The purpose of writing is to enforce the sense we have of the future. ...responsibility...of understanding our roles in the shaping of a new world. ...the plight...to demonstrate...a so-called academic impartiality to the white establishment.
These are the founding fathers and mothers of our nation. We rise as we rise (agin). By the power of our beliefs, by the purity and strength of our actions.
These are the wizards, the bards, the "babalawo," the "shaikhs," of Weusi Mchoro. The descriptions will be carried for the next thousand years, of good, and of evil. These the sources, and the constant conscioustriving ("jihad") of a nation coming back into focus. Songs, chants, "bad shit goin down" rendered as the light beam of God warms your hearts forever. -
Black Fire, ed. by L. R. Jones and L. Neal, 1968
Friday. Sometime after 4 AM. Bus stop across the street from where I live. The regular old guy shows up. A young guy shows up who is different than the one who has been here the past couple of early Friday mornings. When he pulls his phone out of him pocket a bill of paper money falls swiftly and silently through the dark, to the ground. I am the only witness to his. I stand to pick it up and give it back to him. No sooner am I off the bench when the older guy spots it, and must think that it was there the entire time as he picks it up and pockets it. April Fools.
"It's very difficult to be an advocate in this city in this day and age. The city doesn't like that we've been advocates and they've organized a group to oppose our advocacy, a group that was headed by people who are on boards or commissions of the city.
"It has always been my fear that business development districts would somehow take control of this organization."
What started as a silly conversation turned into the name for the coffee shop and neighborhood bar now located at (the train station where its patrons had a perfect view of myself running for the bus as it pulled away. Twice.) You may notice that "light rail" rhymes with The White Whale Room. (I didn't, but then again, I'm not on LSD.)
The owners...attempt at chasing their dream a' la Captain Ahab. (A coffee shop/bar as an antagonist from classic literature? Or a bus as the antagonist? I am...nah. I'll leave it to the acid heads.) - the profile, 4/2016
Worldview on the one hand and people's hopes and fears on the other are the essential ingredients of ideologies. ...that stable suburban-type communities where people are generally homogeneous are the natural basis of society and anything that threatens that type of society is alien and subversive. They believe that the good life consists of a decent job, housing, and family; that is what they want for their children. And they believe that education is the way to get it. They fear the proximity of poverty as mortally endangering their dreams for their children. The ideologies propounded to justify the empire did not promise the people booty from foreign exploitation, nor did they suggest foreign aid to Nepal. Ideological appeals were put entirely in terms of the dire consequences for America of world chaos...and the chance to implement American ideals... The American government of the 1930s and 1940s...was dominated by...the higher social classes, who were obsessed by problems of order, security, and justice. They believed...the people at home and abroad would rise in revolutionary wrath. Wilson thought...a new world order...against chaos followed by revolution...as did Napoleon, a product of the stability-seeking Thermidorians, who fought for empire as a way out of the troubles with France. But not Mao Tse-tung of China, who...wanted the revolution to go on and on and on, "within" China and always vetoed any exploit of it. - Schurmann
Since the 'fifties the Aramco company town at Dhahran... ...a generation of employees...had grown up inside the barbed wire... I felt as if I were inside an idealized America, like an old cover of "The Saturday Evening Post;" an America untouched by the...sixties, by long hair and drugs, with its citizens watching old movies on Aramco TV... The new (Aramco)
president... His Texan-style house, with romanticised pictures of idealized Arabs on the walls, looked on to a bright green garden, with the desert beyond the wire... (He)
disseminated to the Saudis a quiet confidence in all things American. - Sampson
Denver police are investigating... ...in the the [sic] alley (a handful of streets from where I live) a man in his 40s (who) was riding a motorcycle east through the alley when he was confronted by a man on foot, who fired a shot at him... The victim was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police are still looking for the suspect. "For something to happen in our alley is crazy." - Westwood Residents Association FB page
We should have known better... Sunday April 3...a guy in a red pickup truck who was trimming trees at our neighbors [sic] house. We gave him half payment on advance and after a small amount of work. he [sic] left and hasn't been back. He insisted on cash.
Help us find ways to make (my boulevard)
a better place to walk, drive, bike, use public transit, shop, work, live, and recreate. - Nextdoor Westwood, 4/5/2016
Monday. I am coming home on a different trail shortly after 8 PM. I am back in my own neighborhood. The trail follows a small creek, through a big open field with homes on one side and an avenue on the other. I hear a noise which I have never heard before, as from the dark sky drops a drone. Wednesday. I have a lot to do in a small window during this morning. With a box of diet sodas in tow, I first loose my bus transfer in a drug store. The new transfers easily fall out of my pocket. A kindly woman watches me search for it as I prepare to board the bus, before she gives me hers. From the train station, I hike to the copy place to copy a tax document, before I hike several streets up to a branch of my bike I haven't been to in some time. The closest branch is closed and I must hike a few more streets to another. I pass a tattoo parlor with a sign which, instead of "sorry, we're closed," reads, "sorry, we're drunk." This boulevard is something of a crossroads for both bohemians and homeless. On the way both to and from the bank, I pass a couple of different guys cruising along the sidewalk as each swings his arms back and forth in a remarkably similar way. I get to my bank where I can't open the door until I place all the metal in my pockets on a tiny shelf. And I can't leave either until the door is electronically unlocked.
