...I try to get into the office as much as I can. I love talking with the vendors, and...it is a continual perspective check. We have another vendor who always brings food to some of the younger kids who congregate on the mall. He knows that these kids are doing drugs and not eating much. They are there to...just be a community for each other.
The Northside became the Highlands...Five Points and Globeville became RiNo... In recent years residents have started noticing their neighborhood being referred to...a labelling coined by real estate agencies to try to drive up the neighborhood's value... ...people...now find the streets full of luxury vehicles and pop up houses. ..."a section of town that has denied revitalization for ages." ...refugee populations...are the next big leaders in the community. ...if we truly ant change, we have to create it within the communities that live here. At almost the exact center of this neighborhood...sits what used to be...an all-nude strip club... ...after the construction of I-70 the location eventually devolved... "It has to be this building...if I can get this building, I am crazy I have so much passion. I choose my future... When I get this place - people will recycle their lives. The recycling company for human life." They do not want...Chipotle, or...T.G.I.Fridays. "There are certain restaurants...that absolutely need to continue to be part of the fabric of our neighborhood." ...changes that can benefit local residents, not real estate companies... - Denver Voice, 12/2014
What's happening throughout Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is this. Old societies are changing their ways in order to create and maintain a national personality on the world scene...to...benefit...their people... The process is truly revolutionary. The introduction of modern technology brings about...a new style of family life... The beginnings of national politics... The power of the landlord is reduced... Power moves toward those who command...modern weapons. ...scavengers of the modernization process...believe that the techniques of political centralization under dictatorial control...will persuade...men...of surrendering human liberty. - Raskin and Fall
Wednesday. I am working at a store in an office park. I am here until further notice. The company is under new ownership and my old job description is up in the air, along with everything else. I notice that I did get my first raise in seven years. This neighborhood is far from my own. At 5:30 AM, the deathburger here has a small handful of quiet, middle-aged Caucasian men. There are countless flat-screen TVs everywhere, but it is almost silent in here. I order in Spanish, and then I observe that were are speaking Spanish here in this office park. The lady behind the counter gives me a sonrisa. Thursday. At the bus stop across the street from where I live is a small woman in a red coat. She is having a smoke. When the bus comes, she gets on and puts her money in, telling the driver that she is "short fifteen cents." This does not appear to cause any trouble. Friday. I'm on a train downtown to my bank. A guy gets on, a little guy with grey in his hair. He's having trouble keeping his balance on the moving train. He announces out loud his query, "Does this train go to Federal (Boulevard)?" That's where I am going. I assume he does not mean Federal Center, which is at the end of one bus line. On this train, three different buses from two different train stops, or at another stop a free shuttle to the train he wants will take him to Federal. Yet I suspect that, in this guy's brain, the server is down. A young woman stares at him. He stumbles over to her and says, "Hey dude, does this train go to Federal?" She gives him simple instructions' one particular stop, one particular bus, and he will be standing on the very boulevard itself. His response is, "How do I get to Federal." (Due to high call volume, please try again later.) A tall young man, with his sunglasses on the back of his head, comes forward to show him a map above the exit of the train line and its stops. Saturday. 5 AM. Inside my old deathburger is a guy who I saw here once before. Last month, he was using the wi-fi. This morning, he has with him a fire engine red Fender Stratocaster, without any case. He puts it against a table in the seat and goes to the counter. When I get home from work, it's the early afternoon. I head up to a bus stop at a busy intersection, to grab a bus to meet the mom and sister for dinner. There is a drunk who appears to be friends with a burnout. The burnout tells her about campaigning for legal marijuana. The drunk is yelling at a family of kids playing on a bench, "DON'T JUMP OFF THERE YOU'LL BREAK your bones. That's what happened to me; concussions!" I watch as a pickup drag races a new issue Mustang Mach 1, another couple of pickups drag race each other.
Sunday. Late afternoon. I am waiting for a pizza in a place behind where I live. The small place appears to have a crowded lobby with the smattering of customers. In comes an odd-looking guy, in a stocking cap hiding his head and a loose-fitting jacket surrounding him. When he sees me, he asks me about a particular Bible verse before asking me if I have a Bible. He leans on the counter and calls back to the kitchen, "Hey O. G.. Hey Old School," before someone hands him a couple of pizzas. He exits and disappears down the sidewalk, into the dark. Glory be. On Monday I'm at the train station at 5 AM. A little guy with grey stubble exclaims in a weathered voice, "That fuckin' bitch..." His voice sounds as if it's coming out of a bad speaker. The next morning, here on the same platform, Mr. Tina Turner Hair has returned. I watch as he approaches a waiting passenger. He says the same thing he always does, "I'm a spiritual man..." If he recognizes me, this may explain why he hasn't told me this since the first time I saw him. His frightwig of black hair is concealed underneath his hoodie.
