Sunday. I am on a bus to the supermarket. There is already a guy with a cane in a seat. I get on with another guy with a cane. He is a senior. Hidden under his sleeve, I think that I see gang or prison tattoos. He tells the driver that he has noticed the transit system has hired new people. The system has hired a lot of women, he has noticed. "They can really handle driving these babies." In the afternoon, I am coming back home. I am at a corner bus stop up the street. There is a gaggle of people waiting on the bench. A middle-aged guy comes by on a bike. In his right hand, he is holding a model of a ship. I appears to be a sleek British clipper of centuries past. Did he get a prize for downing the most goddamned Cutty Sark? Did the liquor store give it to him if he promised to go away? Did he steal it? He's showing it to a couple on the bench. He high-fives each of them before he is on his way.
Single parent families have become a...feature in many societies today. ...sociologists...are asking why. Pressures of life are a major factor... The outside world intrudes in their every waking hour. ...popular culture is not helping either, as it often focuses on tearing down institutions that provide a sense of stability... ...single parents may suffer emotional stress, economic need, and social disadvantages. Some families are left with a single parent because of war, natural disaster, or disease. - Awake!, 10/8/2002
Fire up the oven and start your blenders - it's October. ...my husband has gone back to college. ...our new law school budget means...it's been fun to crack out the slow cooker... ...the slow cooker chili recipe from (a) Denver radio personality. ...my husband actually asked me to add it into the regular meal rotation. The...recipe from...the Perfect Pea blog is on our list for the first breakfast-for-dinner night this month. - Colorado Parent, 10/14
(My street, several blocks away.)
...3 am reverse 911...to stay inside. There was police swat and gunshots. Anyone know what happened? ?? - Nextdoor Westwood, 10/4/2014
When I read these summons for "Yankee go home"...I often wish these people could be punished by having their wishes acceded to... ...you people will be left so strictly alone that you will be surprised... The old idea of revolution, as Lenin conceived it coming in Western Europe has really gone. ...to try to settle this problem by force...would be merely to split what remains of the facade of unity in this world Communist movement...which consists of parties not yet arrived in power... -
The Viet-Nam Reader, ed. by M. G. Raskin and B. B. Fall, 1967
It took nine years...and two wars ending in defeat...to break my faith in the benign power of the press. The manipulated millions could be aroused or soothed by any lies. Drag, scheming, bullying and dollars occasionally preserved one human being at a time. For all the good our articles did, they might have been written in invisible ink, printed on leaves, and loosed to the wind. ...war was our condition and our history... Victory and defeat are both passing moments. There are no ends; there are only means. - Martha Gellhorn,
The Face of War, 1988
...many of the vendors also appreciate more professional clothing... VOICE vendors...are trying to set themselves apart from the panhandlers not only through their means of income, but also in their appearance and overall demeanor. - Denver Voice, 10/2014
Friday. 5 AM. I'm at a train station where there are four people under a streetlight who give me the impression as being street folk. Are they four guys? Three guys and a woman? Two of them were already under the light when a second pair came walking quickly along. After a minute, this pair just as quickly depart in another direction, as if they have "mad business" somewhere else. They strike me as in their twenties. A fifth guy, just as young, comes quickly along from the direction of the rest. He says out loud, "I've got four dollars for alcohol!" Everyone else on the train platform looks at him as he rushes off. Most of these young hustlers clearly have places to be this morning.
The following morning, I am at the bus stop across the street fro where I live. I am there with a couple of guys carrying hard hats at a quarter to five AM. With us are a couple of bundled up teenaged girls and their male friend. The girls are giggling privately with each other, one of them wearing Hello Kitty socks. It's 41 degrees F and their male friend begins loudly complaining. "Fuck, I'm freezing! Fuck, I'm freezing! It's not even that cold out here but I've been waiting so long. Hurry the fuck up, slow ass bus!" The bus takes me to another, which takes me to a train, which takes me to my final connecting bus. On this one, the driver gets to a highway down the boulevard and parks at a stop. He wakes up a sleeping passenger to tell him that this is the stop he requested. The young guy wakes up and says, "I'm waiting..." for the highway. "I'm waiting..." The driver tells him that he's here, and he ambles off.
