"Bramakte" means "I have no choice [but to live here]." ...rotting market stalls of blackened bile-green rusted metal poles...black plastic sheeting held down by rocks and old tires. ...a mosque whose walls almost seemed to be melting in the rain... ...youth...throughout urban West Africa: out of school, unemployed, loose molecules in an unstable social fluid... Their robust health...made their predicament sadder. ...a woman, in nothing but pink underwear, combing her hair with a rusted nail. ...his eyes. Their aspect was Western - just barely... Like many people's here, they are yellow from sickness. At certain moments they lost their domesticated glow and became void of urbanity...as though they had been defiled by what they had seen and by what they had been forced to decipher to stay alive through indescribable horrors.
Having escaped from a Massachusetts correctional facility while awaiting trial for embezzlement...Charles McArthur Taylor fled to Liberia, then exploited the genocidal rage of armed teenagers. ...the National Patriotic front of Liberia... "What tribe are you?"...the question that both government and rebel soldiers were always asking...Liberians. "There are no ideas, no politics, just tribes." Many Liberians seemed nice...as many...Ugandans...following the downfall of Idi Amin seemed so very nice. Where did all this violence come from? ...a landscape of bruised and leaden skies, drenching sunlight,and hot Day-Glo colors where earth, water, and flesh soak up, rather than reflect, light. ...the bumpy green carpet stretching to the horizon... It seemed to me that the myths, which might emerge from such a landscape were either too local (...with tribe) or too general (...with the earth) to sustain nationhood.
The men...wore rock-poster-like T-shirts under tribal robes, and...pump sneakers without laces. A young muscular man stood stoically by the side of the road, wearing an Elvis T-shirt. His eyes were...vacant. There was no economy here... Innumerable settlements...throughout West Africa were emptying out so that slums...could expand... West Africa is left with high-density concentrations of human beings who have been divested of...stabilizing cultural models, without strong governmental institutions...to compensate. The boys who took power in Sierra Leone...one coup leader...shot the people who paid for his schooling...to erase the humiliation and mitigate the power his middle-class sponsors held over him. ...in the villages of Africa [one eats]
at any table and lodge[s]
in any hut. But In the cities, this communal existence no longer holds. You must pay for [everything.]
...they became lost. They...slip...into the criminal process. - Kaplan
[To join]
the Muslim Brotherhood... "It was the idea of parity...of religion for the sake of religion, of serving the people without paycheck. Starting a quality [news]
paper in a country with long-standing press restrictions was like flying a 747 jetliner. It's so busy that you have to move gradually." ...focused on recruiting young reporters who had not been jaded by work in government-controlled media. The source of authority...as Middle East societies...change... Is it God? Or is it the people? [In 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood had the]
Utopian goal...to create Muslim societies...seeds for...a different kind of state. ...al Qaeda's first angry treatise in 1998 borrowed heavily from [the work of]
...arguably the most influential ideologue that the Brotherhood - or any modern group - has ever produced. - Wright
Thursday. I'm on the bus up the street to work. At the train station, four passengers step on board. One takes a seat with someone else and says, "Whoee I'm pissed. Whoee. They better put that money back on that card. That don't make no sense." Another in back yells, "Not today, man. Not today!" The fourth speaks meticulously into his phone. He claims that, because he's been approved for disability, his credit rating has gone up. (?) But he says his credit union won't approve him for a loan, because...he already has a loan, on which he is behind in the payments. (?!) I walk into work just as my boss gets off the phone with the owner, who has just sheepishly admitted that he has put the store up for sale. New property owners have raised the rent, and as busy as we are, the business will no longer be profitable. One more strip mall in north Denver bites the dust. That's all I see up here are strip malls being torn down. In weeks or months, I must find a new job. After work, I roll up on the stop for my first bus home. This evening's random lone nut is a guy with a voice of someone who sounds as if they've had vocal chord damage, perhaps throat cancer. As the bus approaches, he gets up from the bench, asks me for a light, and then crosses the middle of the parkway.
As told by the owner of where I have been working for over a year now, the store shall be "sold" in a matter of weeks or months. Unless he simply shuts it down, as is his pattern of behavior. He eventually did the same with a group of other stores in a company he purchased, a company I worked for over more than 12 years. Which is how I ended up here. What's odd about the owner's consideration that this particular store is not profitable, no that the numbers are telling him that it isn't worth keeping open, but rather the math vs. the physical work. The beginning of next week, for instance, I will have so much to do that I will have to stay after closing to get it done. But that's the dance between labor dollars and market rates, I suppose. Sometimes the dance is no longer, shall we say, a mutual accommodation. And over the course of more than I year, I've scouted out the municipality's bike trails and safest streets, discovered its municipal system of recreational facilities, and happened upon a broker for my retirement investment account who has put it on the path which she has convinced me that it needs to follow. The City of Arvada has been good to this non-resident, and more than simply a place to commute to work for. Sooner or later, this adventure of mine in the wilds of northwest Denver shall come to an end. Having lived in the metro area, the same county in fact, for going on thirty years, I hadn't yet been to Arvada. Eventually, no longer shall I be cruising it's tree-lined middle-class neighborhoods or its beautiful trail-laden open spaces. I wonder what the new property owners...will do with their acquisition? Scrape their tiny strip mall for redevelopment? Do I need to find a place to work where the building is safe from rising rent? What a way to make a living. The following day, I will stop to look at a document which I have framed in my home. It's a letter from Sallie Mae, a loan consolidation company. I had a bag full of student loans consolidated 25 years ago. This is a letter informing me that I just made my final payment to them. It's from 2009, about the same time I began writing this blog. I notice that it appears dingy, and with my fingers I wipe three streaks through a layer of dust. Today, I have a payment to my retirement account which is the same size as my payment to Sallie Mae used to be.