...he...seems to embody assertion...has the appearance of one to whom all things come easily. ...he couldn't look messy if he tried. You'd never see a vinyl penholder in his breast pocket, and you wouldn't find him hanging around the basement after work to play Adventure... He doesn't spend any time thinking about what people do with computers. - Kidder
...$300 to spend on food for the parish's 32 families in need. She founded the food back three years ago and has operated it on a shoestring ever since. To keep the project going, she has to find bargains - and the best are nearly five miles away. When she shops for herself, she buys ingredients for boiled dinners... The stacked cans and boxes soon tower over her head. A cop once fined her $90 because she had a pine deodorizer hanging from her rearview mirror... Father Felix never joins her on these drives. "I wish he would," she says. "That would give him a better idea of the needs of the food bank and how much we do for the church." ...she wants more money for these trips. The church does not reimburse her for gas... She met a man from the Denver Department of Community Planning walking through...photographing properties block by block. ...he said the city was planning to revitalize the neighborhood. ...expanding the interstate...fifty homes...will have to come down to accommodate the plan; she doesn't believe the government will pay them enough for their losses and is skeptical that they will be relocated within the neighborhood... The North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative, a project of the Denver Mayor's office, has dubbed her neighborhood part of the Corridor of Opportunity... - Westword, 12/11-17/2014
Why dollars and not cans of food in 2014? Because each one dollar raised has a multiplicative effect that we cannot achieve through a food drive. You will see our information in your building common areas... - Denver News, 12/10/2014 - 1/10/2015
If you understand...a narco state, then the fact that opium production production has...increased while counterterrorism efforts and troop numbers surged... A completely failed state...really thrive in the drug trade. Traffickers have no reason to pay off a toothless government or a nonexistent police force. ...a libertarian paradise... It's not...a...conspiracy at the center of government, but rather, in the absence of the rule of law, officials start to orient themselves around a...political economy. Big drug barons...take over trade. ...an empty stretch of desert...was developed into farmland...and drew support from USAID, as a part of the Cold War... ...its fields became fertile with...opium poppies. - Rolling Stone, 12/18/2014 - 1/1/2015
I spent my adolescence rebelling against my state and dreaming of far off, "more interesting" places. ...only recently...I began discovering all of the great things this state has to offer. ...Denver has a really intricate system of neighborhoods... ...Denver is in a constant state of transition... ...as my city continues to figure itself out, I think 2015 is the year to celebrate what's great about it right now. - Westword New Year's Eve Guide 2014
"Priority number one is to win today's fight..." ...space will no longer be an uncontested environment, but a place needing constant protection. ...satellites we are operating today are threatened... "...folks...don't think very much about these threats today..." - Buckley Guardian, 12/18 - 12/24/2014
I am working the first full week of twelve-hour shifts in my working life, and the first time I've taken a cab home five nights in a row. On Wednesday, I am picked up by a Caucasian driver in his sixties. He has a Bluetooth, and both a phone and a GPS mounted on his windshield. Friday. Train platform. Mr. Tina Turner Hair is back. He has a routine he sticks to; walk down the platform, cross the avenue, turnaround, come back. He appears as if he is younger than I am, retracing his steps out here before the December dawn. You can't keep a good man from his routine. At work, a customer comes in and begins talking about the decision to move here. She refers to the state's beauty, "God's country." I have yet to hear this description from either the state's governor or the capitol's mayor.
It's the week before Christmas. I am working a couple more 12-hour days. On Tuesday I am on an evening bus home. There is a young woman sitting up front with snow boots which reach up to her knees. She appears to be silently talking to herself. At one point, she acts as if she is choking some imaginary foe, before wagging her finger. From there, I take a train to another bus, on which a woman is talking non stop to a guy about the miracles resulting from the Bible verses which she has been reciting to individuals she meets. She talks to a guy about his blood clots until his nephew gets on. His nephew lives on the streets, he tells the lady. She tells him that she had been given a diagnosis of schizophrenia as well as bipolar condition. "But I'm not," she proclaims. "No one is." The Lord showed her that she has been "stiff-necked, stubborn, self-reliant..." Just your everyday mental competence versus dependence. I'm reminded of something which Al Franken once said to Dr. James Dobson. "You know, it must be nice to know the absolute truth." The next morning at 4:30 AM, I am on a bus up the street with a shaggy, grey-haired guy. He goes from sitting still to quickly extending his arms and fingers and throwing a left jab. It's always the grey-haired guys. I feel as though I have been visited by the three stiff-necks of Christmas. I get to the train station where Mr. Tina Turner Hair, the spiritual man himself, is just back from his morning power-walk.