It seemed a little crazy to be living in a hotel...with...wicker chairs...and signs on the door of your room telling you that they would press your clothes immediately and that meals served privately cost ten percent more, and meantime... The whole place trembled to the explosion of shells. There was nothing left in the room. The furniture was kindling wood, the walls...in places torn open...the bed was twisted iron and...stood upright and silly... Then for a moment it stops. An old woman...holding a terrified little boy by the hand, runs out into the square. ...she must get the child home... Somehow, you do not believe you can get killed...sitting in your own parlor... She is in the middle of the square when the next one comes. A small piece of twisted steel, hot and very sharp...takes the little boy in the throat. The old woman stands there, holding the hand of the dead child, looking at him stupidly.
An old woman had been standing by the door. She came in now. She took my arm and pulled me to come closer to her. She said very softly, as if she were telling me a secret, "Look at that, look at that, do you see, that is my home, that's where I live. There, what do you see there?" She looked at me as if I should deny it, with wide, puzzled, frightened eyes. "I cannot understand," she said slowly, hoping I would understand and explain, after all I was a foreigner, I was younger than she, I had probably been to school, surely I could explain. "You see, it is my home." Madrid flowed with rain...and the thick smell of wet wool overcoats. And we waited for the offensive. Wood is for dugouts and trenches, bridges, railroad ties, to prop up bombed houses, to make artificial arms and legs, for coffins.
The bus was collecting children to take them...anywhere...out of the city. ...that afternoon..and...on all night. Lost children, whose parents were gone in the burning buildings or separated in...that sudden attack, straggled out in twos and threes, taking any road that led away... Days later the state radio was still calling their names, trying to find their families... I thought...if the ones who order the bombing and the ones who do the bombing would...see what it's like.
The road was bright-brown mud under the misty rain. We passed villages with square stone towers where the peasants had formerly taken refuge from bandits, but which would now be no shelter from bombs. - Gellhorn
Tuesday. 4:30 AM. I catch the bus across the street from where I live. A family of four is on board. The mom sounds as if she is complaining about the possibility of missing a connecting bus or train. This is a family who travels early in the morning on public transit. At one stop, a middle-aged guy gets on, asking the driver about a connecting bus. The guy strikes me as familiar, appearing to walk as if he is inebriated. The father of the family says, "C'mon man! C'mon man! C'mon man!" I think that he would like the guy to expedite his fare payment. After taking a seat in the back, the guy makes his way back toward the front, hanging on to the railing for support, with a paper towel in his hand. When he sits back down, it's next to a young woman who I hear tell him to "Sit down and shut the fuck up." Many of us pile off at the train station where we get on a connecting bus. As it heads down its usual route, it suddenly veers off onto an exit ramp...which it is not supposed to do. The sleepy passengers react with disappointment. One guy yells, "Where the fuck are you goin'?" A passenger with a latte comes forward to direct the driver back to our avenue in jig time. The inebriated guy and his lady "friend," who once again tells him to "Shut the fuck up." Wednesday. I am on the same bus route which took an unscheduled detour the day before. There is a middle-aged wasted guy sitting next to a stylishly dressed woman. They are having a conversation. She is awake and appears to be headed to work, or someplace. His voice is gravelly and his eyes are closed.
