Untangling gender norms...goes well beyond TV commercials and corporate policies. Parenting expert and cofounder of City Dads Group, declared 2015 the Year of the Dad... - Colorado Parent, 6/2015
As everyone has said from the beginning, television's glory is its ability to convey the feeling that the viewer is in...a real event. But reality...its time scale is all wrong, significant events rise too rarely. So we set up an artificial reality... College football is a spectacle, with bands and cheerleaders... The idea is...to bring the viewer to the game. In pro football, you're "dissecting" the game, showing the viewer something he wouldn't otherwise know about. (Several New York advertising agencies have been touting basketball as "the urban game" destined to sweep the 1970s, which makes the minutes easier to sell; and it's a four-camera sport, with low-production costs.) ...hockey should be the best television sport of all. "You can get all the sounds of the roughest contact game there is, and you don't have to worry...all the cursing is in French." - Mayer
"The Communists are always able to pick up for "united front" purposes "five Catholics, three Hoa-Hao, and ten Buddhists..." I have seen nothing to indicate that they would really share mass media...for...establishing a true dialogue, or...allow the creation of "class enemy" parties. - Raskin and Fall
Tuesday. It's my younger brother's birthday. I came out of work shortly before 8 PM. I smell the grass. The sun is going down. In stark contrast to the past eight weeks, there is almost not one single cloud in a blue, blue sky. I see the bus coming as I sit on the sidewalk. The bench which used to be here has been gone at least since this year began. I grab the pole with the bus stop sign, and it leans over as if it's going to topple. The ground is too soft to support it. As it closes in on 8:30 PM, I am at my last train station, which has a clear view from the platform of the Rockies, from here all the way straight west. My god, it's beautiful at twilight. There is still snow all over the peaks, thanks to the previous months' moisture. The sun, now below the ridge line. illuminates the contrails of passenger jets, turning them orange.
Wednesday. Around 10:30 AM. Across the street from where I live. Perhaps fifty school children collect at the opposite corner across the street. At a red light, a driver in a truck is admonishing another driver, in a small car, telling the other driver that he will "end up in jail." At the bus stop, on the far side of the bus shelter are a couple of kids who look young enough to be in middle school. The boy is angry. The girl is in spandex pants with skulls on them. He takes the trash can next to the shelter and throws it against the side. He comes running past the shelter, telling the girl that she "better not fucking call the police!" She yells at him, "Jordan get the fuck back here!" He returns to throw the can against the shelter a second time. Sitting inside the shelter, both times the can hits the shelter, is a guy with a blonde buss cut and a football jersey on. Both times, this guy picks up the can and puts the trash back inside. After the second time, this guy says, "Do it again, do it again." When the bus shows up, everyone gets on. Is it the guy in the jersey? Someone asks if he can ride just up the street without any fare. I get up the street to my old deathburger. I sit at a booth, behind the owner and a couple of managers, who are having a meeting in Spanish. I watch a big guy with long hair cross the street. I believe that he lives across the street. I last saw him outside getting shit from a bald guy who likes to confront random people. I see the bald guy outside also. He's carrying a couple of laundry bags. Over at my usual bus stop, it's a typical day. Someone honks at someone else. A small car careens around the corner, cutting off a weather beaten van. At the green light, a pickup comes drag racing through the intersection. Carrying a big box of what appear to be maxi-pads, along comes someone who appears to be an albino male. It's road rage albino maxi pad Wednesday. The bus takes us to the train station. At one end is a woman smoking a joint. She is standing very close to the edge of the platform. A train approaches, leans on its horn, and must come to a stop before she moves away and it can pull in to the station. I board a car, one half of which is filled with people all in the same black T-shirt. It has "xero" on the front. Where I get out, the bus comes right away. A couple of guys step through the front door, the one in front speaking to the other. "Ahhhh, we don't get that many tornadoes around here, ahhhh..."
Thursday. 10:30 AM. Bus stop across the street from where I live. A hippie chick and her hip hop boyfriend come strolling up and plop down on the bench next to me. She says, "...know when the bus comes?" She glances at the schedule posted in the shelter, but it's too much trouble. Or perhaps the case is so defaced that the schedule inside can't be read. When I get up the street, I am at my usual bus stop with a collection of neighborhood nuts. A middle-aged guy in a Star Wars T-shirt, a mom with a teenaged kid who has bright pink hair, and a guy who suddenly begins laughing and saying, "Master race... Master race..." A guy goes past, walking stiffly. Another was here speaking with a couple of passengers hiding from the sun under an umbrella. He comes back by from the deathburger. Carrying his food and eating as he walks, he is taking tiny steps and has his elbows pointed out to each side. There's a thin guy in a T-shirt which reads, "run with the pack," who keeps asking what time it is, and id someone sees the bus. He stares down the street with his mouth open, motionless. I've seen him here before. Yet another guy drops by. He was here last week, drinking a 40 oz. bottle of beer. He never got on the bus, but he did take off his shirt before moseying on his way with his beer. He doesn't get on this morning either. When the bus arrives, we pile on to standing room only. The driver tells us to hang on. It appears as if she is a little behind schedule. Along for the ride is a guy who was trying to hustle someone else at the bus shelter. He looks like a truck driver. He says that we are on a "bus to Boulder, a regional bus." The bus to Boulder is 'regional,' yes. This one is called a local. I can just see this guy and his 'king of the barflies' act up in Boulder, with its artisans and college students. He had better stay here, where it's safe for him to tweak. The bus stops to pick up a passenger with a walker, and the driver asks those of us standing to make way. He looks at someone he appears to know, snaps his fingers, and says, "Let's bail. We'll catch the next one." So long Fonzie. We pull into the train station where construction has been going on. A guy in a hard hat hold a sign which reads, "slow." We blow right past him.