Steve Hitchcock loves drinking down beer and climbing up mountains... "We are teaching people that canned beer can be good."
If your yoga class doesn't end with a free beer or Bloody Mary, you're going to the wrong studio...or brewery.
...visitors also bring loftier expectations when it comes to drinking and dining. "Guests are really diverse and well-travelled. And they like...none of the pretense." - Thirst, Winter 2016
Denver is rapidly becoming a refuse pile of misguided souls who have been conditioned into thinking they are in the right place at the right time. ...and contaminate the region with there own distorted...many times drug-soaked values... ...parasites sucking the lifeblood from a once healthy, vibrant area that is now suffocating under their...artificial fantasies.
Since March 9...police have been showing up...on an almost nightly basis, issuing "move on" orders... The continued crackdown has scattered the homeless into small and roving groups... ...Mayor Michael...Hancock...explained that he was not attending the meeting because his presence "may in turn become disruptive and counterproductive. We will not just sit by and allow encampments to grow all around the city...so with that...as a city we will continue to minimize those camps." - Westword, 4/7-13/2016
..."Westword" made a number of Colorado Open Records Act requests to the Denver Department of Human Services and the Mayor's Office for internal documents... (Mayor)
Hancock's deputy chief of staff, was the point person responsible for planning and carrying out the sweeps. ...he reminded...communications directors from...DHS, Public Works, the Mayor's Office..."According to DPD and service providers, the main reason people continue to live on the sidewalk is so that they can use drugs." - Westword, 4/14-20/2016
Surrounding the baseball stadium is one particular downtown neighborhood of condominiums. The homeowners' association for this neghborhood has sued to prevent a new homeless shelter from opening there. Who are the working class people inside this stadium?
"We...activate the field heating system in early February. We try to get our first mow in by St. Patrick's Day." ...touching up the infield between innings... Six...guys drag the infield twice during every nine-inning game... "I'll send them out and sit in the dugout with a stopwatch. It's...keeping your arm level so" (the field does not end up)
"bouncy and wavy. I'm looking for that smooth technique. I can tell from the dugout... Each guy's got his spot. Experienced guys are on the ends so they can pick up a pass that's been missed." The crew pulls..."screens" mostly during the day games, when the dirt is dry, and "mats" when the infield is wetter. "80 percent of our job is focused on the dirt." "He...is as good a groundkeeper as there is in the game. It's a passion for him, not a job" - Mile High Sports Magazine, 4/2016
Thursday. I'm headed across the street from where I live, to the bus stop. It's around 8:30 AM. I must go downtown for more damned bus coupons. I also need a couple of pairs of shorts for work as I have lost weight since last summer. Doctors orders. Three doctors ago. But that's another story. I cross the street with a trio of adults my age. One of the two men has pookah shells and a lit cigarette. The lady is in a T-shirt which mentions something on the front about drinking beer. I jump on a bus up the street. Sitting behind me is a passenger who is silent for almost twenty blocks. When we get to the train, I hear him say out loud, "LSD." He's in a mesh vest over his shirt. The vest says something on the back about a chicken farm. I've heard of feeding chickens hormones, but LSD must be something to distract them. I imagine trying to catch a chicken on LSD. I get out and am headed down the train station steps with a woman who appears to be either high or drunk, and a kid listening to Spanish hip hop. The woman is apprehensive about the steps, and she has both hands balled into fists up to one side of her head. She begins laughing at the kid's music. "that's funny," she tells him. "That's gangsta shit." He laughs. Some five hours later, I am sitting at a table at a bakery next to where I work. It's a lovely spring day. A woman walks past, on her phone. "I hear what you're saying and I hear what she's saying. The reason she's raising a red flag is the effect of the dosage..."
Thursday. It's 8:30 again, but now it's PM. I'm at the stop for the bus to take me back to my neighborhood. A little guy, my age or older, drops by to ask me if I wait for the bus going west. I affirm this, and he thanks me. He appears to process the world in a slower mental gear. On the bus, he says that he got "turned around" and "made a loop all the way around." Sounds as if he came back from the end of the line. We are going to my neighborhood, a place with no patience for lower gears. I listen to him on his phone, telling someone that he plans to "pick up some shooters" on the way to wherever he's trying to get to. He tells the person at the other end that he went all the way downtown. He can't blame that on this bus, because it doesn't go downtown. It used to, up until some 22 years ago. But I don't believe that he's been on this bus for that long. Yes, I used to ride this bus back then. But that's yet another story. I hear him ask the person he's talking to, "You got that much booze? Shhh... You're a lush." The bus drops me on my street, and I get to the stop for my last bus where I wait under a police chopper turning circles above me. I follow the beam from its light just a few yards down the boulevard, where a police car has pulled over another vehicle. The chopper heads off. The police don't bother a car turning the corner with its lights off. This week, I saw one pickup with lights inside each wheel well, but here's one with front headlamps off. I watch as a second police car follows another car turning the corner, and pulls it over into a parking lot between myself and the first pair. Down my street, the bus passes a third pair.
