...librarian in the Denver Public Library's community technology center. ...helped design...the Hard Times Writing Workshop... "I think everyone has stories that they tell themselves about their experience. ...the stories can begin to shift inside of them."
DO YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER KEPT A NOTEBOOK FOR RECORDING YOUR THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES? WHY (OR WHY NOT)? "...I will write a letter to whoever has my hackles up." "...someone either found it or stole it. I ended up in a mental hospital... I guess my thoughts are better kept in my head, not on paper." "...I've had head injuries. I can think, but if I don't write my thoughts down, I loose them." - Denver Voice, 6/2016
...there will always be a demand for story tellers and truth tellers. - yellow scene magazine, 4/2016
June 1st. An auspicious beginning to a new month. Yesterday, my boss told me that she is expecting someone to quit, and to open a particular store. This morning, I'm am up too early again. As it is raining, I check the schedule to find that the bus there only runs during rush hour in the mornings and afternoons anymore. I have no choice but to ride my bike in the pouring rain. When I get to work, someone shows up shortly before we open. It appears as if someone will not be quitting after all. On the ride back home the sun is out. Later in the morning, I'm on a bus up the street with a terse driver. At one stop a woman comes on with her child in a stroller. The driver lets her know that the stroller must be collapsed. He has a full bus. Also, he tells her that her monthly pass is expired. The end of the month can creep up on you. She looks at him as if she does not speak English. Another woman behind her translates as some guy out at the bus stop is complaining, "Let the lady ride." I hand "the Lady" a bus coupon, good for one fare. She attempts to hand it to the driver before I try to show her it goes into the fare box.
I get out at the train station, where the same grey-haired guy in a hoodie with a marijuana leaf on the back is announcing joints for sale. The train whips me to the super-hyped super hub, where I run in for more of the ever-necessary transit system coupons. Outside, Homeland Security police are standing in a huddle, with backpacks in a pile which have HSP on the back. Inside, are collected the usual riff raff, down and out guys falling asleep on skateboards. I grab a mall shuttle to the bank. Back out on the mall, I get a copy of this month's homeless newspaper. He lets me know that I may recognize someone in this issue. He's this month's featured vendor profiled in the newspaper. I hop on a train to work. Sitting across from me is a young woman on her phone. I am listening to her end of a conversation . The father of her child is in prison, sentenced to "5 to 20. Attempted murder. He took a deal." She mentions that she is a hustler, and that she tells him that he should be less worried about her living in a hotel "with a rapist." She's never been in trouble, except "for alcohol. If I hadn't got told on, I would never be on probation now." Her child is named Junior, who she is worried about being exposed to alcohol. I'm listening to this with six hours of sleep. She has 3,000 friends on Facebook. She tells a new boyfriend that she isn't planning on going down her list of friends and propositioning "all the guys." She tells him that he "needs to stop being so insecure. Social media is ruining our relationship."
If you're over 21, finishing a run and having a cold beer seem to go hand-in-hand nowadays. With the recent boom of beer and running, these new runner-oriented beers - and other like them - could be here to stay. - competitor, 5/2016
The economic opportunities...with having a light rail line running through the city of Aurora have city planners re-envisioning... ...a real estate attorney in Denver, spoke at the meeting... "...there's no reason to have fear at this point in the process. There will be a very extensive plan for assessing and evaluating relocation if that's necessary." - Aurora Sentinel, 5/26 - 6/1/2016
Spring has sprung...and brews are getting lighter. ...our cravings for ...heavier lagers and ales are shifting to lighter, crisper offerings. Or perhaps, you want a break from climbing fourteeners and want to jump aboard one of the beer trains that chug through the mountains. - Thirst, Spring,2016
On May 9, Schaffer Elementary School celebrated its first Leadership Day. ...the Leader in Me process...is based on Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Students...spoke on their favorite habit...and...the hand signals that [sic] are affiliated with each habit. - Columbine Courier, 6/1/2016
..."'infinite play" and "culture creation." "Traditional schooling has become irrelevant for the world these children are growing up in. The future of work is self-generative, collaborative and agile, o education needs to be that way too. The current, mainstream school system isn't designed to support integrated, dynamic forms of community - but it's our community skills, maybe above most, that will help us adapt to a changing world." - the profile, 6/2016
Open air is our home
Missing life before becoming homeless
Loneliness is a daily thing
Everybody looks away, wishes you would go away
Needing some human touch, but no one cares
In justice: more laws to hurt homeless people
Never feeling like you belong, because you have no home
Still waiting to see people say, "Yes, in my neighborhood!"
Wandering hopelessly...