...margins are slim. "It's not even about making money anymore." ...green vinyl tablecloths...foil-wrapped butter pats, the specials penned in looping, multi-colored marker on the white board... ...what it needs...is for a younger generation to decide that this restaurant is retro and therefore dope... Crazier things have happened...that...its low metal counter stools filled...with the next generation of egg-loving millennials. ...with no pecan-bourbon butter, no bacon flights, no kale-quinoa salads... For once, here's a restaurant with no Instagram campaign, no paid influencers, no spin. And isn't authenticity a prerequisite for hipness? - Westword, 11/1-7/2018
...new "normal life" in downtown Denver. Lost in daydreams of his carefree adventures, the new urban environment was startling. ...like-minded creatives and personal freedom... ...the idea of "living to work." ...people...out here...love the lifestyle this city affords them. - Boulder Weekly, 11/1/2018
...the orchard of your life. ...to remember good friends, great dogs, and all the poems, love letters and beautiful books I still dream I might write. ...to be happy with yourself. To be content... Minimalism is often touted as one of the expressways to spirituality... Donating...felt good as refreshing as an afternoon nap... - Elevation Outdoors, 11/2018
"If they have any type of walking or bus trip, where they have to wait at the bus stop, we found that coats really lower truancy rates." ...clothing donated in trash bags is kept in the sorting area and away from the shopping side. "It was kind of triggering for our youth in foster care. ...often their belongings are all thrown in a black garbage bag. ...I don't want them to see a black trash bag during a visit." - Denver Herald, 11/1/2018
...attending the RTD Board Meeting...the greater number of participants...rely on public transit in order to exist...because they don't get up in the mountains or take trips via flying on an airplane. - Denver Voice, 11/2018
Sunday. I'm on my way to see a movie. I'm at the strain station, where I used to commute to and from work some years ago. This was a literal way station then for homeless, drunks and street dwellers. This place is now the front yard for a condominium complex. I was here one time when a homeless woman was yelling at the residents in general, accusing them of "probably" eating "organic food!" This afternoon, a guy who doesn't appear to be a dwarf, but does appear to have legs which are somehow too short, is waiting on the handicapped platform. He tells his lady friend that there were a couple of trains which have gone past, headed to the wrong end of downtown. A third train comes along, headed for the same end of downtown. "GOD...DAMNIT!" he says. It's not just a movie I am going to see, but one which is part of the city's annual film festival. This means paying $20 for a ticket, in advance. In the theater are a team of employees with headsets coordinating the seating for films. People are lined up. I purchase a soda for which the carbonation is gone. The young woman to whom I mention this has to come up with a plan on the spot to alert the bartender, who must change a carbonation tank, so the woman may "return to" her "station" at the register. She shows me what the bartender told her, that I must hold back the lever which releases the soda from the spigot, until the non-carbonated soda cycles through the line. I've never had to do this anywhere, much less at a local film festival. Seeing this movie at a festival also means that I can't wait until my film begins, I must get inside before then, as I hear someone with a headset announce that standby patrons without tickets are now seating. It means, not a mostly empty theater, but a packed one. I put my bag in a seat before i decide I want the soda, go back out to get it, and return to find I will be sitting next to another patron. I can't remember the last time I sat next to a Caucasian. A guy whose grey hair is manicured, not stringy, whose in a buttoned down shirt. After the show, outside across the street, I wait for the bus in a shelter with two homeless people. One is under a blanket. the other is another young woman who moves a pile of stuff into the shelter, and then back behind it.
[The middle school down the street from where I live has]
won more flexibility in...money and time. ...a new "innovation zone."... ...high performing... ...they can opt out of paying for certain district services... ...can also form nonprofit organizations with their own board of directors... ...also...a teacher council and a parent council... ..."what kinds of steps [are you]
going to take to ensure there is a greater representation of people who live and reside in Southwest Denver[?]" - Denver Herald, 11/1/2018
...providing residents with...the confidence required for rehabilitation. "They start to think 'I do deserve this.' They can stay as long as they want... ...when their lives stabilize, there will be...transition [out of the shelter].
The people on SSI and SSDI, I think, will be the ones who contnue to stay here." ..."there are people who get waivers and there are people who don't." ..said...a resident of Ward 5... ..."the poor people in Aurora...they still need housing." Among the highest proportion of speakers in objection to [the shelter] were members of the...Home Owners' Association... ...neighbors "say if the project is approved they would move." "At any tme this whole complex could be full of felons." - Denver Voice, 11/2018
Monday. I'm on the bus up the street to work. A guy steps on and it's difficult to understand what he tells the driver, something about not having full fare and his paycheck. He takes a seat and gets on his phone. It's then that he tells someone, he's on his way to cash his paycheck before he goes "back to work at the job site." At work, I stay a little late to finish up. I'm across the avenue from the stop for my first bus home, which is near a gas station. I often stop into this station for a snack before catching my bus. I hear yelling from that direction, and I see a couple of people in the middle of the road with a shopping cart. I roll through the crosswalk and to the station, where the clerk is standing outside at the front door. She tells me that a homeless guy tried to take her sleeping bag from her own shopping cart. (?) So, she's homeless. When we get inside, she admits as much. It was her yelling at the other guy. As I've missed my usual bus home, there are logistical reasons for my catching a different route home this evening. I am assured of arriving home at a certain time, possibly earlier than the next bus on my usual route, as this other bus always arrives
before the connecting bus does. At the stop for this route are a couple of guys. One is elderly, sitting on the cement with a shopping cart of his own, and talking to himself nonstop in a whisper. I wonder if this is the guy who tried to steal the sleeping bag? The other guy is having a smoke. he tells me that he "hasn't seen a bus go past since" he got there. He leaves the bus shelter and the other guy gets up and enters the shelter. The bus appears at the corner and the other guy comes back. Suddenly, the guy with the cart begins speaking in a voice which sounds like a chainsaw. he mentions something about a child not allowed a discounted fare and not allowed on a bus. He's clearly firing on damaged cylinders. The other guy does not appear to realize this, and asks him, "Whose child?" He doesn't acknowledge the question, and he remains seated when the bus pulls up. I step on with the other guy. We arrive at the transfer hub, where we both step out. He light another smoke. I spot my connecting bus approaching and move out past the front of this bus, expecting the other to pull in front of him. The guy asks me if I am moving because his cigarette smoke bothers him.
