bombed or sent troops...which would...loose its impact on such a fatigued and divided society?  Was there really anything there to build on...was it something we called a government...through which to enact our policy?  The group...maintaining that the war was primarily a political problem was systematically dismantled.  ...those men...now slowly being filtered out of the policy-making decisions...had been...the group which wanted nationalism, as opposed to the group which simply wanted to...seek a military solution...  - Halberstam
     I had just come back from my Introduction to Intelligence class.  ...I watched the second plane crash into the South Tower in New York City.  It was at that moment my generation was given its opportunity to leave our mark...  The "Greatest Generation" fought and won World War II, and the "Baby Boomers" fought in Vietnam and survived the long "winter" of the Cold War, now it was "Generation X's" turn.  On September 11, 2001, we entered into a war that has existed for my entire military career with no clear end in sight.  It was up to my generation  to figure out how to fight this new enemy on a global scale.  We developed new...military organizational structures...innovative leadership...  This war has come to define my generation, and will continue to define the generation that follows.  - Buckley Guardian, 9/18 - 9/24/2014
     Years of secret, intense missions on the front lines of the country's ongoing War on Terror appear to be taking a deadly toll.  ...Special Forces had become the face of modern warfare.  ...the war on terror changed everything.  ...fighting all over the world required...unconventional warfare...  ...they've been a constant presence in...hot zones...  ...U.S. Operations Command has swollen to...double what it was in 2001.  - Westword, 9/25 - 10/1/2014
     "I wanted to see New York City.  Can you believe that?  But we'll none of live forever, will we?  There's a crater there now, and the waves still glow blue if there's even an overcast to the dim sun.  And your skin prickles."
     The traveller grinned.  "You won't go there, and I won't go there again, but I've seen it, where the observation deck of the World Trade Towers was just about the closest mortal man got to heaven with his feet of man's earth...."  - "Men Like Us", by David Drake, Omni Magazine, 5/1980

     Saturday.  My alarm did not go off.  As a result, I am on a later bus (which I managed to connect with only by running out of the house without a shower and walking up the street), with a driver from New Jersey who is thrilled to have as his passenger a woman from Vermont.  She lived in Boulder from 1987 to 1991.  She has a relative in Steamboat Springs.  If I hear correctly, she is on a bus at 6 AM to get her husband a golf shirt because she is still on East coast time, two hours later.  She's decked out in nylon running gear.  When the discussion comes around to the Broncos and the Giants, this otherwise silent driver, whose bus I have been on before, is going comparatively nuts.  She tells him that she and her husband were in Chicago.  Chicago, Denver, the East coast.  I have the impression that she and her husband don't travel by hopping trains or hitch-hiking.  "They are crazy about football out there; completely devoted to their team.  It must be a mid-western thing.  They did not like us.  I wasn't sure our waitress was going to serve us."  I know that Chicago is in Illinois.  But I still do a double take when I hear Chicago described as being in the "mid-west."
     The day after, I'm on a bus to and from North Denver out of downtown.  The north side of the city still has remnants of its old neighborhoods, Victorian homes, an occasional bar.  In between these original buildings are brand spanking new condo units, some of them in between the individual Victorians.  On a second story balcony of a new condo, a smiling young white guy is just kickin' it on a Sunday afternoon.  Around the corner, a bohemian white guy with a long beard is on the front stoop of his own condo unit, along with his dog.  When I get back to my own street, I wait for a connecting bus home.  The parking lot of the city's football stadium is filled with tailgaiters, as is half of the overflow parking lot.  We are playing the Colts this evening.  On the corner is a liquor store where the bus stop is.  Someone is parking cars for cash.  When the bus shows up, a guy comes running carrying plastic grocery bags full of food.  He falls down right next to the bus.  It turns out that he's okay and he gets on.  A woman who looks like a recovered drug addict, or some other kind of outpatient, helps bring his groceries on.  She tells the driver that she isn't getting on, but instead simply assisting the guy who fell down.  The four guys who helped the guy on begin talking about the big game.  "The tailgaters started at 3 AM yesterday!"  Down the boulevard, a guy gets on with his son.  They appear to be of Asian descent and are both wearing Colts jerseys.  The four guys notice.  For some reason, the four think that the pair are headed the wrong direction.  "What, are ya from China?" one says.  When we get to my stop, a car with the passenger door open is pulling into a gas station.  "Whoa, his door's open...  He's gonna jump!"  When I get off, a woman appears to be walking away from a man.  Perhaps they are both from the same car.