I used to wake up at 3:30 AM for a decade, no problem. On my current schedule, it's a killer. And I do it every Friday. I'm across the street at the bus stop, some time after 4 AM. Down my boulevard, I see police car number four has pulled over a fourth car. A fire truck comes out of the station next to the bus stop. From the gas station on the other side of the stop comes the bottom end of a sound system, echoing off the buildings across the street and into the dark. For a minute or two, it has a strange reverb. I stroll over to see who it might be. It's from a truck, where stands a guy who also has headphones on. The bus comes and delivers us up the street. An elderly guy with a tote bag at the stop for a connecting bus begins lifting his legs high as he walks, a little senior exercise. The connecting bus takes me to a different train station. It's 5 AM. A younger guy comes along. He has a light jacket in both hands, pondering the fact that both arms are inside out. He asks to fast for me to understand him. I make out that he wants a light for a cigarette. I tell him that I don;t smoke, and he rapidly replies that he doesn't believe me.
Fourteen and a half hours later, on six hours of sleep, maybe, I decide that I need some air and I sit at a table outside the bakery next to work. There are two young couples and three small children next to me. The adults are all in skinny jeans, the men in Keds and no socks. One of the ladies tells the others about her guy's sports activities. "I don't do anything (play any sports). I've had five broken bones, he's had none." One of the guys chases the oldest toddler. The other two toddlers are each wearing moccasins. The ladies take them as the two guys are alone. "How's the bike runnin'," one asks the other. "I think it needs a new EPU." "Have you modified it?" He removed a throttle restriction bolt. I presume that it's sweet, it's cherryed out. After they all say their goodbyes, i watch him ride his dirt bike slowly up a boulevard dominated by racing pickups and Jeeps.
Monday. It's around noon. I am headed down the street toward the trailhead. I cruise past a parked vehicle, a white 1980s sedan. It's tricked out with big rims and a raised suspension. It appears as if it has a brand new paint job, and already one front corner has a bite taken out of it from an impact. I remember reading something on my neighborhood website about keeping an eye out for a damaged car which lost control and ran into one in a neighbor's driveway. Eight hours later, I am out on the trail toward home. I'm passing people too old to be dressed as if they are in high school, people walking dogs, a family on bikes. Some are just walking. I pass one woman walking who appears forlorn.
...existing white paradigms...do not correspond to the realities... These assumptions...based on white models are even antithetical to...existence. ...the natural demands of...culture...are supressed in the larger (white) culture, but, nonetheless, we found in...music and...spiritual and moral philosophy. We are, in essence, the ingredients that will create the future. For this reason, we are misfits, estranged from the white cultural present. In our movement toward the future, "ineptitude" and "unfitness" will be an aspect of what we do. These are the words of the established order - the middle-class value judgements. We must turn these values in on themselves. Turn them inside out... We must even, ultimately, be estranged from the dominant culture. This estrangement must be nutured. ...inherent in the Western dialectical approach is the idea...that there are no immutable social systems or eternal principles; and that there is only the inherency in things of contradictions - of opposing tendencies. ...all good and canonical to a...Europe in the nineteenth century. A revolutionary art is being expressed today. Misguided by white cultural references... ...society...is...mainly the modes of what is material, and how the material is produced. What it looks like and what it means to those who produce it and those who accept it. Art can not apologize out of existence the philosophical ethical position of the artist. ...the white Western aesthetics is predicated on...separating me from the other...art form... It is this duality that is the most distinguishable feature of Western values. - Jones and Neal
Major Mom...is a residential organizing services company... Having been recently featured on Shark Tank... ...highly trained organizers... "Major Mom"...walks her talk...having served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 years. "The active Village community and focus on quality of life are values that our entire team promotes."
...research showed that the liquor industry had good market opportunity for sustainability and growth. ...liquor products were one of the best options as an entry point into the retail industry. "...a liquor store is always an option for any community." ...door-to-door delivery of alcohol... - Greenwood Village Newsletter, 4/2016
Many families today are exploring...gardening, home cooking, sustainable practices, and naturopathic medicine...
...frenzy being the default mode of many modern families - Work! Soccer! Travel! Ballet! ...the constant stream of technology and media distractions, and...head-spinning family schedules...