Tuesday. I'm back across the street at the stop for my first bus to work. A white SUV pulls into the lot of the fire station next door. When a young Polynesian woman in a skirt gets out cradling something in one arm, I know what's coming. The Jehovah's Witnesses are in the hizzy. They somehow manage to arrive just when my bus does. "Would you like something to read?" she asks. These people need a new pitch. Maybe hire some writers. And as far as the print version of their magazines, I wonder if Jehovah will let them go digital. You know, save on gas. "Well, as long as you are here," I respond. I don't know what she thinks I said, but she says, "Okay," and goes back to the SUV without giving me anything. I see their magazines lying around all over the place, but I don't get one of my own? Oh, snap. Dissed by Jehovah and his dizzy Polynesian Jesus Crispy minion. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It comes with the neighborhood. I barely have time to worry because no sooner do the Witnesses drive off then I am on my bus. The train station is the stop right after a big social services complex. It's name after a Robert T. Castro, and his bust prominently adorns the lobby. I spent some hours in there once, when I was mistakenly approved for Medicaid. They blamed it on a computer. No statement yet from the computer. A women steps on at the Castro Center stop. I bet she would have been handed a Watchtower or a copy of Awake! IMMEDIATELY. She takes a seat and gets on her phone. "Oh, I'm happy," I hear her tell someone at the other end. "I'm very happy. I'm just sorry that it took two years for them to catch their mistake."
Wednesday. I'm inside the deathburger next to work...before work. I watch a Hispanic woman in her thirties. She's the manager. Her uniform she keeps neat and spotless. I speak to her in Spanish. She's friendly and warms to my use of her native language. But she keeps a professional distance. She comes out to the lobby and sweeps the entire floor, quickly and smoothly, and silently. Some eight hours later, it's after work, and i'm on my last bus home. The ten-year-old is driving. She's as hilarious as she is a taskmaster, as she is attractive. After you realize that she's been through puberty. I ask her what she found in the backpack left last night by a passenger, and which she said was her responsibility to search. She said she found porn magazines. Toward my stop, we pick up a couple of young Caucasian guys. They smell all over of university student life. One, a curly yellow blonde, is silent. The other is an obnoxious wannbe comedian. He recognizes the driver and pronounces loudly, "It's you!" He tells her she's beautiful. They have a seat and he says, and I can tell he says it all the time, "...and you know you're beautiful." It's been decades since I run into such a familiar character. You can take the college and send home the Caucasian, but you sure as hell can never take the Caucasian out of the boy. He's as out of fucking place on this street as an ancient Roman senator. He comes next to the driver to say, "Hi." If this were a bus through a manicured suburb, it would be full of passengers who understand his humor. If it were downtown, young executives and office managers would be encouraging him. But these are tired hotel maids and guys out of prison. Of course, he is unaware or doesn't care. He only has eyes for a woman who looks like she should be selling Girl Scout cookies. She reminds him to stay behind the white line when the bus is in motion. "I thought it was yellow," he replies. "It is yellow," she says. "It is?" he asks. Walked right into her trap. "Made you look," she says. She's brilliant. He may think she is just another pretty face. But I've seen her jump out and check her engine. I wonder if he knows an bus engine from an enema? My stop approaches and I get up to stand near the door. I tell her that no one tells me I'm beautiful She suggests that she and i could trade places. The kid thinks she's talking to him. I step off the us, shake my fist, and yell to her that I'm also beautiful. She laughs.
...illegitimacy of modern societies...for barbarous ignorance comparable to the uncivilized period before Islam. ...pure Islamic states...free mankind "from every authority except that of God." ...in the 1970s [Egyptian President Anwar]
Sadat released many of the thousands of [Muslim Brotherhood members]
who had been imprisoned... ...student activists...ran for leadership roles on university councils... ...again...social outreached programs initiated by founder Hassan al-Banna. The Brotherhood, in effect, tried to build a state within a state. Egypt soon had hundreds of clinics and schools operated by Islamic groups or individual sympathizers. - Wright
In the poor quarters of Arab North Africa, there's much less crime because Islam provides a social anchor. The forty-five mile journey...through a single, never-ending shantytown: a nightmarish, Dickensenean vision that Dickens himself could probably never have imagined. ...walls were coated with black slime. At the end...was no downtown, just...a few dilapidated office buildings. ...a city and a national capital only in the technical sense. I noticed a freshly painted murals on many of the walls, of young military officers in battle fatigues and dark sunglasses. This was the "beautification campaign" about which a Western relief worker...has spoken...so enthusiastically. To me it seemed more like a budding personality cult. In the "half or part" of the country that the regime did not control...armies from...neighboring Liberia had casually taken up residence, along with...Sierra Leonean rebels. ..government forces...had aligned themselves with disaffected village chiefs. ...just as states and their governments were meaning less and less. The distinctions between states and armies, armies and civilians, and armies and criminal gangs were also weakening... ...the schools, bridges, roads, and police forces necessary for a functioning sovereignty. Elements of the army...turning to armed robbery. ...a failed society. ...anyone with real ambition and talent had left... "There's little economic activity here, and...so many new opportunities for us in Moslem Central Asia." "We closed the embassy in The Comoro Islands without an outcry. So we've got a precedent. ...we'll have...magnet embassies that will handle the whole continent." The future...diplomats. There would be fewer of them...overworked and living in big cities. ...the Greeks...in Khartoum during...the mid 1980s. ...made their relief effort "work" while gaining almost no credit for it. I remember a Greek merchant telling me during the 1985 rebellion against...Nimeiri's...regime: "You journalists think there will be democracy. ...democracy in a place like Sudan will lead to anarchy." (It led to a confused and incompetent Islamic dictatorship.)