I get to the strip mall where I work around 11:30 AM. I head over to my favorite Chinese buffet restaurant, with its minced chicken. On the door handle is a huge combination master lock. Inside are no patrons and a collection of people standing around who appear to be property management folk. A woman tells me that the place cleared out when its lease was up less than a week ago. Too bad. This was perhaps my favorite place to eat in this strip mall. It was dark, Buddhist, and had a reverent atmosphere. The patrons sat and ate quietly. I enjoyed it before the chaos of work. I head over to my hangout here at a bakery. I walk in with a father and son in matching outfits; white T-shirts and shorts. Residents are walking their dogs outside. I am far, culturally speaking, from where I live. At work, a young couple comes in to pick up their clothes. While surely the same age, there is everything different between them and the pair at the bus stop this morning. The girl is in a cutoff denim skirt, and I suggest that she refrain from bending over for any foreseeable reason. They tease each other. Daisy Duke tries to hand me her credit card at the same time the guy tries to hand me a couple of twenties. Both are brandishing their currency in my face. They exude confidence, and promise of a fertile future. I don't believe that the guy back at the bus stop will ever put two twenty dollar bills together as long as fate lets him follow his hippie girl from bus stop to bus stop.
And I exit work at close, on a bus to my street at 7:30 PM. May's permanent rain clouds have given way to June's hailstorms. Sitting across from me is a little guy in a Hawaiian shirt, with a cane. He gets up and approaches myself, as well as a couple of other passengers, telling us in Spanish, "Hello sir." He sits back down and stares out of the window behind him. A woman with a bandana under a hat approaches the driver. She asks him if he speaks English. She wants to know if there are any unlocked restrooms at the train stations. Siting way in the back is a grey-haired guy talking nonstop about the Oakland Raiders. He exits at a stop, and one captive passenger remarks, "That was an experience." The woman has a collection of random baggage. The little guy approaches her, and she immediately moves across the aisle, dragging her bags with her. Right away, she begins talking to herself. "You know it's wrong. These guys know it's wrong. That's jail time. That's a felony. Uh-huh, no way." The little guy sits down in the seat she vacated. Another driver has come aboard for a ride home, and the little guy gets up again to ask him where a particular street is. It's the one we are fast approaching. The woman has a gallon jug of water on top of a piece of luggage. When the driver stops at the little guy's street, the jug tips over. The cap comes off and it spills some before she picks it up. What a day.
Friday. Going on 2 PM. I'm at my hangout. At a table are five girls. One is running out in the rain, in her little hoodie and summer dress. Pacing back and forth is a big guy with a lunch bag and a cell phone. He appears to have mental health issues and is dressed in a uniform of one of the clothing stores here in the shopping center. He sings to himself, "Raindrops..." After work, I wait for a bus back to my neighborhood at a train station. Along comes a guy who I used to know as a drunk. He calls himself Richard Spotted Bird. But it's been some time since I saw him stumble. He looks as if he's been to the grocery store. And it appears as if he has someplace to go. He gets on a train headed for downtown. When the bus comes, there's another guy on it who I see at the deathburger all the time. He wears a tam and always comes in with someone helping him. I guy gets on. He's in a leather hat with a brim, and a purple buttoned down shirt. On his lap is a box with the words "cards against humanity" on it. I change buses and am headed down my street. I look out at the gas station across the street from where I live. A guy is standing in the middle of the entrance to the lot, preventing cars from pulling in. He's walking back and forth between businesses, approaching cars for spare change. Next he blocks the entrance to the liquor store.