"...media literacy...encourages...critical thinkers, effective communicators and active digital citizens." "Media literacy should be...an ongoing conversation around every dinner table." ...ignoring the basic impact that technology has is to ignore a part of their own story. Without media literacy, "the ability for children to understand their biases, beliefs, and values - to understand themselves - can cultivate a sense of powerlessness. ...leaving them to feel like they can't change their circumstances or experiences." ...that being media literate supports...children to create their own identity. It can strengthen their...trust in who they are and what they believe in. "Not being more conscious about media has dangerous implications for individuals and society as a whole."
(Down the street is a bike shop I've never heard of in the eight years I've lived on this boulevard. It apparently has)
a free 12-week course in...basic bicycle maintenance skills and...kids...can earn a bike of their own...helmet, lock, and tool kit. (The shop has a)
Youth-at-Work program. The Earn-a Bike, Ride, and Youth-at-Work programs are all community efforts led by the nonprofit organization Trips For Kids Denver Metro (TFKDM). ...connecting disadvantaged youth to cycling. "...to teach respect for one another, patience and structure." ...these...skills are often not being modeled to the students... - Colorado Parent, 4/2016
Wednesday. There are more cyclists on the bike trail this afternoon than I remember seeing since I returned to riding in October. Many cyclists are in racing gear, complete with numbers. I pass a couple of seniors standing off the trail. One, in running shorts, shoes, and no shirt, is so tan he appears brown. Further down the trail, I come up behind an entire class of walking high school students. Yeah, this is going to be an interesting trail as the weather turns even nicer. On the way home, I come up behind a skateboarding guy with a beer in his hand. I sneak around in front of him as he turns around to face the opposite way, before he even knows I'm there. Thursday morning at 11 AM, am at the bike shop to drop off my bike. A young guy in a Navy tank top comes in and tells a mechanic that he's "cruisin' my chick's bike." He just wants some air from their hose for the tires. After work, at 8:15 PM. I'm at the train station, watching a guy with a black leather motorcycle jacket and long blonde hair, posing with a leg up on a curb right where I was sitting eight hours later. At 9 PM, I am on my last bus home for a short few minutes to my corner. In the back are three drunks and up front are a couple of guys who want to fight each other. Each are oblivious to the other. The driver stops until the two guys cool off. I get out with the drunks. The next morning is another early morning out at the bus stop, across the street from where I live at 4:30 AM. This could be my second to last early morning out here because my schedule is due to change. This is one of the first buses of the day, the "dirty 30," bus of the damned. At a stop along the way to the train, a woman gets on. She appears to be a couple of decades younger than myself. Her skin is clean and brunette hair peeks out of the hood of her coat. She has a blanket over her shoulder, and wears red socks without shoes. She digs and digs through cloth bags she carries before the guy behind me says, "C'mon driver, you're going to make us late."
Sunday. I'm spending my afternoon going downtown for a late lunch before picking up my bike, before the wet snow melts and freezes overnight. A wet spring snow has been coming down through the night and into today. I head over to the bus stop across the street from where I live. A few flakes continue to drift down from a grey sky. A twentysomething girl is quietly sitting in the shelter. She asks me if the bus on the way goes downtown. She's in bedroom slippers, lycra pants, and a nylon fleece top. Not warm enough for this weather. She sounds high. I tell her that she needs to get out at the train, which will take her there. A drunk comes along and asks me how far the next boulevard east is. I tell him and he says he's going to walk it. "I'm not from around here," he mentions, "And I don't know where my friend is. he's an idiot..." That's funny. This guy looks awfully familiar to me. The girl tells me that this is the first time she has taken the bus. I ask her if she usually drives, and she answers me by telling me that she just broke up with her boyfriend. A middle-aged guy in a parka comes by and hands her a scrap of paper before wishing her well. She has with her a plastic grocery bag with a couple of tiny garments falling out of it. The bus comes and we get on. As we approach the train station, I gesture to her that this is where she wants to get out. I get out and she slowly, slowly get out after me. I follow her down the steps to the platform. She drops the scrap of paper given to her by the guy in the parka. I pick it up and look at it. It has the name "Morton," followed by the numbers "71882-85-92." I feel as though I am in a movie titled The Parallax View. Before I can return it to her, she wanders to one end of the platform as I run for my train which as rolled in. I get out at the end of the line and jump on a shuttle to the pedestrian mall. I watch as the girl slowly comes up and on board. I give her back her scrap of paper, which she politely thanks me for. I wonder what her story is. Downtown is dead this Sunday. I get out and head into a Chilis. When I order, the skinny kid who is my waiter tells me that his friend, Zac, told him that what I am ordering is good. After a quick lunch, I head over to a bus stop with a guy who looks as if he should be working on a loading dock. Under his coat is a T-shirt which mentions something on the breast about a fraternity mixer. I get out and cross the avenue. On a corner of the next block is a middle-aged guy yelling at traffic. "Plant a pot plant for Arbor Day. It's 4/20. Save America."