He waved his carbon copy of the manifest at them. The soldiers laughed. One came...pointing his assault rifle... That didn't frighten me as much as his eyes - swollen, bloodshot, groggy eyes, the eyes of a drug user. Abdul identified me as "lokotu", "an important white man," working for [Catholic Relief Services.] S
imeon leaped back into the driver's seat. ...he touched the wires and we pulled away. ...the dashboard soon became too hot to touch. - Kaplan
Thursday. "I've got shit that's fucking pressing.. Rent at the halfway house. They take taxes and shit out of it. I've got to be super careful. I'm not gonna catch any write-ups. I got 30 days left.." I'm on the bus up the street to work, listening to a passenger on his phone. He mentions that a friend of his is "super excited" to watch a video about working at a flea market. It's a chilly morning in the upper twenties. The occasional snowflake drifts down. I get out at the corner, to the stop for my connecting bus. I have to cross to the other side of the street to get around a middle-aged guy ambling along the sidewalk. His pants are falling down, towards his sneakers with hunting camouflage. I get to my stop and he comes along to tell me he thought I was "going to crash." He tells me that he broke his back riding his own bicycle. It had two flat road tires which e replaced with "mountain bike tires." Now his brake shoes won't reach the rims. He wants to know what to do about it. I tell him that the new tires are too large for his frame. He heads down the sidewalk. He spits and discards an empty shooter bottle. Some nine hours later, it's after work. I roll up on the stop for my first bus home. This evening, the middle-aged guy who is standing here and looking cold is not alone, and I don't think he qualifies as a full fledged nut. He approaches me from behind saying, "Hello...hello." He wants to know when the bus arrives. It arrives shortly thereafter and collects us. he has a seat and sits silently. At the transfer hub he briefly mumbles to himself. Further down the road, he disembarks, saying, "God, get real." I change buses. A guy gets on his phone. "I thought you were in jail. I thought you were in jail. I thought he was trying to get me arrested. No, I thought he was trying to get me arrested. I ran too."
Friday. I feel good about having tomorrow off. I'm on my first bus home. Along the way we pick up a passenger who appears to be legitimately employed. He has a hard hat and ear muffles. He gives the driver a story about the previous bus, that it has a broken bike rack. It sounds as if he and the driver argued about his taking his bike inside. Argue if you will, that decision is the driver's. he claims that the driver took off with his transfer. I don't know what he means by a 'broken rack'. He may mean the arm which holds one of the wheels, which sometimes has a worn spring, allowing the arm to come completely out of its sleeve. Which means that it's not broken, it's just loose. And it will continue to work. He claims that he's "just off the bus." If it's the previous one on this route, it would have been a full hour ago at least. He says he's coming from Boulder Canyon, which is something like 50 or 100 miles from here. He may have taken an express bus. I have no idea I also hear him mention a halfway house. I get out at the corner for my last bus home, and I ride down a bike lane toward the bus stop. I'm passed by a young couple on electric scooters. I turn and pass a couple of bundled up guys on the sidewalk. I get to the stop and the pair arrive shortly thereafter. One is drunk. He tells the other that he is his "number one guy. I would kill for you. I will kill anyone. And I don't care what they got." As the drunk pontificates, a young woman zips past on an electric scooter, stops at a deathburger, and zips back the other way.
Saturday. Denver Film Festival part two. I have the day off and I get the grocery shopping done in time to see another festival film. I'm through downtown and headed down a bike lane, when a runner approaches me going the wrong way down the lane. After him, a guy on an electric scooter does the same thing. I will witness this again tomorrow. I arrive at the Film center and enter under the mistaken impression that I am prepared. I know that, having not purchased my ticket in advance, the film may be sold out. The cashier tells me, "There's tickets, but your film is at The Pavilions." Another theater. "There's information on how to get to the Pavilions," she says. "Unfortunately, I know where the Pavilions is located. I was just through there," I confess. I jump on a limited bus, and soon the driver lets us all know that we will be taking a detour due to the Veterans' Day parade. Hmm. And I am going to see a documentary about a twenty-three-year-old Yazidi woman who escaped from Diash (ISIS), another consequence of our invasion of Iraq. Happy Veterans' Day. This is the second film I have seen at this year's festival, and the second for which I am late. But not by much. Today, the city will host both this parade and its annual comics convention. Welcome to Denver.
Sunday. I'm back downtown to pay a visit to the library. My computer has no document writing program and I don't have a printer, and I need to dust off my resume'. When I get on the pedestrian mall, I spot a vendor for the homeless newspaper. He has a stack cradled in one arm waiting to be purchased. Among the throng on the mall, in spite of the falling snow, I see no one else who recognize the newspaper, or even that this is a vendor. Welcome to Denver. I stop into a bar and grill for lunch. I was on the mall for lunch yesterday as well. This weekend I notice a couple of police cars patrolling from one end to the other. Inside the restaurant, the hostess asks me if I am a veteran. A customer gets up to leave and a waiter thanks him for his service. When I get to the library, it turns out to be closed both today and tomorrow for Veterans' Day.