Thursday. Deathburger across from the train station. Shortly before 5 AM. A couple of guys are standing at the front door. One of them appears to be having trouble getting his arm through a sleeve of his jacket, and is also having trouble with his balance as he walks over to a nextdoor gas station. The other spots me. He has a salt and pepper moustache and salt and pepper hair in a ponytail under a cap. Like other street people, he asks me if I am okay. He looks at his friend, remarking, "Wow..." He tells me that his "friend is kind of schizo." His friend returns and we all wait for the door to the deathburger to be unlocked. The following morning, I am right back at the same place at the same time. After I step off the bus, I see a couple of guys and a girl at the front door. Until the door is open, they head over to the gas station. One of the guys is middle aged and the others are young adults. I recognize the older one. He asks me if I have a cigarette for sale, and i tell him that I don't smoke. He tells me that he remembers me as well. The younger guy has a red bohemian beard and the girl has her blue hair shaved from the sides of her head. No one appears dirty, and the older one has on brand new Nikes. But he has that street hustle vibe about him. He's complaining about the parking being dirty. There is a single cup on the ground. He describes the locked door as "the days when you went to school and the doors were locked." (WTF?) That's one memory I don't have. Perhaps he went to school on holidays. He's telling someone else that the employees at the gas station don't like him, that they refuse to sell him cigarettes, that he harasses the other customers. I catch a train to another bus. Down the road, an elderly guy gets on who recognizes another elderly guy. They discuss their favorite 7-Elevens.
Saturday. I am back at my old bus at 5 AM, stop for the first time in several weeks. At the medical marijuana place across the street, the sign with the name is gone, as well as the huge banner reading, "closed for remodeling, opening soon." A young couple are crossing the street and headed my way. A guy is following a girl, who is speaking fast and angrily. "Don't even fucking talk to me. Stay the away from me. I hate you. Don't even fucking come near me. You're a liar. I can't even believe I ever loved you. I was better off boning that guy for ten dollars..." They disappeared down the sidewalk of broken dreams, mad hustles, and raided marijuana outlets. Up the boulevard from where I came now comes another bus. It stops, waits, and begins moving. As it takes off, a guy across the street puts his hands in the air as if by some miracle he can stop it. He shouts, "No, no...no, no...no!"
Monday. Bus stop across the street from where I live. 4:30 AM. On the side of the boulevard from where I came is a small shopping center. In the parking lot is a lone police car with only its parking lights on in the dark. Someone with baggy pants is slowly shuffling through the lot up to the driver's side of the police car. he appears to be having a conversation through the window. At one end of the lot is a tow truck. It's loading up a car onto its bed. The car has a smashed front left corner. When I get to the first train station, Mr. Tina Turner hair is there. It's still dark. He is talking to a police officer for the campus where the station is. Wednesday. Same bus stop across the street from where I live. Same time. Down the sidewalk is a guy coming this way. He's picking something off the ground. I hear him say, "Fuck..." Coming out of the gas station is a guy who appears no more than 22 or 23. He is wearing a leather jacket and has a big shiny black acoustic guitar in front of him. He's eating yogurt as he asks me where he can find "a place that's open 24/7?" Preferably with wi-fi. I direct him just up the street to my old deathburger. He leans his big guitar against the bench, and the strings strike a chord. We get on the bus and are soon at the corner where he should get off. He gets off...and then right back on again. He gets off where I catch a connecting bus and heads to the train platform.
...officials responsible for the conduct of American foreign policy...maneuver themselves into a position which is anti-revolutionary "per se" and which requires military opposition...regardless of how if affects...the United States. For better or worse we live again in the age of revolution. -
The Viet-Nam Reader, ed. by M. G. Raskin and B. B. Fall, 1967
...a population that remains largely invisible to most area residents... Children...crying out to each other in a hodgepodge of tongues. A few women clad in saris or hijabs looked on... Weird music drifted from the doorways...and exotic cooking smells... ...one family...had recently been reprimanded for slaughtering a goat in their bathroom and drying the meat on the shower curtains. ...to help provide refugees in the Denver area with..."cultural mentorship." - Westword, 10/23-29/2014