Saturday. I am on a bus at a quarter after 5 AM with a guy telling someone about waking up in his home to a couple of police officers charging him with domestic violence. As a result, he somehow lost his paycheck and spending the night outdoors. At the deathburger, some guy sits down next to me to let me know that a girl stabbed someone at the lightrail station across the street. He's convinced that the police will shut the station down. When I get up, he tells me, "Have a good day, sir. God bless." Some thirteen hours later, I decide to squeeze in some grocery shopping so I don't have to do it on Sunday. I sit out at the bus stop for 45 minutes and see neither hide nor hair of two buses which should have come by. Busjacking? Sink hole? I know not. Yet, underneath June's threatening skies, I am witness to a parade of cars, trucks, SUV's, and 1980s towncars complete with huge rims, raised suspensions, or both. Some are careening around my corner and making jackrabbit accelerations. Either that, or they are circumventing the light on the corner altogether by cutting through the big lot of the auto mechanic. And yes, there was a bonafide lowrider. Yes, it raised and lowered its suspension. I watch a couple of different pickup trucks do the same thing. The go past me and, what seems almost like immediately, each one comes back the other way. Perhaps this boulevard should be renamed "Carbon Footprint." On Sunday, I a at a bus stop on a corner where I actually change buses at a quarter after five AM every Saturday. I was just here yesterday. This afternoon, I'm coming back from an annual summer festival in downtown. I took a train over a bridge. Underneath was a walkway next to a river. the river is breaching its bank at a low point. Here at the bus stop, I am sitting on a cement wall, right next to a guy on a motorcycle. His motorcycle has no markings. He's in a black T-shirt with no printing or pattern, black pants, and black motorcycle boots. I watch him pick up a mic attached by accordion wire to a radio. An undercover cop? Looking for drag racers?
An hour later, I am in a different neighborhood. At a sandwich place, a family sits around a table. As they leave, two girls kiss their mom goodbye as their grandma is taking them to an amusement park to ride the bumper cars. She asks them to remember to each not leave the other alone anywhere. A couple of young men come in. They are both in soccer uniforms. I hear one with an Australian accent. A encountered similar guys at least a year ago, when the city hosted some kind of international soccer or lacrosse competition, I can't quite remember. I watch a couple of white-haired guys come along, one holding a baby. The other, at least, i assume goes by the name of Rooney. He's wearing a T-shirt with "Team Rooney" on the front.
The store site dark, desolate
A store from a bygone era, standing apart from its sleek, modern neighbors
It's upstanding neighbors that got it shut down
The new neighbors, the recent businesses that are compatible with the people drawn to First Fridays
Yeah, economic development, that's the ticket!
Besides, they were concerned about how the store preyed on homeless people
They said so. Testimony after testimony
Almost cookie cutter
These were good upstanding citizens concerned about the less fortunate
They said so
One after the other they said so - Get Loud, 11-12/2014
The food is dirty and rotten, yet it fills our stomachs. When it's cold outside, we are cold. When it's hot, there is no relief for us. Everyday we walk the streets with no place to go. ...we are many people that the mainstream doesn't want to look upon. To them, we are a useless lot. They wonder why we don't help ourselves. We are destined for the streets, the bushes and the dumpsters. ...we had dreams. Standing on the street for hours... Depression looms in the darkness of our minds. We begin to walk the street again. We desire clean food, a roof over our heads, clean clothes, clean toilet facilities, an opportunity to make a living, a place where we can start a new life. Sleep creeps into that weary spot under the bushes. - Out Loud, 1-3/2015
It will be sad for the neighborhood to loose a charming early 20th century Craftsman house. According to Denver Zoning Code (June 25, 2010), Main Street districts..."are intended to promote safe, active and pedestrian-scaled commercial streets through the use of shopfront and row house building forms that clearly define and activate the public street edge."(Section 7.2.4.1A) We assume the goal/expectation of the 2010 MS-2 zoning is that residents of Denver's MS-2 zones will be more oriented to public transit, biking, walking - reflecting "Millenials" trend toward eschewing car ownership. ...about the expected loss of the mature maple. ...rental residents enjoy daily the "Zen benefits" of this tree in their living environment. - the profile, 6/2015
Tuesday. I am on a bus up the street, off to work at 11:30 AM. I'm sitting in front of a guy who begins reading aloud from a bible. When I get out, a couple of local homeless guys One of them is a guy who, in his sports jacket and cap and glasses, looks as if he could be anyone's dad. I saw him Sunday on a bus bench at this intersection. Last night, I saw him panhandling in the median of this boulevard, and I will watch him do the same later tonight. Today he meets up with another guy. This one is wearing a black leather vest with a tiny Harley Davidson patch on the breast. You never know who has a bike. I got a ride home a couple of years ago when a guy on a bike who almost took her car door off as I opened it. When I heard him speak, I would never have guessed he possessed the nuanced skill it takes to operate a motorcycle, much less anything else. If I had to guess whether this guy knew Harley from Barley or not, I would say that the only thing he drives these days are the shoes he shuffles along in. I get over to my usual bus stop. A couple of guys are pushing across the street a shopping cart with a huge trash bag inside. Another guy comes from across the other street. He is dressed in what appears to be a UPS uniform without any logos. He carries a black plastic bag. Next, he is holding a couple of packs of cigarettes. One of them he opens to show me what they look like, holding the pack directly over the trash can. They are the brown kind. He asks me if I want to purchase a pack. I tell him that I don't smoke. He replies, "I'll throw them out then. Thank you." (?) When the bus comes, Non-UPS guy gets on and shows the driver his transfer, making a point of telling him, "This is brand new." Great. Put it away then. Thank you. We stop to pick up a passenger with an oxygen tank in a small collapsible shopping cart. The guy sitting across from me, with a couple of X-wing fighters on the front of his T-shirt, stows a fold-up seat to make space for her. Meanwhile, I am sitting next to a woman talking into her phone who begins crying. After we pull up to the station, the driver tells us to "have a blessed day." On his belt is a hand-tooled leather holster for the tool he uses to punch the transfers. On the train platform is a guy in a T-shirt with "I Love Bill" on the front. He appears to be reading a book as he walks a zig-zag path and has a smoke. A train comes and we get on. As I sit down, I watch him get out and pick up his discarded cigarette, still lit, and continue smoking.