...RiNo or River North...has become another trap for those trying to work their way out of poverty in Denver. Cultural capital has always been the soft-power weapon of choice for cities across the U.S. It's how they attract new residents and businesses, often at the expense of the working and lower-class population. Denver is no exception. Developers...into low-income, bringing...tastes for upscale coffee shops and boutique pastries. This creates new demand for housing in depressed neighborhoods which drives up their sale and rental value... Sociologists have coined a term to describe this..."artwashing." Cities will mask redevelopment under the guise of...an "Arts District." ...to lure high-class investors into an area. ...the city controls its artistic representation... - Denver Voice, 11/2018
...creating successful, high-quality projects that will help produce a vibrant cohesive city and enhance the quality of life... Under state law...charged with assisting the City in eliminating and preventing the occurrence of blight. ...experiencing economic difficulties. - Arvada Business Toolkit
The global information age... In the world of podcasts... "The MeatEater" podcast...has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, CNN's American Morning and Fox and Friends. ...a podcast covering hunting politics...maybe a few things you didn't need to know. ...reveal tactics... "Wired To Hunt" was the top-rated deer hunting podcast on iTunes... "Talking Mule Deer"... Guests have included Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. - Northwest Colorado Hunting Guide, Fall 2018
Holla
Wednesday. I am called into work early, because another employee has called in. I'm at the bus stop across the street around 8 AM with a couple of other passengers. Before I know it, I turn around, and there is a woman in a skirt. The Jehovah's Witnesses are back, in their white SUV. This one has her magazines in a leather case. She converses to one passenger in the shelter for some time. The bus arrives and I tell her that another crew from her church was out here last week. This must be their favorite bus stop I say. "We're here every day," she replies. Hours later, it's after work. I'm on my last bus home and the ten-year-old is at the wheel. We stop at the train station. A couple step on and the woman tells the driver, "We just jumped out of a truck [and therefore have no fare. May be ride without it?]" The driver stares at them dumbfounded for a second, and lets then take a seat. The train stations and transfer hubs have parking lots, called Park-n-Rides, so that if you jump out of a vehicle, you can leave it parked and...purchase fare before riding the transit system. As we approach my stop, I mention to the driver that "jumping out of a truck is the same thing as a Park-n-Ride, isn't it?" Thursday. Twenty-four hours later, I'm again on my last bus home. We pick up a passenger who knows this driver. The passenger is with a woman. The passenger mentions to the driver that he was in Oklahoma for two years before returning to Colorado. He had to turn himself in to "do six months." The woman is missing at least one front tooth, and appears and sounds as if she's a drug casualty. There are dark circles under her eyes and she speaks slowly. Another woman steps on. This one knows the couple. She mentions a guy who they all know, who she says robbed her a year ago. The guy tells her that his mom died when an overweight guy fell on her while he was drunk. She tells him that she signed her kids over to her own mom. She also says that her significant other "paid dope" to their social worker. "You know, the fat one. The ugly one?" Not being from the street myself, I don't know what this means. Holla.
Friday. I'm on a bus to a train, which will take me across town to my doctor. It's time for my six-month check up. It's early, 7:30 AM. Again a passenger steps on who is recognized by a woman on the bus. From their conversation, it sounds as if they both work at the same bottling plant. I didn't know the metro area had a bottling plant, which only goes to show how little I know. "Fuck that bottle machine, man," she tells him, referring to a malfunctioning piece of equipment. She mentions that she wanders over to a more interesting part of the plant, beyond her station. "I get bored. I fall asleep. Narcolepsy on the line." I'm familiar with line work. Thirty years ago, I was living in the middle of Kansas, working the occasional shift at a dog food factory. It manufactured Kibbles and Bits. I was a temp worker. The plant was part of an industrial park, in the middle of a cornfield. If this isn't strange enough, I was in graduate school at the time. Not to study industrial manufacturing, but fine art. The department was the worst place I've ever been, but that's a story for some future blog. I grab a train all the way across town to a breakfast place near my doctor. I grab a flu shot at the doctor's. My doctor is a native of India, Shabana Jiwani, MD. She informs me that my blood work results suggest that I am AOK. I ask her about a name which I suspect is from Hindu mythology. I don't know how to spell it, but I wonder if it is the name of some famous and powerful Hindu god. She asks me what I think it is. I tell her that it may be a Hindu monster. She tells me that...it's the Hindi word for "monster." I feel as though 1) I have somehow been cheated out of something which I am incapable of determining and 2) I am the perpetrator. Holla.
When I leave there, I have 2 1/2 hours to get to work. The train does not arrive for more than a half hour. I get back downtown, where I run into a 7-Eleven to grab lunch to go. I ask for a couple of "Cajun" sausages. (Raised and swam the crocodile. Smakeeye taught me mojo style. Sucked and weaned on chicken bile. I'm the lover of the bayou.) The clerk also appears to be from India. She offers me a "meal deal" which includes a "fountain drink." I decline. She then offers me a card for bonus points. I decline. She then goes to get the sausages. I wonder what takes her so long? I see that she has carefully packaged each sausage in it's own box. She then puts everything into a plastic grocery bag and goes to get napkins, and puts those in the bag as well. Now...now I'm ready to go to work. I can only hope. I've seen two women from India this morning. One is an Internal Medicine specialist. The other is a methodical convenience store cashier. Never fear a Hindu monster. There's trouble enough here on planet Earth. My usual bus stop from downtown to work is, in fact, not more than a few blocks away. This morning (or what's left of the morning), this stop is bordered by construction . I first must backtrack and cross through the middle of traffic which is backed up and stopped. I arrive and notice that all the many buses on this street are detouring just before here. In order to get to the stop before this one, I must cross the street which has a bike lane I can't use, because it's one way in the wrong direction. This must be the street that the drivers of my first bus home from work have been complaining about. I make it to my stop just in time to catch the bus. It now must crawl through two lanes full of traffic squeezed into a single lane. We escape downtown, and when we arrive at the transfer hub, we change drivers. The departing one says to the new one, "Wait until you get to 15th. I don't want no part of this route." I get to work an hour late. Holla.