     "The opportunity was too hard to pass up because of what it means for Denver.  We're growing as a community, and we're on a solid path.  How quickly our community has grown, and how the food culture has grown.  ...all the areas outside the kitchen are covered with the same level of detail we give the kitchen.  ...his sourcing is impeccable.  He really takes approachable food to the next level.  It's amazing.  ...the amount of eyes looking on our city...  Continued growth: How can you ask for more than anything than that?"  "At the time, French restaurants had to look like French whorehouses.  You have to stay in the moment.  It's much different from what it was four years ago.  Like countries without borders, you have to have a restaurant without a time capsule."  "...cooks beautifully, cleanly; treats vegetables perfectly...  There's a thriving economy right now, with capitalism at its best."  "I want to see these restauranteurs and chefs taking more time to grow our audience.  We can only cannibalize the "foodies" so much.  How do we find those on the fringes who need to be eased into the progressive dining scene?  How do we define and grow a culture of those passionate about our scene?  We too often go zero to 60 and expect our city's diners to follow suit." - Westword Dish 2014
     The City of Denver has 12 "Sustainability Goals for 2020" that are being overseen by the Office of Sustainability...  ...one goal states that Denver should "grow and process at least 20 percent of the food purchased in Denver entirely within Colorado."  ...processing can sustain...jobs...  Achieving a Food Shift...we will need more urban farmers...  We will need food hubs...  - Washington Park Profile, 9/2014
     ...unique materials, forms, and philosophies...contributes to the vision of a new creative process.  ...adds to the Colfax Renaissance that has emerged over the past two years joining new shops, communities, and visions...  Enter the shop...  There is a seductive sensibility to the arrangement...eco-poetic paintings, crocodile tapestries, and mysterious papier-mache' garden tools.  You arrive authentically surprised and seduced...  "There's magic in an artist's studio.  We want that magic to continue in our shop."  - Denver Voice

     Anyone else hear gunshots...?  I just called in 6 gunshots.
     Yup.
     I didn't even hear them.  Have the TV and fan on.  - Westwood Residents Association FB page, 9/7/2014

     ...utopias...had their roots in the values of the past (a simplicity real or imagined, our "old West," for instance), which magically circumvented lust, garbage, overcrowding, and, most important, any fully realized or individualized person.  ...the late nineteenth to early twentieth century held firmly to a vision of the future perfumed with optimism, sprinkled with the euphoria of progress, and distinguished by its mastery over nature.  - Omni Magazine, 4/1980
     ...our worldly mindsets have taken us into the illusion of separation.  ...pulled away from the deeper mysticism.  And this, we find, happens in many faiths.  ...a certain kind of "Christianity,"...also called "Christian activism" or "conservative Christianity" or "political Christianity."  We try to present...beyond that political polarity...really speaking about the truth of everyone's being.  ...you can see that kind of extremism merge in many other faiths.  It seems to be a sad kind of eventuality: the more religions get dogmatized and institutionalized, and the more they become proselytizing, the more that kind of extremism comes forth.  ...I have listened for the voice of perspective or reason from Christian leaders.  It's a sad thing when worldly power becomes such an addictive force that those deep core truths we align with are easily discarded.  ...they cower before the ultra-extremists...  ...they got caught in the web...and part of the web was the "original sin" doctrine that really was not a message of Jesus.  It was...proclaimed by a pope, and also by councils...the teaching of guilt and shame and fear...is the natural next step.  - Nexus, 9 & 10/2014

     Monday.  It's twenty after four in the AM.  I am across the street at the bus stop.  I watch as a car slowly makes its way down my street and makes a slow turn before it continues its slow cruise down the boulevard.  It has its lights off in the dark.  I catch the bus up the street to a stop for a connecting bus, next to a parking lot for the football stadium.  Flood lights are still on above the top most seats.  It's just about twelve hours since I rode past here, when it was full of tents and flags, cars and buses.  A small smattering of trash is visible here and there.  A couple of security vehicles putter around.  The next bus takes me to my new deathburger.  It has at the edge of its parking lot a small shelter with some stone tables and benches.  It's an area where homeless gather.  I see a woman sitting here in the dark.  She is talking to herself as she quickly moves her head back and forth.  I go inside and order.  She comes in a few minutes later and wants to know if it's "cool" to sit down.  She gets an okay.  She faces a rainbow-colored photo-mural of downtown on one corner of this groovy decorated establishment.  I watch the assistant manager argue with the cook about the preparation of my breakfast.