Some nine hours later, I am on a bus back to my street. Sitting in back are a couple of baby-faced guys, each with the ubiquitous baseball cap. One of them is talking to the other in a high-pitched voice. "You remember me though? I was in jail bro. I had to pay my lawyer fifteen grand." He purchased something on Craig's List for $4,500, but "couldn't keep up with the payments.." (A car?) He sold it to someone for "two grand! I gave him the deal of his life. Square business, bro. I don't want to hurt anyone," (by taking the sale away from the pawn shop) "but I was going to make some money off it instead of leaving it at the pawn shop." I get out and cross the street to the stop for my last bus home. A skinny blonde kid dressed in black walks up and lights a brown filtered cigarette. What is it with brown cigarettes on this corner? He asks me when the us comes. He strikes up a conversation with a woman sitting on the bench, asking her if she is drunk. Her speech is slurred. She's wearing a Target employee Polo shirt. Instead of smoking his cigarette, he keeps lighting the end of it with his lighter. He is listing for the woman his favorite marijuana strains.
"...the person who "fought off skid row"...helped usher major developments into the neighborhood...which led to the tearing down of most of the neighborhood's low-income housing as soon as timeline obligations to HUD were fulfilled, and developers were legally allowed to do so. But the "homeless problem" - as some folks call it - didn't go away with the designation of a "historical district" and the introduction of some new swanky bars and eateries. It only increased, because even though there were countless promises from the city to develop low income housing to replace that which had been torn down for the sale of "revitalization," the city...lied. So, homelessness grew. And grew. And Grew. In 2012, the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative counted over 14,000 people experiencing homelessness... (Then HUD narrowed the definition of "homelessness"...and in 2014...they claimed to have only counted 4,000 homeless people.) There...still is, only roughly one shelter bed to every 14 homeless people living in Denver, and we have yet to see any substantial development of low-income housing. ...for a while, cops, neighbors and city officials agreed that it was better to isolate that behavior on one block, than to have it happen in alleys behind people's houses in the neighborhood. Now, issues...have sprawled out into the neighborhood... - Out Loud, 1-3/2015
Many neighborhood associations sponsor a variety of events, such as neighborhood picnics and happy hours, alley clean-up days, historic walks and home tours. ...a crime report and advice on how to prevent thefts from your garage, a reminiscence about a local cobbler... ...meet about once a month with the city's major departments...to discuss concerns that cross over neighborhood lines... ...to learn how to formulate...arguments in opposition to a new liquor store... - the profile, 6/2015
Wednesday. I'm at my usual bus stop around a quarter to noon. I watch a couple of drunk, middle-aged lovers go past. They head off to the deathburger before coming back here. They sit on the bus bench and smooch, before she turns to me to say, "Hey...mister..." With a modicum of trepidation, I turn in her direction. "He's my lollipop," she emotes. I don't know if he will respect her in the morning, because when you are drunk 24/7, it strikes me that there never is any "morning." Master race... Master race...
Today I seem to look upon Denver, Colorado in...a view that arises out of Denver's...behavior toward its lower class population. ...the legalization of pot in a community that already was rich... ...and many worthless people have travelled into the city to destroy its cleanliness... The citizens have gone to ignoring the lower classes, and...whole communities have been formed with the intent of kicking out all of the lower classes. We are now trapped in a city that will not help... We are fed...to keep us alive and miserable. ...an anti-camping bill was passed...with this bill...most of the money from the tickets and other citations has been used to build upper-class housing and a new bus station, that let it be noted, does not even have a pay phone installed. I...an Occupy representative...admit to representing a portion of the lower classes that exceeds more than half of the homeless. I wonder if Denver will become the next Detroit...thinking that they can run the lower classes out of a major city. No longer do I love the City of Denver... No longer do I wish to be part of this thriving community...Without the lower classes, an city can not build itself. ...now it has become a crime to stand up to the city of Denver. ...just to survive a very evilly transforming community. - Out Loud, 1-3/2015
Last night, Mr. Anybody's Dad was sitting on his favorite bus bench with a lady who gave me the impression that perhaps he his her "lollypop.". This morning, around 10:30 AM, the pair is there on the bench. I don't know whether or not to believe that they ever left. She has a smoke in her hand and she's wearing a tank top with Marilyn Monroe on the front. I wonder if she got it down the boulevard from the gangster T-shirt place. Across the street is a guy who has been flying a sign there for months. I can see that he is having success collecting money through the open passenger windows of vehicles stopped at the red light. He is so excited that he spins or waves his sign when he is offered something. The vehicles then burn rubber around the corner. For a brief and shining moment, this corner has turned into Sesame Street. When the bus comes, we go a couple of stops before we pick up a kid with tattoos on the left half of his face and forehead. And a skateboard. At another stop, a kid gets out. He has a backpack with mesh pockets. In one of them is a bottle of cologne.