...all ideology ultimately springs from popular social forces... For Marx, ideology was the belief system rulers used to delude the ruled... But Marx wrote at a time when religion and science were two great protagonists and science seemed inevitably on the side of revolution. Since then...revolution...has become...the chief generator of spiritual belief systems. What had to be restored above all else was the world market system...the Anglo-American business elite would have its power reaffirmed...as the best custodian of a peaceful world order... ...conservatives...thought that power was best invested in a class of wealthy, educated, and...taught responsibility in the finest schools. The more these militantly revolutionary countries were involved in world trade, (the more)
they would be civilized under the weight of international responsibility. Above all...conservatives...saw themselves as Americans, a definite, distinct, and proud nationality with a mission in the world. American in the understanding of the day, meant white, Protestant, and male. - Schurmann
Revolutionary nationalism has not waited for Western Marxist thought to catch up with the realities of the "underdeveloped" world. From underdevelopment itself have come the indigenous schools of...achieving independence. The belief of some American Marxists...is based on a superficial assessment...that the Negro is an integral part of the American nation in the same way as is the white working class. ...of the components which make American society what it is. The ramifications of the national and colonial question are clear only if the initial bourgeois character of national movements is understood. ...racial integration...lacks...objectives...to exert political, economic and administrative power in society. ...the problems...break out in what are considered to be "negative," "anti-social," "anti-white," "anti-democratic" reactions. ...the Negro bourgeois. ...trapped and stymied by the entrenched and expanding power of American capitalism. ...the Negro could not seize the power...or oust "foreigners." Thriving off the crumbs of integration...bourgeois elements have become de-radicalized and de-cultured, leaving the Negro working class without a voice...while serving the negative role of class buffer between the deprived working class and the white ruling elites. ...such groups become a millstone around the necks of the Negro working class... Is it not just as valid for Negro Nationalists to want to separate from American whites as it is for Cuban Nationalists to want to separate economically and politically from the United States? ...the end result can only be racial wars in the United States. Can it be said, in all truth, that Nationalist groups...are...unrealistic when they reject white society as a lost cause...? White society...is sick, immoral, dishonest and filled with hate... - Jones and Neal
...unprecedented density and mass that has taken NW Denver by storm... Driving down the "canyons" of...17th Avenue, or watching LoHi busting at its boxy seams have some up-in-arms, others elated as they take their "lotto" earnings to their bank in the burbs. ...historic districs and neighborhoods are bringing people back to cities and strengthening communities. "old mined-use neighborhoods are more walkable. Young people love old buildings. Nightlife is more alive on streets with a diverse range of building ages. ...and the creative community thrives in older, mixed-use neighborhoods. - North Denver Tribune, 4/21-5/4/2016
You can control lights from poolside to bedside...
Knowing Denver's mid-century modern real estate is my passion. Whether your dream home is in one of Denver's well-known neighborhoods, or hiding in one of the city's many tiny MCM enclaves...
Let's do a little dance at the thought of no longer being tied down to conventional living. Imagine a vibrant city... Now put yourself in a stylish, low-maintenance rowhome in the middle of said community. ...your intelligently designed home is just as interesting as the streetscape outside.
...livability is a fluid state best measured in decades. In order to remain true to the ideals of functional modern living, even great homes must evolve. - Modern In Denver, Spring 2016
Monday. On the bus to work out, the driver is the same one who looks like a 17-year-old girl. Five-oh hasn't picked her up yet for jacking this bus. On a connecting bus to the gym, we roll through a sunrise of grey skies. With the trees still bare, snow on the ground, and chill in the air, it really feels like winter instead of spring. After my workout, I grab breakfast at a deathburger. There are two parents and their grown son, sitting and listening to sports radio as they eat. The mom gets up to go to the ladies room and when she opens the door, complains about it being dark inside. After she comes out, I hear her ask, "Anyone want a pepper?" After breakfast, I jump on my bus home. A couple of guys who look homeless get on. One begins walking casually to a seat when the driver stops him to let him know that he must pay his fare. After a minute, this sinks into his brain. The pair disembark and sit back down. Both are smiling as one waves to the driver. An hour and a half later, I am downtown on a mall shuttle to the back and to get more damned bus coupons. This shuttle is populated with executives. My dad wore suits his entire professional life. A couple of execs my age come on. One in a pinstripe suit tells the other that his daughter used to work for her sorority, now works for the city's hockey team. Tuesday. 11:45 AM. The sun has come out after a morning snow shower. I am headed down the street to grab a bus to work. As I stroll along a Vietnamese strip mall, I pass a liquor store, in front of which is a stoic-looking and grey haired and bearded homeless guy leaning on his trusty cane.