     The way would be difficult, it would require time and patience.   "We started...an oil spot moving across the country.  The last Indian war was 1812, over a hundred years after we started our Revolution.  ...when they get to...the stage to say, 'We the people'...then things will be fine..."  The general's view of revolution was nothing short of remarkable; if an SDS member had formulated it for him, it could not have been more perfect.
     The pols were better than ever (even Walter Lipmann...thought Johnson was signalling the limits of the United States in a Pacific war...) ...running in 1964...Johnson was frequently described as a healing man...one of his main speeches...in which he was "healing the wounds."  He...could bring the different regions together...overcame his own regional prejudices if the nation would overcome its prejudices against him.  His energies became almost mythological...  The young did not protest him.  To visitors at the White House he loved to show slides of people reaching out to him at campaign rallies.  :Look at them," he would say.  "Just look at them.  ...cling to my hands like Jesus Christ waking in their midst," he told friends.  ...for one magic moment...the centrist consensus candidate...  As the campaign progressed, even..the New York jet set, rallied to his cause, opened a discoteque called LBJ, where chic young people danced beneath giant photos of that somewhat mournful face.  Everywhere he campaigned the crowds...responded...to the good life he was bringing them.  The times were good now and there were better ones, golden years ahead.  ...the nation would be reading about the Great Society...and what he had done for "all" of the people.  - Halberstam

     Thursday.  8 PM.  I am on a late bus home, on my side of the tracks.  It's a silent trip, until the driver stops at a corner to tell one of the passengers that his bike fell off of the bike rack on the front of the bus.  He lets the passenger off to go get it, and he tells him that he will pull across the street and wait for him to bring it back there.  There is a couple sitting back.  The female, almost out of nowhere, begins berating the driver, using the F word with each sentence.  "Fucking (transit system).  'Oh, your bike fell off but I'm moving the bus over here.'  Why didn't you fucking say something back there where it fell down?"  The bike owner brings his bike back and puts it back on the rack before he gets back on board.  The trip resumes in silence.  Down the route, I hear the female apologizing to the male about her outburst.  The driver reacts with the standard stoicism.
     Friday.  Snow and rain mix.  5 AM these days finds me at my new deathburger.  The woman who talks to herself is back.  Last time, she had a suitcase with rollers and a handle.  This morning, she is pushing an empty stroller.  She asks me in her breathy voice if she "can have some spare change so I can start my day?" before following me inside when the door is unlocked.  After I order, the assistant manager asks her what she would like.  In her hand, the manager has some sheets of blank paper.  The lady with the stroller tells her that she would like a sheet of paper "to write down all the jobs I've had in the past fifty years."  Yet she appears to be nowhere near seventy years old.  She also asks for a pen, and the manager tells her that the one which she has is the only one in the entire place.  She turns to me and asks if I have one.  I may have found a replacement for Mr. Footlong Goatee.  Or should I say, she has found me.  The manager asked me if I had ordered.  I told her that the cook took my order, referring to "him" as "he."  She quietly looks up and tells me, "She..."

     ...history was alive and gaining its revenge...(a very American attitude that...history began only after the Americans arrived...)  ...the sheer force of their industrial capacity...exempted them from much of the reality of the world.  - Halberstam
     Street papers are growing, even as many paper periodicals have disappeared over the past several years.  ...selling the paper...means a reason to start a conversation, recognition from society, a chance to be part of a community again.  - Denver Voice, 9/2014