I come out of work nine hours later. It's pouring rain. I rode this bus down here this morning, sitting behind a guy in a T-shirt with the name of the place he works for on the back. I am sitting behind him again this evening. He is staring straight ahead into space. At the station I jump on a train. I sit down across from a guy who appears to have torn a page or two out of a book. They lay under his seat. I don't know why I think that the pages are from a bible. He begins to speak to himself loudly. "Am I the defendant or am I the jury? I think I will be the jury." He lays down in the seat, his head resting on his bible on top of his backpack. "Something about this man tells me he is not guilty," he says. "I just fuckin' want a...a case closed." He and I get out at the same station. He runs for shelter from the rain. I get on a bus, and am back on my boulevard shortly before 9 PM. There is Mr. Anyone's Dad. He has the hood of his sport's team coat on, out on the median in the downpour.
After my mother died and I no longer had a place to live, I came here because my adopted son lives here. But things didn't work out as I'd hoped, and I ended up homeless. Even though having my son here helped me adjust, the first 2 1/2 weeks were the pits. Then I met the most wonderful bunch of guys who I named the Wolf Pack. Nine of them. ...they had each other's back. This is where I earned the title Ma of Mom. See, most of them had moms they couldn't see. Moms that passed away. So I became Mom. When I say my son or daughter, I am talking about my street family, all the people who call me mom. I actually feel like a great big bird and I'm in their radar and I keep getting hit. ...I could not find my youngest street son, who was 18. ...he thought he could do anything and didn't know the dangers out there. His oldest (street) brother...lost track of him. Talk about scared. I walked to 16th Street Mall and sat there looking up and down. ...another street son found him in five minutes. ...I cried like a baby. - Out Loud, 1-3/2015
Friday. Goin' on noon. My usual bus stop. In the bus shelter, instead of a guy in a second-hand UPS uniform, there is a young guy in a jersey of the city's hockey team. Instead of brown cigarettes, this guy wants to know if I want to purchase his lighter for a quarter. Once again, I tell someone on the street that I don't smoke. "I'm just tryin' to make some change for the bus," he replies. "I'm just tryin' to ride the us." When the bus comes, he tells the driver, "No disrespect, I only got forty cents." The driver does not feel disrespected. Nine hours later, I am at the corner across the street. Mr. and Mrs. Anybody's Dad are there with a guy in a wheelchair, who is recounting some story with labored and broken speech, a smile, and a cigarette in his right hand.
...once you've carried a dead person he would always be there...riding with you. ...strung out rednecks who weren't getting much sleep either because they couldn't trust one of their 400 mercenary troopers or their own hand-picked perimeter guards or anyone else... - Dispatches, by Michael Herr, 1978
'We're talking about three historic neighborhoods that have seen little or no public infrastructure investment for over three decades. They've been very disconnected and very disenfranchised from the rest of the city. There's no way that the city can fund everything that needs to be done." ...the administration unveiled its master plan for... New infrastructure...to help connect underserved neighborhoods that currently lack decent bus shelters and, in some areas, even sidewalks. ...they can't speak for all the stakeholders in their diverse, which are among the last bastions of affordable housing for lower-income families within Denver city limits. Different neighborhood associations have come and gone...among ...a crazy quilt of industrial and residential zones not seen elsewhere in the city. ...baffling boundary descriptions going back more than 120 years, including a reference to a rock marked with an X that seems to have departed its original location... ...in the 1960s... Over the next couple of decades... Blocks of stable blue-collar households devolved into blocks of shabby rentals and Section 8 housing. ...it's tough to get a dozen people...the minimum the city requires to qualify as a neighborhood organization - in one room at the same time. Many don't have e-mail accounts, are in short-term living situations, or don't want to get involved. - Westword, 6/11-17/2015
Tuesday. 11;30 AM. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live. I sit down on the bench at the same time as a tall guy in sunglasses, and a hat with "geeks who drink" on the front. The morning is completely overcast. He has dirt all over the bottom of his pants. I take out my camera to sneak a shot of him. He sees it and, instead of accusing me of "working for the government" (as did someone a year or so ago), he asks me if I have heard of a couple of different brands of film cameras. One of them, Hasselblad, I have indeed. Never had one though. The bus comes and whips us up the street in a flash. I disembark with a grey-haired abuela. We pas a bus bench where sits a tall and lanky guy, some grey in his own shoulder-length hair. He's in a white hoodie with a green marijuana leaf pattern. As we walk past him, I let her run block for me. He slowly leans forward with a friendly enough smile. He does his best to say something like, "How are you today?" Yet his vocal muscles act as if they are rusty. What comes out sounds like a tape recorder with the batteries almost dead. She uses hand gestures to explain that she doesn't speak English, much less reverse backward-masking. He acknowledges the language barrier with "unh..."