The event had become a Boulder tradition for nearly a decade. ...we enjoyed drinks with a mixed crowd of younger college students and older hippie types. ...many folks in the crowd began removing most of their layers. ...I struck up a conversation with a topless girl and her...naked boyfriend. ...Luke and I were holding hands. "Oh...you guys are queers!" he squealed...the drunk girlfriend began to apologize profusely. At one point, the girlfriend tripped and fell down. I didn't want to put my clothes back on. That is until I noticed the guy next to me suddenly getting arrested. In fact, people were getting arrested all around me. ...a dozen naked people sitting handcuffed...in front of the Boulder Court House. News sources reported that these runners were going to be prosecuted for inescent exposure, which could have required them to file as sex offenders. - Out Front, 10/15/2014
The mayor added that the two firms are addressing "pieces of the puzzle that were really important to us." ...both thought their participation would send a signal that Denver is serious about reforms. "This is a great message for Denver." ...will send a team to look at all aspects of the department... ...to set up a police oversight council and help it navigate a federal investigation into excessive force... "Force and internal affairs are our bread and butter." ...the firms will also help recruit a new sheriff. The review is expected to take 18 to 21 weeks... ...hired former FBI agent...to serve as a consultant... All of that work has been combined into a single report that will be given to the consultant. - The Denver Post, 10/17/2014
...a report of a naked male exposing himself. ...Denver Police District 4...Commander...tried to calm him down and wait for cover officers... Fearing he would run into traffic, the commander tried to grab the suspect's wrist. The suspect struck the commander's
head and face. The man identified himself as 'God' at the time of the arrest. - Westwood Resident's Association FB page, 10/28/2014
Saturday. A quarter to five AM. It's been a wild couple of weeks in October. Three nights this week I've taken a cab home. I am across the street at the bus stop, with a young guy and a middle-aged couple. The older guy has a long white beard, and the lady has hair bleached the color of his beard. She is taller than he is. They sound like a couple of movie characters who belong in a bar. I wonder what they are doing here. He is telling her two-dollar punchlines with his coarse voice. She giggles at all of them. She mentions something about her employment. He tells her, "You know that wheel...with the hamster on it?" An unspoken metaphor from an era long past, which has arrived here before five AM.. It's the flavor of this boulevard. It collects people who have long ago taken an exit ramp from the highway of life. What the hell. With Robin Williams' death, Mork costumes are being pulled from under mountains of dust. I head up the street to my old bus stop, where a guy in a wheelchair sits silently in the shelter. After some minutes, he suddenly begins unintelligibly at break-neck speed. It sounds as if he is complaining about "bastards playing games." When the bus comes, he doesn't get on.
...the quickest, most important information on your ballot and why it's important to vote. ...issues that are important to young people in Colorado... ...we distilled surveys, press, public statements, and...voting history. The ballot measures include a "yes" or "no" recommendation from us... - The 2014 Colorado Voter Guide, New ERA Colorado Action Fund
"We should have our own kind of socialism. We haven't the resources for the American capitalist system..." Some plain citizens...decided to act on the speech of the President of the United States
("And we remain ready...for unconditional discussions.") A year ago, these simple folk wrote a petition, proposing...ceasefire...and discussions... Within a few weeks...the leaders were arrested. One
was sentenced to 25 years' hard labor... ...three were expelled to the other territory of a nation in a civil war.
...their families have heard nothing for over a year. My presence and questions were dangerous to a tired, harmless national citizen
now living in dread of the police because the President of the United States
can propose unconditional discussions but citizens of an allied nation
who hunger and thirst for peace, cannot. - Gellhorn
Monday. 4:30 PM. Bus stop across the street. Halloween week, this is where the action is. One guy on the bench is talking to another guy standing up. I am guessing that the one on the bench will be here after the bus comes, and the next bus, and the next... That's why he's on the bench, bro. He's benched. He's talking about where "they used to have some good Mexican music..." The standing guy tells the other that both he and his dad used to manage several bars on the north side. He mentions one of them, and the other guy says, "That's a gay bar now." The standing guy replies, "Oh, lord." The guy on the bar says "gay bar" in Spanish. Wednesday. I am working a closing shift. I am up at my old bus stop at a quarter to nine AM. Among the folks waiting for the bus are a middle-aged couple on the bench. Next to them is a shopping cart (or "buggy" as it is referred to on the street) which is full of crap. A blue blanket covers the pile, which includes some bright red luggage. The guy says enthusiastically to me, "Morning!" Friday. Halloween. I am at my new deathburger at 5:30 AM. Parked next to the building is a minivan, with a guy inside on a laptop. For a moment, I think that he is simply waiting for the door to be unlocked. When the doors are opened and he remains in his van, I realize that he is using the deathburger's wi-fi.