     It's a quiet Saturday morning, closing in on 4:30 AM.  My neighborhood still has at least one working pay phone.  There is a guy sitting on the ground on this phone.  He is telling the person on the other end, in an agitated voice, that he needs "to get help!"  His voice occasionally echos off the walls of the surrounding buildings on this quiet morning.  Done with his call, he gets up and walks away.  I am still learning the newly changed transit system schedules, and I didn't have to be out here this morning until a half an hour after I showed up.  If I hadn't showed up until then, I would have never known that he was here.  As he is headed toward a residential neighborhood, I get the impression that he is headed back from wherever he came.  Speaking of the transit system, up the street at another stop is a transit employee walking the length of a section of sidewalk with a tiny flashlight, looking at the ground.  On her way back, she says into her microphone that she sees "no evidence..."  When the bus shows up, I sit near a couple of people who work together.  They are discussing a third employee who "did a stretch (in prison).  Nobody like a snitch."  The morning is a rare cold one.  The bus drops me at the train station, where a silver-haired guy comes shuffling along.  It's in the 30s, and he has no coat, and he is wearing bedroom slippers.  He winds his way around a couple of ticket kiosks before crossing the middle of the highway.  On the other side, he checks a trash can before he is on his way.
     Monday.  I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live.  On his way there is a grey-haired  guy with one leg.  He is using his only leg to ever so slowly push himself backwards down the sidewalk.  I hear him say something in Spanish.  Sitting on the bench is a lady who I have seen here since the transit schedules changed.  He is inching his way to a spot at the end of the shelter as the lady asks him to watch out for her foot.  Apparently oblivious to her request, she gets up and moves.  He is quietly mumbling to himself as he is ever so slowly reaching into his pocket.  Tuesday, I am back at my old deathburger.  I'm working a closing shift, and am here to grab lunch.  At the other end of the joint are who I think are a couple of homeless guys.  One is wearing a hoodie under a black leather jacket, underneath an orange construction vest.  He appears to be in his 40s, and dressed as a construction guy.  He has no hard hat nor is he carrying any stop/slow sign.  I do not believe that he is employed by anyone.  The other has his head on the table.  This one appears to be older still than the other.  I watch as the first guy smacks the other one in the face with a crumpled deathburger bag.  He does this a couple of times.  The third time, I hear the recipient of this assault say. "Ow.  Fuck.  That hurt."  The voice which comes out is that of a twenty year old woman.  The orange vest guy gets up to go.  The middle-aged woman with the voice of a twenty-year-old asks him not to leave her, and asks him where he is going.  He tells her that he is going to the bus stop.  This is an opportunity for her to keep her head on the table in peace.
     I get home late, stepping off the bus in front of the gas station across the street from where I live.  Around 8:45 PM, there is a new guy panhandling at the old gas station.  He is heavy set with grey hair slicked back and a grey soul patch.  The next morning, I am headed back across the street toward the same gas station.  There he is at a quarter after 4 AM.  This morning he is with a woman.  I look at them and they look at me.  I catch the bus to another bus, to my new deathburger.  A van with a company name on the side goes through the drive-thru three times.  Along comes a guy on a bicycle.  He has a rolled up blanket around his shoulders.  Another guy comes walking up.  The blanket guy asks the other for a cigarette.  "I got you.  You smoke Newports?" he tells him.  "Yeees.  Itriedtogetonefromthisdumbassoverhere..."  Blanket guy begins talking non-stop.  A middle-aged guy in an orange vest pulls up and gets out to try the front door of the deathburger, which is still locked.  Blanket guy is rattling on and on and on.  Two young couples show up out of nowhere.  They appear to be travelling vagabond types.  When the door is unlocked, the two women follow me inside.  They head for the ladies' room.  The assistant manager tells them they they must make a purchase to use the facilities.  I place my order and I hear her say to the drive-thru, "Oh, I know who this is."  I ask her if she can tell her customers apart just by hearing a voice.  She tells me that all of her customers before 6 AM are regulars.
     Meanwhile, the vagabond ladies regroup as one of the guys is outside dancing.  One of the guys comes in to get the ladies "like, a coffee, small coffee."  He sounds as if he is from Boston.  One of the ladies has her hair done up in a small bun on each side of her head.  Someone calls her Princess Leia.  She is standing in the doorway, asking someone else for a dollar, as I open the door further to sneak past her.  She tells me that I scared her.  At the outdoor benches are four more guys with backpacks.  Down the sidewalk appear to be four more people, a couple with backpacks.  The tribe has arrived.  The train takes me to my last connecting bus.  before we depart, a woman asks the driver when he leaves.  "Now," he replies.  "Can you help me with some fare?" she asks.  "No," he says.  "Huh?" she asks.  The doors close and the bus is off.  At the next train station, a young guy with long frizzled hair and a tie-dyed shirt gets on.  He tells the driver in a loud gravel voice that someone told him to catch the bus across the street from where it actually showed up.  "There's already been two buses (which have come by before this one) since I saw you."  The young asks, "Are you the driver who picked me up last night?" he asks.  "Nope," says the driver.  A minute later, the young guy asks the driver, "How long are you here (before we get going)?"  Silence.  "Helo-o...?"  More silence.  "Hey bus man..."
     Crazy week.  After an unexpected 12-hour day, I am waiting for a bus on the grass, watching lightning above me at twilight.  I left the house at 4 AM and I will probably get to bed after 9 PM.  There is a guy with a cane coming up the street.  He has on what appears to be a new Alice Cooper T-shirt.  The bus comes and takes me to a train.  I get off at a station which I first saw 20 years ago.  Back then, the most warning given about  what was the opening of the first light rail line was new route numbers posted on the bus shelters.  I laughed at that, thinking that a mistake was made, having no idea that the following day I would be on an entirely new bus route with an entirely new schedule.  Today, I don't know that the transit system PR department is doing any better.  I do know that this train station is a frickin' mess.  The street is being dug up and the existing road is covered in soil.  The would class city is under construction.  As the governor says in his campaign ad, "Rules for the Governor's Office," "It takes money to make money."  Poor city.