Saturday. I'm on a short bus ride to the supermarket. As soon as I step on, there is a little guy in his sixties standing up. He is telling another passenger, "It's time for me to buy a gun. These youngsters, they want to beat on us. I'm gonna...shoot 'em!" He gestures with his arm. He's standing, he sits, he stands up again. "They call us "O.G." (original gangster). They don't care about OG!" He sounds like an old fashioned drunk. He slurs his speech. It's just as if someone is playing a drunk. In my eleven and a half years on this boulevard, I've never seen or heard of any violence from the youth upon the elderly. During my shopping trip, freezing drizzle begins. The central branch of the library downtown is having its winter used book sale and I elect to leave the bike home, as I am only going downtown and back. The following day, the freezing drizzle is gone and the sun is out, and I make up for an absence of any bike ride yesterday with a doozy. Today, I'm on my way to purchase a new battery for my land line, grab lunch somewhere, and see a movie. The battery place is on the way to the theater. I have an eye out for a lunch place when I spot a barbeque joint. I step inside to discover a funny little place. It feels like a timeless place, like a VFW hall. On the wall next to the door is a pop art poster for a late 1960's western. I order the catfish by itself, because all the sides are carbohydrates and not on my diet. The patrons inside appear as if they would fit comfortably in a scene from any truck stop. I discover these places, particularly when I am squeezed for time, here on this boulevard which divides the metro area avenues into east and west. As I sit at a table, munching my two tiny pieces of fish, I watch a millennial hipster slowly cruise over from the big brand spanking new multi pastel colored condominium next door. He has hair down to his shoulders and is on his phone. He wanders in to pic up an order to go and then wanders back out again.
Looking at the contrast between the dark interior and the sunshine outside, I decide to snap a photo with my film camera. In an attempt to advance the film, I discover that it's time for a new roll. This will require a change of plans. I have less than two hours to purchase a new battery and possibly attempt to run down to the camera shop, and then all the back to the movie theater. I get out of here, hit the battery shop, and run into a deathburger next door for some chicken nuggets which I eat on the long ride. From here I must go a city block east and some fifteen blocks south. I turn off a busy avenue into an old money neighborhood which, when I exit, I realize that I passed this place all the time twenty years ago. This is the very first time I've been through it. I then negotiate a busy intersection, and then Sunday traffic in a shopping mall parking lot, take part of a bike trail, cross a bridge over a creek, and climb a hill before I arrive at the camera shop. Inside, it appears that a salesperson is doing a power point presentation about camera products to a small group assembled on rows of folding chairs. As I am dropping off my film, a woman approaches an employee. She introduces herself as the author of what sounds like some kind of personal management-improvement program. The employee responds that she has read and loves the author's work. The author assures her that she will receive a gift bag with the latest information.
...a blend of rural and industrialized waste. ...spreading urban magnets on the coast...the export of crime (the vandalization of rural health clinics, for instance) or...baseball caps and laceless sneakers, of milk containers and canned food. ...of...blending of city and town, war and crime, soldiers and convicts. ...the southwestern part of Sierra Leone. ...is claimed, sort of, by Liberia. ...nationality...out here is nebulous. The tribal boundaries are not the official ones... "Is Sierra Leone a country?" - Kaplan
...pure Islamic states. ...free mankind from every authority except that of God." The [Muslim] Brotherhood, in effect, tried to build a state within a state. ...to create a caliphate, "basically a shape of unity between Islamic states. The world is moving toward large bodies." ...the Popular Campaign for Change. "Marxists, Nasserites, liberals, Islamists" [agreed upon a]
manifesto [which]
lambasted [the war in Iraq]
and American designs "to recast the fate of the Arab region." [The manifesto also called for a democratic system of Egyptian government.]
"Before, talking about change was like talking to a comatose person, because the Egyptian people were basically dead. They hadn't talked about...real issues, more than fifty years... We 'all' needed to go to the streets." Over [2005, their]
protests expanded the political boundaries expanded the political boundaries wider than at any time since the `952 revolution. Even the Muslim Brotherhood had scrambled to keep up... - Wright
The Monday before Thanksgiving. After work, I'm sitting on the sidewalk at the stop for my first bus home after work. A few yards away is a big church, complete with a pedestrian bridge over the busy parkway to another big building. There's a digital marquee flashing "Jesus is Awesome". Nothing like generalities. If you can't fight marketing... A half hour later, I'm on the corner rolling to the stop for my last bus home. I spot a passenger with a bike at this stop, and without coming to a halt I turn around to the stop before this one. The bus soon pulls up to that stop. The ten-year-old is driving. She tells me, "You're up here today." I mention that I am being tricky. She immediately knows what I'm doing. She may only be in the fifth grade, but she's nobody's fool, "fool!" At this hour, many of the passengers whom she hauls are her age. Instead of a licence to drive a bus, however, they already have warrants and convictions. This evening's random rabble is holding court in the back. This driver does not miss a trick. Someone left a small box onboard. At the train station she puts the bus in park and gets out of her seat to investigate it. I've never seen any other driver do this. She asks the passengers outside to wait until she opens the box. As the is opening the box, a street casualty n what appears to be a blanket shuffles past her before she again asks him to wait, telling him she has to make sure this isn't a bomb in the box. As the words slowly make their way into his addled brain, be mumble something about, "Oh no, a bomb..." before he starts laughing. The rabble join him in laughter. I imagine this young crowd with their abandoned lives laughing to their deaths in some kind of bomb blast, as if my boulevard were a cobblestone street in Jerusalem. Then again, I wonder if I would trade these potholes for cobblestones, or a Roman-era road. Right before I left work, I saw on a news feed that four people were shot right outside the baseball stadium downtown. Inside the box is a Christmas glass wrapped in newspaper. I ask the driver if it's from the Burger King collection.
"I'd build a pool. A pool, a whore, a cold piss, and a dart board... ...you don't want any Ghanaians here, because they got no 'fooking' money." The Gulf of Guinea… ...forlorn streets...salt breezes eating away at pastel walls. The town was like...shipwrecks: collapsed stalls, houses with no roofs... The "state" is a purely Western notion, one that until the twentieth century described...only a small part of the [Earth.]