Saturday, I'm on a train downtown after work. A college-aged woman sits down with a guy who appears to have dentures. They act like lovers. He is wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, and has a thin ponytail held together with elastic bands. He smells like beer but does not appear intoxicated. He has a water bottle with ice floating in a beverage. It has "Denver Urban Debate League" printed on it. The girl sounds as if she is immature for her years. She has with her a plastic case, with a picture of Super Mario. The next day, I am out to breakfast with my sister, who tells me that a couple of teenaged girls were involved in drag racing down my boulevard. They both lost their lives in an accident, just about the time that I used to catch the bus.
Monday morning. It snowed overnight. The mountains are getting blasted. I catch a train downtown before work. Where the train connects to the electrical wires, it's sparking green from excess moisture. I grab breakfast at a bagel place. Along with some folks who strike me as morning regulars, there is a homeless guy is sitting at a table. A tall guy comes in. He's grey-haired, balding, and has granny sunglasses on. The homeless guy gets up and goes to the men's room. The other guy mentions something about checking the men's room for used syringes. On my way back to the train, I pass a couple of young guys, one of whom is making a confession that he has "never screwed my friends or family. Well, okay, once I pawned my mom's fuckin' lawnmower..." After work, I am on a train home. It's around 8 or 8:30 PM. In a seat are a middle-aged couple examining a pipe full of marijuana. As they are excitedly fawning over this pipe, two transit security officers come down the train. They stop and ask the guy what he's doing. The guy responds with surprise. When the officer mentions the transit systems no tolerance policy for alcohol or marijuana on its property, the guy then responds with "Yes sir," and, "No, sir." When the officers go on their way, the pair begin what sounds like a scripted dialogue about how the transit system actually belongs to the people.
It's Christmas Eve, across the street from where I live. It's 18 degrees F but feels much colder. I'm still cold in some of my warmest gear. At the payphone is a guy who puts a single coin in, before he begins banging on the side. He's wearing an open leather jacket and a football jersey. He takes the coin from the return slot and puts it in again, before he returns to banging on the side. The pay phone takes at least two quarters. When the bus shows up, he comes running from the gas station. He gets on and asks the driver if he can give him "a ride up the street, bro?" After work, it's much warmer. Sitting on a dry patch of sidewalk at a bus stop, I watch as a pair of lazy hawks turning circles in a grey sky on a quiet Christmas Eve afternoon. After a couple of closing shifts in a row, I am falling asleep on the train downtown to meet my sister for an early dinner. I am goddamned tired. We head over to a lounge. At a table is a couple with their adult daughter. The mom says, "She thinks ISIS is coming." They all share a laugh.
Denver Union Station...its first New Years Eve event since the...building's $54 million renovation. The New Year's Eve Bootlegger Ball... three floors of entertainment with two different access levels. "We're going to change they way Denver does New Year's Eve." Also, tucked away behind the red door on...Larimer Square, The Crimson Room is an elevated underground lounge serving Denver's elite. Designer for discerning clientele seeking a lounge/nightclub experience amongst their peers... Solving the dilemma of what to do after dining downtown... ...the most sophisticated nightclub in Colorado...superior sound and visuals inspired by the unbridled lust we have for freedom. - Denver News, 12/10/2014 - 1/10/2015
...plans for a..."Crisis Solutions Center" set to open July 2015 in...an older neighborhood in southwest Denver. The center will provide short-term behavioral and mental health, chemical dependency, housing and other services...connect individuals to longer-term resources and treatment programs. ...the city would find a local non-profit to facilitate and run the center under a three-year agreement. - Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, 12/2014
People who are unconventional in some way fit comfortably in a diverse urban area... ...homeless people...are predominant in a public space that is mot used and therefore not meaningful to everyone else. I believe that's typical of a..public place such as a government center...stimulated by the...banishing of those...people from many residential and commercial areas. - Life on Capitol Hill, 12/2014
...without a temple, there is no community, and without a community, there is no future and no identity... ..to narrate the past, beautify the present, and inspire the future. - Asian Avenue, 12/2014
'Tis the Saturday after Christmas. 'Tis 5 AM. 'Tis ten degrees F. There is a little guy, bundled up, inside the gas station across the street from where I live. He has a coffee in his right hand as he stares out at the cold and dark. He appears to be inside to get warm, as if he has no other place to be. His expression is one of complete disengagement from the closest surroundings. From everything and anything. It's as if he is watching the world turn without the slightest ability to understand even the smallest or the least significant part of it. On Sunday, I return home to see a Vietnamese and her kids having made a small snowman, complete with twigs for arms. When they are finished, the all destroy it before going inside. There must be some Vietnamese tradition of which I am unaware, concerning the building of a snowman. Monday. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. I am on a bus to work a late shift. Around 9:30 AM, we pull up to the last stop out of a train station. It gets going after someone gets on. Just as it does, a little guy comes shuffling up to the door. All the way, he is holding his transfer above his head.