     Thursday.  After a couple of days of no sleep, I am wide awake and off to work an odd midday shift.  I am on an eastbound bus at 8 AM.  When we get down the avenue, we run into unexpected traffic very quickly.  I hear what sounds as if something fell down and hit the road.  I look out the window to see that a big pickup truck, like I see rumbling up and down my neighborhood, has rear-ended another one.  The hood on the one behind is bent up.  Someone who saw it happen says that the truck in back took off at the green light without noticing the backed up traffic.  This same person then begins to talk about her mom giving her a curfew.  "I run with the wrong crowd in order to straighten them out...  I believe in God."  Right.  Crazy week.  The bus takes me to a train, which takes me to another bus.  Along the way, a passenger gets on and pays his fare.  When the driver sees that he has a gas can, she tells him that he can't get on with it.  The following morning finds me at my old usual bus stop.  It's 4 :30 AM.  Around the corner, in the dark in front of my old deathburger, two police SUVs are parked.  Each one has its lights on.  All  can see is a teenager, a little guy, sitting on the curb.  I catch a train for a twenty minute ride, where I hop on a regional shuttle bus.  On board are a couple of construction guys who know the driver.  One of the guys tells the driver, "We have 250 people coming in today."  She asks, "Is that moving furniture?"  He replies, no, "250 people."  As we snake around a traffic circle among million-dollar condominiums in the dark, I am also in the dark as to what they are talking about.  The driver tells him that she wishes "they had more shuttles before 6 AM.  My boss told me, 'I thought you had a lower ridership.'  I told him, 'No, I have a bigger ridership.'"  She is supposed to arrive at each of her train stations in a half an hour, and sometimes she can't even make it t the next closest one.
     And.  It's.  Yet.  Another.  Saturday.  I am up the boulevard and on a connecting bus ay 5 AM.  I am listening to three guys and a woman; all who work construction and are talking about work.  They are wearing heavy metal T-shirts and headbands.  The woman mentions that she is black and blue.  "The fucking foreman told me, 'Go do this.'  I said no.  She said, 'Well, what are you holding it like that for?'  Yeah, all the weight was on me."  At the train station is Mr.  Tina Turner Hair.  There is barely anything left of his jeans.  A young guy who looks familiar asks me if I have a cigarette I can sell him.  I tell him that I don't smoke.  He says, "Right on."  The hair guy is on his way to an unsuspecting person.  I hear him give the spiel he gave me when I first saw him.  "I'm a spiritual man.  If a man were to put a demon's wishes..."  After work, I am on a long bus ride home with three drunks.  One says that she is on her way to a birthday party.  Another says that he is going to a heavy metal festival.  "Slayer played last night."  I get to the gate for a connecting bus.  Waiting with me is a relief driver when another guy comes along.  He tells the driver, "These new buses...with the bucket seats...they're real fucked up."  He laughs at his own observation.  He tells the driver that he's a manager.  "I'm gonna give this but 'till 3 (PM to show up), and then I'm cuttin' out.  I can walk my distance."  The bus is due to arrive at 2:56 PM.  At first, I think I hear the guy tell the driver that he works at the post office, before I hear that he was simply standing in line at the post office.  When the bus shows up, the sriver tells the other guy, "Right on time, holmes."
     In a seat is a pale kid with blonde hair, wearing a T-shirt which has "Fuck Monsanto" on the front.  We pull away from the gate and turn into a parking lot.  We come to a stop at a stop sign where a young guy and his girlfriend are crossing with their bikes.  The guy is protesting to the driver that we pulled up too far.  The driver tells him, "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry, alright.  I'm sorry.  Get over."  We get to a stop down the avenue and the front door opens.  A kid says, "Open the motherfuckin' back door."  The driver answers, "Hang on," before opening the rear exit.  The kid replies, "Thank you very much.  Have a nice day."
     The following Monday after work, I step off the bus across the street from where I live.  Middle school kids are everywhere.  A middle-aged guy is walking around in a baseball jersey.  He's carrying a Winnie the Pooh doll and asking the kids if they have any spare change...  Thursday, I have the flu, from which I am recovering on Friday when I go to work.  I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live.  4:20 AM  The bus comes by.  On board is a guy with a walker.  He is in his seat, saying "morning" to everyone who gets on.  He continues saying it to me until I acknowledge him.  From there to another bus, to the deathburger.  Waiting at the outside tables for the for the front door to be unlocked is a guy with a grey handlebar moustache.  On a bike and digging through a trash can next to the place is a another guy, looking for something to eat.  He finds something in a discarded bag.  He goes over to the trash can near the outside tables and asks the other guy if he has a cigarette for sale.  A third guy comes quickly walking up to the front door.  He also has a handlebar moustache, this one white.  Through the window, he tells the assistant manager inside, "You're supposed to open at 5 o' clock.  5 o' clock."  She gestures to him that it is not quite yet five.  He replies, "Fuckin' ass bitch," as he quickly walks away.  I get on the train to another bus.  On the bus, a guy calls his girlfriend.  He immediately begins arguing with her.  When we stop at another train station, the driver shuts off the engine for a few minutes.  When this happens, it becomes quiet enough for everyone to also hear her on the other end.  When this happens, someone in back begins snoring loudly.  I get home and, when I go to bed, I hear a helicopter circling over my neighborhood.  I assume that it is a police helicopter.  I wake up six hours later to hear that it is still there, before going back to sleep.
     The new early morning is...another Saturday.  At a quarter to 5 AM, I am across the street at the bus stop.  A guy comes wheeling up on his bike.  As he goes past, he asks in a whisper, "Got a smoke?"  The bus takes me the connecting bus.  This one appears to usually have the construction crews on their way to a job site.  I sit next to three of them.  One mentions a recycling plant, where "a machine broke down.  The guy went up to to see if he could fix it, and it started up...started grinding him up."  If I don't hear a bright morning story to begin my Saturday at the deathburger, I get it on the bus.  Another guy mentions that his new work boots hurt.  The first one asks hm, "How come your own shoes hurt?"  He answers that he never wears his boots because, "I'm a gutter man."  As in his part of the business is gutter installation.  "I wear tennis shoes (on the job.)"