Nor is the evidence compelling that the state, as a governing ideal, can be successfully transported...outside the industrialized world. Three decades after independence... ...instead of reconstituted tribal kingdoms...what was emerging were neoprimitive shanty-domains... The past was being cut off as people deserted traditional villages for anarchic cities. The future loomed as a possible abyss. Marx [referred to]
so-called "idyllic village communities" in the Near East and Asia...each of which "restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass"... My journey through the Nile Valley came at a time of reckoning for Marx's vision. Violent brushfires, stoked by false, fundamentalist prophets, were lighting up the night skies with tracer bullets over valley towns. Yet with population growth, urbanization, soil deterioration...what else but the state (and a strong, austere one at that0 could hope to manage the delicate relationship between man and nature? Marx is...either very wrong or very right about the destiny of...civilizations in the Near East and Asia. - Kaplan
Thanksgiving. I run out to grab lunch before gathering with beloved others for a traditional communing at a hearth somewhere. I'm biking up a street in my neighborhood when I'm passed by a Caucasian bearded hipster on a ten-speed, right out of 1978. He shows up as I am passing many old bungalows which remind me of the places I rented across town 20 years ago. I cruise past the single new little condominium in the midst of tiny homes where, inside, Spanish is spoken by the radios and the families listening. Along a balcony on top of the condo is a string of prayer flags. There is a little yard behind a high fence, from where I can here laughter from a few Caucasian friends or family. I'm searching for a place for lunch, and half of the places along the way are closed. I end up down the avenue at a huge Vietnamese shopping center. In the parking lot is a big monument to the dead from the Vietnam War, of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), perhaps to a country which itself exists only in parking lots and neighborhoods such as this. I step inside to discover a huge room full of fifty tables covered in white linen and pairs of black chopsticks. The tables are full of large Vietnamese families, and a smattering of young urban Caucasian couples. Wait staff in white buttoned down shirts and black aprons are pushing big metal carts full of Vietnamese buffet food. I ask for a menu and order before someone brings me a an order of pot stickers. It fills me up and I cancel my order.
...white people make up a holiday to celebrate the European invasion of North America... ...celebrating colonialism makes everyone uncomfortable... Care less about your family! ...to fight with my racist relatives. And...seeing your high school ex selling meth outside of Target. ...you don't want to...miss the drama of...your nephew coming out to your ultra-conservative uncle. ...you can politely smile while your grandmother berates you for your liberal art degree, and...you're 28 and have yet to meet a nice Jewish man. How did people ignore their families before smart phones? ...an...hour-long conversation about essential oils with your aunt... So...point out your dad's problematic behavior, announce that you're thankful for the impending toppling of the patriarchy... Remember...if you don't offer to help clean up after dinner, you are street garbage. - Boulder Weekly, 11/15/2018
…he's frequently off his meds - he doesn't like the way he feels on them - and often prefers to take street drugs instead, "which is pretty common with people who suffer from mental illness. He likes to drown out the voices in his head with the noise of the city. ...when he doesn't take his medicine, he tends to take off for...even months. And if [social services doesn't]
have contact with a client for ninety days, they close the case, and then they have to do the whole intake thing over again. ...at Chili's. He'd ordered some food, but he was filthy and smelled of urine. ...he stole out of a store... ...the court system dismissed four different cases..." ...spent 84 days in jail last year "waiting for a competency restoration or a bed at the Colorado Mental health Institute in Pueblo to open up. These jails are nothing but dumping grounds for people like my son." {He]
was found to be incompetent to stand trial after he was finally examined at the Colorado mental health Institute..."they released him onto the street with no bridge prescription and no community resources, which...they're not supposed to do. I finally had to go to my primary care doctor to get his prescriptions filled." ...if she filed for legal guardianship of him. "I don't have the means to hire a lawyer to do all that for me." - Westword, 11/22-28/2018
Saturday. Two days off have blown past. So has the busy six hour shift at work. I'm on my first bus home with the ten-year-old driver. I ask her how her Thanksgiving was. She says she worked part of the day after on a ranch in the mountains., and "it was freezing." I tell her that the place where I work is up for sale. She gives me her card and tells me that she will recommend me for a driving job. They are perpetually hiring. I also mention to her that the bike, which I usually ride, has a flat. Discovered it this morning as I was leaving. This is why I have a different bike on the rack. She told me that she noticed. I tell her I'm not surprised, because there is absolutely nothing which she doesn't miss. She replies that, at the first of next month, drivers will bid for which routes they prefer. I ask her if she is looking to get as far from my boulevard as she can. The answer is a yes. I won't realize it until tomorrow, but I will be leaving the transit system myself. And the following week, I will discover that I have just worked my final Saturday in Arvada. The following day, I find a bike shop just across the next boulevard from where I live. My flat is fixed. I get home and decide to look up a job site on the internet, given to me by my investment broker. I take my monthly check to her on the way to work, and a couple weeks ago, I stopped in to give her the bad news about where I work. She wrote down a couple of sites on the internet which post jobs in my field. Since then, I've been busy with renewing my health insurance and dealing with a senile new broker who gives me the incorrect confirmation number, and can't remember the name of my health insurance company. So I dial up one of the sites... and in one Sunday afternoon, it all comes together quicker that I could ever have imagined. My month of anxiety over where I will be working is finished. I spot a job opening and reply. They want my name and number of years of experience. Twenty-seven. I get an email reply immediately. The owner wants a phone interview tomorrow. The following day, he will want to meet. The day after, I start with a new company in two weeks. And just like that, my year and three month adventure among the open spaces of Arvada, and my four year odyssey with this bizarre owner, are at an end.