I venture across the street to my usual bus stop. Among a usual collection of oddballs, the oddest (and loudest) is a guy drinking a tall can of Ice. He's in a winter jacket over a T-shirt. The red shirt has blue letters, which I can tell spell out, "Get that shit out of here." He's pretty liquored up and in a good mood. He's making statements to the effect that he knows what life's all about. As long as he can stand up, it sounds as if he will continue to say so. He's conversing with another guy who sounds just as drunk, but looks worse. This other guy's T-shirt says "Homies" in small letters on the breast. The one with the beer I haven't seen before, but the other I have, and I've listened to him as well. His favorite answer to anything is, "Well, there you go." The one with the beer goes on, not in so many intelligible words, about having a grassroots kind of attitude toward life's (or the street's) travails. He sounds, as do so many out on these abused streets, as if it surely is impossible not to relate to him. As if the lumpen, unwashed masses are God's chosen people, 'and check out the 40 oz. I just shoplifted.' The other one replies, "Well, there you go." The bus arrives and takes us to the train station, where another collection of odd characters awaits. A guy in sunglasses and a black three-piece suit stares at us like some kind of 1930s gangster. It's a train station, sir, take a load off. Someone else with a face which reminds me of a horse is in a grey Red Cross T-shirt. Walking to the train platform, I'm passed by a young guy on a skateboard. His rebellion is pretty tame. His hair has a little mousse, and the top is brushed with purple. I wouldn't look at him twice. A transit system driver walks past me and asks, "Nice hair, huh? You ought to try it."
...ongoing attempts at getting used to...the blow-you-out climate or the saturating strangeness of the place which didn't lessen with exposure so often as it fattened and darkened in accumulating alienation. He had one of those faces, I saw that face at least a thousand times...all the youth sucked out of the eyes. The color drawn from the skin, cold white lips... Life had made him old, and he'd live it out old. ...they'd be looking at you over a distance you know you'd never really cross. - Herr
9 PM. Back on my street. Mr. Anybody's dad is sitting o the faux pier of a fish restaurant-turned-liquor store. It appears as if we had a shower and he can stay out of the rain there. Soon, he's back out on the median of the boulevard. Cigarette smoke wafts quickly away from his nose.
Wednesday. Deathburger. Along with the regular who wears a tam, a kind of disheveled and avuncular guy with tousled white hair is coming past the trash. In his jeans and rugby shirt, he appears as if he belongs on some 80s sitcom. He has a cane in one hand, and two cups in the other. One has coffee and the other water. As he slowly moves toward the soda fountain, he is spilling water. He stops and bends to get a look at something, I don't know what, through the window. I hear him say the words "motherfucker" and "cunt." I try to imagine some 1980s TV sitcom where the grandfather yells, "cunt!" An hour and a half later, it is as if I have awoken into some kind of suburban fantasy world, but is actually the neighborhood where I work. It's supposed to be in the nineties today, but in the shade and with a cool breeze, it feels like the seventies or lower. The day is so beautiful, it's beyond words. You hope that, when you die, you would come to a place like the outdoor table where I sit this afternoon. The sky is blue and the trees are green and the day is...perfect. After work, as 8 PM draws near, I am sitting on the sidewalk of the bus stop. As the sun sets, I see a mom and a dad, and their young son, all on their bikes. The bikes of both dad and son have massive sized tires, and the tires on mom's bike are standard sized. Is the dad bald? And is the mom blonde? As they make their way across the parking lot, I hope that they are not coming my way. They are coming my way. I think that, between myself and the curb, even these tires have room to pass. Excellent city planning. See what a good tax base does for you? Long after I first spot them, they see me. I flash everyone a peace sign. Mom is bringing up the rear as she, with some trepidation flashes one back. The bus picks me up and deposits me at the train station. I take a short train ride on a car with, at one end, a young guy and his bicycle. He's dressed in what appears to be some kind of promotional Bud Light outfit. A half hour later, I am back on a corner of my own neighborhood. One car turns a corner, and a passenger yells, "fuck!" A truck honks at a bicycle in the cross walk with the right of way. It slows in front of the bus bench and honks again before heading on its way. Mr. Anyone's Dad is there as usual. A third comes accelerating around the turn and slips a gear, screeching its tires before the shifter catches. Five drunks are spread out at and around the bus stop. One is laying under a tree with his 40 oz. bottle, napping on a bed of stones.
Thursday. I hop on a bus around 10:30 AM. Sitting up front are a couple of guys talking about going to church. One guy is in a jersey with the name of the quarterback of the city's sports team. He has Wayfarers on and with his rustic facial hair appears as some kind of desperado sports enthusiast. He keeps mentioning the "Book of Revelations." I'm sitting behind a geezer with a T-shirt which has "volunteer" on the back. I get out and head over to the deathburger, where a little guy comes in. He's here to pick up the change donated here for a charity. He claims to go to 164 locations a day. I head over to my usual bus stop. Along comes a middle-aged guy and a white-haired guy. I'm not sure if they are drunk, but neither one notices the bus until it is right next to us. They stop and turn toward it. The older one is standing right behind the other. The one in front stands and stares at the open door, and the one behind has to prompt him to g o inside.