Today we find a completely new phenomenon: large, rapidly growing black populations who are indigenous to city life. Every nation, tribe or natural community is ruled less by external forces than by...beliefs and moralities deeply embedded in the collective experiences which...regulate behavior...without which the group could not survive. ...enables the development of his personality. Every man owes his life, his moral and material condition, to his family and nation...through these...he becomes human. ...through education and sustenance...by his people. - Jones and Neal
...a self-styled militia...protests against the idea that the federal government can own land in the West. It does not have to be this way. ...public lands are the backbone of the vast and growing outdoor recreation economy, which not only benefits current residents but also attracts new companies and employees to our states. ...to work with public lands and agencies in order to build more sustainable communities.
"Ooh! Maybe we'll run across shape-shifters out on the trail!" "Do you think the vortexes will affect electronic shifting?" ...and I was going to be extremely disappointed if we didn't get plucked off Highway 89 by a UFO, or at the very least get whirled into the spirit world for a few minutes... We'd be there for the Blood Moon Eclipse after all... For a place renowned as...a...New Age nebula... On the north side...waiting for the leathersmith to find another "e" to finish stitching...on the back of your custom, size 42 leather belt. On the south end, the vibe feels much more retirement community... ...aimless tourists scouring the trailside in false hopes of finding a monolithic amethyst like the one on the front of their spa's brochure... - Elevation Outdoors, 4/2016
Thursday morning. I hear on the local news that, located at a supermarket somewhere in the metro area, someone threw a fucking pipe bomb in the mailbox, blowing it up. Friday. I head out to the bus stop across the street from where I live, hoping that this will be the last time I am here at 4 AM. Later today, I will come to find out that I will be doing this on Mondays instead of Fridays. Yesterday, coming home on the trail, the harvest moon is rising to my right. This morning, it's headed to the west. The bus picks me up, and along the way, we also pick up a guy with grey hair to takes forever to put his coins in the fare box. On the back of his hoodie is "DRAG RACING" and an image of the state flag. He limps to his seat. Sixteen and a half hours later, I am back at the stop for my last bus home. It's the year's first day in the 70s. The boulevard is packed with street racers. The red light a the corner is backed up almost as far as I can see. Sound systems are pumping bass and pickups, SUVs and small cars are just waiting to hit the accelerator. Tonight, something else is here for the first time. Police cars are patrolling up and down this boulevard. Tonight, they appear hopelessly outnumbered by the racers. I've been seeing more vehicles here with front ends smashed, missing headlights. One car is carrying four spare tires tied to the roof. When I get out at the stop where I live, one car is pulled over at the gas station across the street. The police lights flash so bright that they reflect off of the side of my condo complex.
Saturday. On a bus to work, we pull into the train station around 6:15 AM. The driver announces that due to the new train to the airport opening yesterday, all trains today are free from 9 AM to 10 PM. I will be at work long before 9, and I will not be taking the transit system home. I get out to the train platform as the sunrise illuminates the Rockies, all the way past the foothills back to the snow-capped peaks. I sit down before a young derelict guy shuffles up to me. With an open beer can in his right hand and a panhandling sign made out of the six-pack container in his right, he appears dingy from head to toe. His hair sticks up in the air as he slowly asks me, "Who...came...up...with...this...whole...train...idea, do you know?" He gestures with his finger in reference to the lightrail system. A mild expression of mild satisfaction, almost a smile is on his face. I reply that it must have been one of the mayors. He shuffles away, disappears. Someone who came in with me on the bus is a guy I sometimes see on my corner on Sundays. He's a senior, dressed from head to toe in this trademark khaki pants, shirt, and hat with a brim, topped off with black suspenders and a black scarf tucked into his open collar. For the very first time I hear him speak out on the platform. He says something to himself about "taking responsibility." We both get on the train and he wanders the aisle coughing. He takes a seat and says, "Something for nothing? Is that fair?" The city builds a train system and makes it free for a day. That's life in the big city.
Around 1:30 AM, my phone rang with a recorded message telling me police are in the area and to stay indoors with doors and windows locked. ...at least one helicopter overhead.