Tuesday. After I meet with my new owner, I give notice to my boss, who wishes me luck. I've never worked under a superior who was more fearless at facing staffing issues or adept at tackling production issues and equipment breakdowns. This is one of the best crews I've ever been a part of. And the owner is throwing it all away. The best case scenario is that a new owner will buy the place and keep everyone. But my boss and I discussed it. If this owner can't afford the new lease, how will any other owner? And this owner will abandon the place eventually if he can't sell. That's his modus operendi. He also has a booming company which bills insurance companies, which doesn't have to deal with pesky things such as customers, and he doesn't need this place. So the bodies have shifted in the heavens and the dice have come to a rest. Wednesday evening, I am walking through my parking lot to my front door after work. An hour and a half earlier, i was on my first bus home when an alarm went off on the dashboard. It sounded like the alarm which sounds when the wheelchair ramp deploys. Sometimes this alarm goes off while the bus is in motion. The solution is to step on one particular corner of the ramp. i get out of my seat to do this. The driver tells me that, instead, it's a "low engine coolant" warning. And the the computer shuts down the bus. We're at a bus stop. I disembark and read the sign, which is missing the route number for another bus which I know will take me home. I'm too far west. I wonder if I can ride to the transfer station? I take a shot at it. For the first and only time, I approach the transfer station,passing below an underpass for a commuter train, one which I have been waiting t go into service and will now never ride. At the station, I just miss a connecting bus, bus the transit system had sent another bus for the route I started on this evening. The driver honks at me and motions to say, 'Let's get going!' He hauls ass down the remaining length of the route, and i make it home no later than usual. As I pass through my lot, on the other side of a neighbor's fence, I hear the guy I met last year, or the year before. He's the guy who introduced himself by revealing that he had "three domestics" (domestic charges). This evening, he is on his phone complaining about his barely significant other. It sounds as if she threw him out again. He's always outside, she's always inside. I spot another neighbor. I put my bike on my porch and head back to check the mailbox. I say hi, and we both acknowledge our "loco" neighbor.
And then it's Thursday. Before I leave for work, I run into a gas station next to where I live. As I am leaving, a third guy dressed as a monk holds the door for me.. Shortly thereafter, I am at the bus stop across the street. I will stand here no more after 13 more days. In the shelter this morning are a child, a couple of teens, and either a third teen or an adult. I hear a lot of coughing and smell pot smoke. After work, I'm on my first bus home. This one doesn't shut down, and at the transfer hub, we pick up a couple of guys in their sixties. One is loud. They could pass as Teamsters, except they are both spouting insane crap. They are two more crazy passengers who I have never seen before, who are passing through this way until they both get another chance to take their medication. Twenty-four hours later and I am at the stop for my first bus home after work. This evening's random pair, one who's a nut, includes the first van which I've seen pull up where the bus usually stops. The passenger asks me if this bus goes downtown. He gets out and the second, a young skinny guy on a bike, rolls up with groceries in one arm and wearing purple-print pants and a plaid fleece-lined hat with ear flaps. I have six more working days riding the bus. Either these character will become memories, or I will see more of them when I begin working downtown. The bus arrives and we embark. The driver appears to be comparatively young. Perhaps she's a new hire. Along the way, we pick up a guy who shows the driver a twenty dollar bill, a "Jackson" if you will. He would like the driver to take him to his destination, where he will get change and pay his driver twice on the return trip. As it is possible to pay for only one trip at a time, this makes what's popularly known as no fucking sense whatsoever. Not even maybe, unfortunately. The driver may or may not be a new hire, but she isn't nuts. What a surprise. She declines his offer. Though only two answers to his question are possible (either yes or no) it does not appear as if he was expecting such an answer, as if any other answer could be possible. He then claims that he is 41 years old and has "bad knees," before he declares that, "Karma will come upon you." He conjures 'karma' and she, no doubt, has the law in her breast pocket. They both are talismans of the destitute. He tells her that he is a nurse, and that when she is in his "doctor's office, I will take care of you." He may want to run this past the AMA. He heads down the aisle, asking if anyone has change for a twenty. Someone offers to pay his fare. The skinny kid tells him that he sympathizes. The karmic nurse thanks him for helping him "not to ex-plode." He also says that he's homeless. No wonder he whipped out his karma. They both disembark when we reach the transfer hub. I tell the driver, "Whatever they're paying you it's not enough." She says she sleeps well at night. "Who does he think he is," I ask, "Darth Vader?" She says she's unconvinced that he's a nurse. I tell her he says he's homeless. She laughs.
Six working days. Yeah. I first used the bike rack on the front of the bus on my first day, on the way to work in northwest Denver. The following week would be the first time in a couple of years that I would again need a monthly bus pass. Bike racks, and whether they are full, and will I grab a space if I turn and ride to the stop before the one where one or two or three other passengers already watt with their own bikes? Bus passes, and where can I be sure of finding one before the end of the month? Buses, and what to do if they are late, or break down? And how long before the next bus, and which other route will get me home, and when? Homeless on buses. Crazies on buses. Assaults on buses. Verbal threats to drivers of buses. Conversations about warrants and halfway houses and treatment programs and who's still in jail. Passengers who don't know where the bus, which they just boarded, is going. Six more, short, working days...and I will, once again, step out of my last bus home from work. Up the street from where I live, on the corner where I change buses twice a day. I saw my first working prostitute here. I've seen guys seeping next to the side of a doughnut shop which is seemingly staffed my Muslim employees. I've seen both electric razor scooters and monks travel the length of a Jesuit university on this corner. I've moved with those who hope to serve, stood with those waiting to turn a trick, and sat with those trying to catch some sleep under an Arabic guy kneading dough in a window. My first day working in Arvada marked the end of one thirteen-year adventure and the beginning of another, somewhat different one. Arvada is a beautiful municipality of open spaces with a system of recreation center, of bike trails and quiet residential streets all on my way to work. Or so it was for a year and three months. Now there are but six more working days before yet another adventure begins. My customers here in northwest Denver are rural. I briefly worked close to downtown twenty years ago, and a decade later off and on at a store in the heart of downtown. I remember a clientele which considers itself 1) hip and 2) self-important. In six working days, I will begin working just outside downtown. I will know more then. And I will remember watching the mesas and foothills climb above the horizon where I used to ride the final 20 minutes to work.