...the subtle city war inside the war had renewed itself for another day... ...the...Department of Labor hand announced that..."all refugees had assimilated into the economy," but mostly they seemed to have assimilated themselves into the city's roughest corners, alleyways, mud slides, under parked cars. Cardboard boxes that had carried air-conditioners and refrigerators housed up to ten children, most...would cross the street to avoid trash heaps that fed whole families. ...like sitting on the petals of a poisonous flower, the poison history, fucked in its root no matter how far back... ...the only place left with a continuity... Hue and Danang were like remote closed societies, mute and intractable. Villages, even large ones, were fragile, a village could disappear in an afternoon... Saigon remained... Paved swamp, hot mushy winds that never cleaned anything away...diesel fuel, mildew, garbage, excrement, atmosphere... - Herr
I get back to my own neighborhood at 9 PM. I stop into a drug store for a soda. It takes me just long enough that, when I come out, I see my bus go past. It's only a twenty minute walk home, but this is an odd season for weather. The moon peeks through a clear patch of sky as my stroll is literally highlighted by bright crackles of lighting flashing directly overhead. The air is hot and dry until big drops of rain begin to come down.
Friday. I'm downtown at the bank. At the train station is a homeless guy with wavy, shoulder length hair and a buttoned down shirt. He looks a little like Neil Young. He carries with him a futon mattress without the frame, with a square piece cut out of one corner. To get it on and off of the train, he must board from a ramp for wheelchairs.
Saturday. A quarter to seven AM. Yet another lanky, middle-aged guy with a cane drops by. He has on a cap which reads, "Ask my grandpa, he knows everything." A middle-aged woman comes across the middle of the avenue, and appears dressed as if to go to work in an office. She carries a coffee, and both The Watchtower and Awake! magazines. She asks a kid in the bus shelter for something from a kid in the bus shelter before running back across the Street. We get on the bus which takes us to the train. We get out and I head over to a bench. The guy with the grandpa hat sits next to me and talks to a guy in an orange vest. He tells him that he was in an 'industrial accident,' breaking his back and loosing half of his hearing. "No one will hire me. I was born and raised here. I love this town. Good people." It sounds as if he sells paintings at festivals.
Monday. 9 AM. Bus stop across the street from where I live. At the gas station are a couple of vehicles, both with their hoods up. One has Montana plates. Standing around the front of the other one are five Caucasian guys and a Caucasian girl. Summer college road trip or are they in a band? The bus comes along. In the front seat is a grizzled guy with a big neon watch and groovy sneakers. Around his shoulder is a bag with a carrying strap. Inside appears to be his cardboard sign. I get out at the train station which will take me downtown. When I get down the long steps to the platform, I hear a couple fighting with each other, on the steps I just came down. She's yelling at a guy named Troy, calling him a "faggot." I watch her push him off the concrete steps, onto unlandscaped ground. As they begin fighting with each other, her loud voice yells, "Stop Troy! Stop!" She calls him a faggot and tells him she wants a divorce. My boulevard us a repository for people who continue to use epithets I haven't heard in decades. From a distance, they appear dressed as if they are both high school aged. After sitting apart for a minute, they both come down to the train platform and appear to be heading away, down a bike path. At first, he heads toward the opposite direction before she yells, "Bitch! Come here bitch!" I then hear her yelling out loud. When the train comes, we leave her yelling with Troy standing next to her.
"The Guys"
I have to go back downtown, where I was yesterday, before I go to work today. Yesterday, I put $80 into a machine for next month's bus pass. I got my dollar coin in change, and I got my receipt. What never came out was a bus pass. I disembark from the train and enter the transit system station. I pass the usual wandering travellers and recount my travail to a guy behind a window. He jumps out of his seat and runs out of the booth, telling me, "Let me grab the guys." Okay. He returns with a machine mechanic and a transit system security officer. The officer stands next to the ticket machine, ready to dispense with any trouble as the mechanic opens it up. There's my pass. I had handed my receipt to the mechanic, who hands it to the officer along with my pass, who then hands both to me. Transaction complete, albeit some 20 hours later. Never send a machine to do a job which...the guys can do better. I grab breakfast and head to another train station, where I find a guy with a grey beard in a black fishing hat, black fingerless gloves, and a black leather jacket tied around his waist. He appears to have a desire to be able to do tricks with a yo-yo which he is throwing. It does nothing but fall. We get on the train and I watch him get off a couple of stops down. He is walking along spinning the yo-yo like a pocket watch. Behind him is an emaciated guy whose skin has been darkened by the street, as well as given its share of tattoos. He shuffles along as he smokes a cigarette. His T-shirt reads, "I'm thriving at the University of Denver."