There are at least eleven police vehicles visible from my windows. ..appear to be...a yard by yard search now. I'm not going to give any details about locations... ...an ambulance and fire truck pulled in and out...(no lights or sirens, no idea what that means.) - Nextdoor Westwood, 4/23/2016
...a.man was shot and killed Saturday. (Perhaps ten blocks north and another ten west of where I live. A)
20-year-old...is in custody and faces first-degree murder...as well as second-degree aggravated assault... (In his mug shot, exactly half of his thin beard is shaved off.) - Nextdoor Westwood, 4/24/2016
The man killed Friday (somewhere which sounds as if it's in proximity to where I live, was)
shot in the head (by someone who he had)
worked with...for one day about two months ago... Minutes after the shooting and a few blocks away (the shooter)
beat another person with a chain that he ripped off garbage cans... A victim in that incident...putting him in a "sleeper hold"... (The shooter) woke and fled...to his sister's house... - The Denver Post, 4/25/2016
...conservatives...just wanted to re-establish...a would based on free trade, respect for property, and freedom...which would automatically assure Anglo American dominance. The internationalists were strongly in favor of demilitarizing...all nations. ...arms were the source of malevolent nationalism... And areas like Malaya and the Indies had reverted to a colonial rule with which America could well coexist. With a combination of British (and French) military power and American money, the West would be able to maintain control over the emerging countries even while granting them political independence. ...opportunities for American foreign investment unencumbered by...socialist or...nationalist referendums. ...the rising working classes...threatened...chaos if...demands...for a redistribution of income...were not granted. Thus, the welfare state came into being. The dynamic capitalist creators of wealth always will turn wealth into property, creating gaps of wealth...thereby creating classes. ...redistribution can only occur, in...access to state power. It was Kennedy who tried to transform covert war in east Asia into a global counter insurgency in conjunction with Washington's new policies toward the Third World. ...expansion..had an evangelical, mercenary, and marital character... ...in...Hawaii...the missionaries..became great land owning plantation magnates. Hawaiian statehood was...supported by the Hawaiian Oriental middle classes...a great immigration of Orientals...who regarded it as a way out from under the crushing domination of their haole overlords. ...others, Filipinos, Portuguese, and native Hawaiians, constitute the manned labor force. Hawaiian expansion was...by a small minority of soldiers, entrepreneurs, and missionaries who constituted themselves into the ruling elite over a "native" society. For the expansionists, the prospect opened up that all of the Pacific could be transformed into a kind of Hawaii. ...the absence of native bourgeoisies in the East Asian countries... ...Christianity would be China's next great creed...Marxism...soon to be swept aside by the liberating armies of Christianity. - Schurmann
...new organizational forms will emerge...by...victims of the American brand of social underdevelopment. Young people today often know more about the world around them than the preachers. New college-trained sociologist preachers are attempting to fill the vacuum... In the turbulently lawless cities of America, the rhythum of life is quicker and...more complex for the masses. ...today there are black nations in Africa and a powerful yellow nation in Asia. Moreover, militantly charismatic and popular leaders...have revealed to the masses...the white power structure... ...store-front preachers...pimps and prostitutes, black college crowds, integrated civil-righters and beatniks, the 'fingerpopping' and 'good times' groups, black nationalists. When one moves between any of these sets he has to 'go through changes.' From hustle to hustle, from set to set - such is the pace of black life in the cities. The chaos and disorder...is...why some of the new jazz sounds are becoming 'chaotic.' ...expressing...the disorder of American living conditions. The tense, fast-driving demands of the rat race in modern America is pushing Negroes... On the streets the young 'headshakers' used to just talk aloud, drink wine, and steal from and fight each other. Today...they are getting loaded on weed... ...they are stabbing white people on the subways. Where poets went about singing in the days of the new awakening, angry, frustrated boys now prowled. Where 'primitive' children danced on the sidewalks, hungry, evil-eyed little criminals lurked in doorways... Outlandish cults were meeting in some of the homefront churches where the moaning and shouting had formerly been...filled with joy. ...the cultural folkways and norms,,,do not apply to the social realities of today. ...the old folkways...must be vomited up. This means...shock, disruption, and transformation. It can be violent...creative and constructive. ...sharing a common cause and common density. The era of a new breed, then, is one of order in disorder, clarity in confusion, unity in disunity. - Jones and Neal
Sunday. I'm out to get lunch across the street from where I live. In the parking lot of the restaurant is a street racer's car. The front end is completely gone. The radiator is smashed in toward the engine. The driver is positioning it toward the back end of a tow truck. I step out later to grab dinner to go on the corner where I live. Cars with one corner of the front end chewed off. Glass and aluminium pieces on the street corner. Bells from the catholic church down the street mixed with the bottom end of someone's sound system. I step out into my parking lot and see coming along the opposite sidewalk a guy with shoulder-length white hair, slowly hobbling along with a care. Across the street at the gas station, I watch a guy half his age pay for his groceries. Monday. I'm out on the trail by 5 AM. The full moon lights my way. Perhaps Jupiter and Mars are next to it. The first bridge I follow the trail under, from a distance it appeared in the dark as if there was a rippling reflection on the cement. I suddenly recognized that water covered the trail under the bridge and the light was reflecting off the water, right before I rode through it. At the top of the incline on the other side, someone placed two orange cones. Why there are no cones on the other side...? By 5:30, other riders appear. As I am rolling through the opulent neighborhood before I get to work, I cruise past one home where a woman in her bathrobe comes out. To get the newspaper? As I get on my bike to head home, hail begins. I travel halfway home through some rain, lightning in the clouds. Raindrops hitting a metal fence make a ringing noise. Tuesday. On the way to work on the trail, I am on a section which I have recently discovered. It passes through more of an open space than a park. I watch as someone drives his remote-controlled toy truck across the trail and accelerated out into the field. Even the toy trucks street race. At work, I hear on the radio that the guy who put a pipe bomb in a metro area postal box, blowing it apart, was trying to impress his girlfriend. On my ride home, shortly after entering the trail, I see up ahead a woman with grey hair and a running suit. She is standing in the middle of the trail looking at her phone. Further down the trail, I pass a couple of people walking along down the middle of the trail. This is shortly after a rain shower. It just appears odd.