     We have cameras surrounding our property...  ...my husband's work truck has been broken into...  Cops want nothing to do with what we've recorded.  In fact, they won't even come out.  This usually happens Sat - Sun early morning hours.  We have to file a report online.  We got home on Monday with a postcard from the cops, saying that the case has been closed.  ...many people that we talk to when we walk the dogs know we have cameras.  Funny...they cannot be seen from the street, and we've never invited them to our home.  - Nextdoor Westwood, 9/26/2014

     Sunday.  I am on my way home from a movie, on a corner in my neighborhood.  As rain pours down, I watch a couple coming through the crosswalk. The guy is pulling a shopping cart.  Attached to the front with a metal clamp is a wooden pole he holds onto.  The woman has a suitcase on wheels.  They come through one crosswalk, then another.  They could be twenty years younger than me, and a pall of dirt covers their faces.  Once again, here are people who appear as if they are fresh from wardrobe on some movie set.  Each wears a loose-fitting coat and a headscarf.  Bosnian refugees?  Extras from Soylent Green?
     Monday.  I am working a late shift.  At 7 AM, I am out the door to catch a bus downtown for breakfast.  At the bus stop across the street from where I live, I see something on the ground next to the shelter.  I recognize it as an led light which fits under the barrel of a firearm.  It's laying on the ground smashed.  I get downtown, and after breakfast, I am on a shuttle to my bus.  It's filled with the usual collection of downtown occupants.  We pause in front of a Barnes and Noble.  It isn't quite open.  Through the window, I can see a woman with some kind of vacuum cleaner on her back.  I don't know why, but I've never seen a woman with a vacuum cleaner on her back in a closed bookstore.  Do me a favor, miss.  Vacuum up the month of September...

     Did anyone else see the police helicopter on Friday night...they shone the light right in our back yard.
     ...we are going to see a lot more of these police helicopter now that they have funding to actually use it.  - Nextdoor Westwood, 9/29/2014