Wednesday. I am on a bus up the street around 11 AM when a kid jumps on wearing an ankle monitor. He otherwise looks like any other young guy in a basketball jersey and shorts. What can you do at his age to be sentenced to wear an ankle monitor? I get out and head to a restaurant for lunch, and then head to my usual bus stop. In six hours, three inches of rain will come down in forty minutes, and this intersection will be closed due to flash flooding. It will be the first time when I can remember, in my 24 years in this town, that any part of any street will be shut down due to flooding. Downtown areas will be shut down and water rescues required. Right now, it's still the morning, and I am headed past the liquor shop. According to a neighborhood website, the liquor shop used to be some kind of fried fish place. It still has a pier and posts with a rope railing. In the shade of the pier sits Mr. Anybody's Dad, along with six or seven others. I hear one say to another, "You're in the fuckin' United States of America. Welcome to the fuckin' party." (Sittin' on the dock of the flood, watchin' the tide carry the mud...) I cross the future flooded intersection to my usual bus stop. In the shelter is a middle-aged couple. The guy, in a grey tank top and black hat with a brim, is speaking to the lady. "I said to the judge, 'You want to send me to jail for that, fine. You go ahead and send me to jail for that.'" When the bus comes, we get on, and when he pays his fare, he tells the driver, "Gimme a fuckin' transfer." They both sit behind a sleeping passenger in a T-shirt which reads, "A better TOMORROW starts TODAY." I'm at work when it gets extremely dark. The wind and rain come in the afternoon. It's sometime around 5 PM when I hear the news about the intersection. On my way home, I am able to grab a bus other than my usual one. The driver of this one says he is 43 minutes late because of the flooded streets. He had three inches of water inside of his bus.
Dawn seems to last until late morning, dusk falls at four. Everything I see is blown through with smoke, everything is on fire everywhere. ...above the ground now, in full afternoon light, there is a four-foot stack of C-ration cartons, the cardboard burned away... The cans and utility packs lying all around, and on top of it all there is the body of a young ARVN Ranger who had just come...to scrounge a few cans of American food. Three rounds had come in very quickly... - Herr
Thursday. 1:30 PM. I'm at my hangout before work. It's a beautiful summer. I'm watching 3 chickenhawks turning lazy circles on updrafts. Seven hours later, I'm waiting at a train station for a bus back to my neighborhood. I'm not used to seeing standing pools of water, on the concrete and the tops of the trash cans. Thunderheads are ever present at sundown. This is a very groovy summer. Friday. I'm back at the train station where Troy was with his significant other yelling her head off. Today there is a woman with a small blanket over her head. It's pink with yellow flowers. She asks me, "How's it goin'?" "Great," I say. "Still waitin'?" she asks. Waiting for the train, I presume she wants to know. I refrain from pointing out that I just got here. But I so mention that, "the train runs on a schedule, you know." I sit down on a bench. A guy next to me yells across the tracks to another guy on the opposite side of the platform. "How's it goin'?" he calls. The other guy tells him that his dogs gout out through an open dog door while he was in the shower. During the half hour that this guy says he was trying to round up his dogs, he believes that his dogs were laughing at him. I get in and out of downtown by train, landing at a station where I am changing lines. Working the platform, hustling for a cigarette, is a lanky guy. He swings his arms, makes his pitch, tries to sound casual, moves along when he doesn't score. Some nine hours after this, I'm back at Mr. Anybody's Dad's bench, where both he and a confederate are panhandling out on the boulevard median. One local guy I rode here with is talking to someone on the bench, who asks about a mutual friend. "He's probably in detox by now," he replies. Behind the bus stop is a Vietnamese father holding his crying daughter. Off in the direction of residential streets, fireworks go off.
Eight hours later, it's another Saturday morning before five AM. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live. I watch in the dark as a car comes rattling down my street and pulls into the gas station, dragging it's muffler on the street. I wonder if its occupants will attempt to make some kind of repair. Minutes later, it backs up and pulls out, and drives away dragging its muffler. Monday. 9 PM. I'm at the bus bench where Mr. Anybody's Dad holds court day and night. Neither he nor his inebriated entourage are anywhere to be seen. Could it be the full moon? I know not, but I suddenly smell marijuana. Now...24 hours later, he's back with his full crew. There is even a drunk behind him, up on the sidewalk next to the Vietnamese restaurant. I don't think this drunk is anyone he knows. This guy polishes off a can, curls up, and it's lights out. Part of the entourage, a guy in white pants and a white shirt, he gets up and walks around to the side of a liquor store. His walk is quick with a long stride. No one ever does anything on this street in a way which most would ever recognize. He returns a minute later, and a kid comes walking ever faster from the same direction. The kid appears to have a fifth of whisky in a black plastic bag which he is trying to hold inconspicuously. In the distance, the kak-kak-kak of firecrackers go off. A recent local neighborhood website post mentioned an opinion that the police simply 'are not going to do anything about the fireworks. The situation is, if you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em.' I get home to hear my street mentioned on the news. A couple of guys stole a pickup. They pulled up next to another guy, and the driver said, "Hey, Esse..." The other truck sped off as it got a shotgun blast. The stolen truck crashed in the neighborhood I used to live in.