Wednesday morning. Yesterday, I shared the trail with a remote-controlled toy truck. Today, it's a remote-controlled toy Piper Cub airplane. Like the hawks I see, it's cruising the updrafts. Wednesday evening. Around 8:30 PM, I am five or six blocks away from home. From a distance, I can see lights from a police car reflecting off a long white fence and building. As I cruise through an intersection, I see two police cars which have blocked off the street and have a small car pulled over. Thursday. I'm on the platform of a train station up the street from where I live. I need more damned transit system discounted tickets. It's going on 10 AM. Drifting snowflakes hiss when they hit the overhead lines which power the trains. When enough moisture gets between the line and the connection with a train, at that point it will sometimes flash green. On the platform is a couple who appear as if they could otherwise be 12 years old. Except of course that the girl has green hair and the guy has a bushy beard. So they must at least be seventeen. I get on a train and sit across from a young guy talking to an older one about his probation and about getting high. The kid has the sides of his head shaved and long, purple hair. He;s in shorts and bright green sneakers. The older one strikes me as homeless. The kid mentions that he's has "2 clean UAs, two days in a row. So I cracked open a Rolling Rock and slammed it. 'I don't have to piss test today.'" The other guy mentions his favorite poison. The younger one observes, "Everyone in this town drinks the cheap shit." He claims that he also "slammed" a fifth of Wild Turkey, and that when you're on LSD you don't feel the alcohol. Perhaps not. Psychedelic drunk? It's an interesting approach to a hangover. He says that he is planning on getting stoned before what I presume is a court-ordered class. The older one mentions that he is looking for a job. We pull into the station and I go inside for my tickets. There is the usual gathering of homeless/off-the-grid/groovy youth. One guy has his face covered with the obligatory bandanna. I hop on a shuttle to the downtown pedestrian mall when in comes the older of the pair from the train.
Nine hours later, I am out at the stop for my bus home after work. Across the street is the stop for the same route in the opposite direction. A woman who I don't recognize is there yelling something. As she is looking in my direction, I suspect that she is yelling at me. Perhaps she was trying to tell me what I would find out in another 45 minutes, that the bus schedules had changed and I had just missed one. Shortly after 10 PM, I am at my new last bus stop home from work. A light mist is coming down. A little guy comes along who speaks nervously. Then another guy comes along. He's on his phone as he paces around outside one corner of the shelter. I listen to him telling someone that they have to start from the bottom and work their way up. He asks on his phone, "just be a little patient with me." He says he has both a son and a bacterial infection. He knows some others with this infection. "I don't always go through things," he mentions. The bus pulls up and the nervous guy asks the driver, "Where are you going?" We get on board and he nervously puts in his fare, dropping a coin, and the other guy slowly looks for his own fare while still on his phone. He tells someone on the other end, "There was a gas leak." I'm headed just up the street. We roll past a fire truck parked in the misty dark on a side street, it's lights slowly turning. I get out next to the gas station across the street from where I live. In the parking lot lights is a woman in a hoodie, holding a plastic grocery bag. She is arguing with someone on her own phone.
Day of the Umbrella
Friday. 9:30 AM. Tiny wet snowflakes come down as I wait for a bus at a stop next to where I live. Along comes a girl who appears as if she is young enough to be in high school. The kind of woman who you would never expect would have a gas leak, or a bacterial infection, or a son, or have LSD or Wild Turkey or Rolling Rock in her UA. Her hair is in a pair of braids down the back of her head and her eyes and lashes are made up. In a temperature of 30 degrees F, she's only in stretch pants and a thin hoodie. I hold my umbrella over her and she says thanks. (
By August, she'll be mine...) She asks me how long it will keep snowing. The forecast is through Monday. She works the late shift at an Arby's somewhere, till 1 AM, and she tells me that she hopes it won't get any colder by then. We hop on the bus, and shortly thereafter I am headed into the supermarket down the street. There;s a guy sitting on a lawn chair for sale. His groceries are in a bag on the floor, as if he is waiting for a ride. He notices my umbrella and says, "Is it that wet out there, bro?" Inside, a guy turns down an isle. He has on a purple hoodie, on the back of which is "RIP Troublesome," with an image of who I assume was troublesome. An hour and a half later, I am at a fish place for lunch. When I walk in, the host compliments my umbrella, and implies that at first glance he thought it was a gun. On the wall is a swordfish, just like the kind my dad had on the wall in the house.