My broken dreams are bottled up inside of me like a coke machine
I hope to see the day that I can start to cope with things
Cause my days are such a haze, I'm having trouble focusing
I know it seems hopeless, focused on the broken things
I'm cracked, scarred, and broken, hoping for the phone to ring
Every day is made to break or shake me up, or so it seems - Denver Voice, 6/2016
The dance floor...is ready to pop. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, the place feels like a party's about to break out, and the DJ clearly senses it...yelling..."Where my Beiber fans at?" "The wolves are starting to position themselves." ...a group of men...are toeing the edge of the dance floor. "There's a drunk deer entering the clearing." ..."drunk deer,"...means "drunk woman,"...clutching a brightly colored cocktail. ...alone on the dance floor for just three seconds before she is latched onto by a wolf with a man bun. ...some of the men...are left mate-less on the sidelines. "They're probably from the suburbs...so they're still excited to be here." ...we pre-game at a bar... "Who's that?" the subject slurs, extending an index finger from a Bud Light bottle... "He might have a wife who's letting him be here, and that's why he's so fucked up. ...I remember...a series of articles about the men-to women ratio in Denver and how it made the city like "Menver." After deconstructing her exchange...she ruminates on where he fits...and how he may have evolved... "I think of it like the stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg. You've got the wingman bro,"...a guy...with multiple Coors bottles. He hands one to a friend who...grabs the beer without diverting his attention from the woman he's flirting with. "Then there's the ski bro,"...a tall, granola-looking guy with high socks... The all-American bro,"...two men with Ralph Lauren polo shirts and slack-jawed expressions. "You don't see older women creeping on younger guys in LoDo. That's only in Cherry Creek, and even then you can't just be an older lady. You have to be a rich older lady." - Westword, 6/9-15/2016
What if I told you that you could express your inner nerd and your outer sexuality on the same day? ...this year Denver Comic Con and Denver PrideFest are collaborating... (Can I hear a "woot woot"?) ...this relationship has been several years in the making... ...the opportunity to explore the "ideals" of both events... "Practically everyone enjoys some form of pop culture..."
Pride season is sweeping upon us faster than an American family Association "tester" ducking into the woman's restroom at Target. Denver has a ridiculous number of transportation methods; you can get around easier than a fresh bottle of poppers at a bathhouse. ...renew your PrEP 'script if need be. ...don't forget to make a sensual playlist composed of Maxwell, Teedra Moses, daley, and Raheem Devaughn. There won't be a dry crotch in the bedroom.
Don't think the hottie who gave you molly at the clubs is looking out for you. ...research...the trendy drugs on the scene... You're...going to spend...an hour waiting for hotspots like Snooze of Jelly. Book. Tables. Now. ...they totally serve mimosas. If you book early enough (like, weeks in advance), you might...walk in like you own the joint. Bonus: Free valet. ...a killer brunch spot. Most brunch places don't draw huge crowds until 9am. Just arrive earlier, start your bottomless mimosas... Make sure...they'll seat you without your entire group
...she was...a featured designer at San Diego Comic Con, where she designed a Star wars-inspired look for Denver drag icon Ginger Douglas. Among her Denver Comic Con costumes this year is a "sexy Gorn,"...from Star Trek..
...great job on saving cash that could've been spent on a hotel room. Who needs complimentary breakfast with questionable eggs and coffee as tasteless as Hellen Keller's fashion sense? - Out Front, 6/1/2016
Thursday. It's 1 PM and I am on my corner waiting to cross the street, on my way to work. Along comes a SWAT vehicle with an unmarked police cruiser behind it. It's the tiniest little SWAT vehicle I've ever seen, smaller than the police car behind it. They turn up my street and race past. Six hours later I'm on my way home as the sun is going down, through residential streets full of families on their bikes. I turn one corner and a toddler in her yard yells, "Here comes a bike!" She stands next to her mom, who is in her thirties, beautiful, and an age I'll never nee again. Down the street and across a couple of avenues, the street ends at a park where all the drama appears to take place. At this park, I come to an intersection in the trail where I stop and wait for a couple of kids coming along. From the other direction comes a thin guy in a cap, glasses, and a goatee like the late Ho Chi Minh had. He's on a small bike with fat tires, and his gear make a noise so loud that you can hear the Vietnamese leader approach before you ever see him. It's the bike trail version of the street-racing pickup truck. He too waits for the kids to pass before accelerating away, only to hit the brakes for a woman with a child in a stroller. Before I know it, he is ahead of me and out of sight, all but his linking tail lamp. Some time after 8 PM, I am on a trail back in my own neighborhood. Along comes a young guy walking. He stops me to ask where he can catch a bus back up north. He doesn't appear to be from around here, this asphalt trail marked in green with gang graffiti and his arms with their Colorado state flag tattoos. I give him directions to his best chance to catch a bus, if he can get one this late as far north as he's going, which doesn't stop here on a bike path. A little further down the trail are a homeless couple hauling plastic bags. In the dark, they appear as if they may be in tie dyed gear.
Friday. I have a weekday off for the last time until whenever July 4th is. I'm on a train in the morning. Must be rush hour. When we get downtown, I follow a middle-aged woman off the train. She is dressed as if she may work behind a counter someplace. She's on her phone, telling someone that her daughter is in jail. I grab breakfast at my favorite place. A couple of women who look as though they are office workers are at the soda fountain. One tells the other, "That's the way it goes with divorce..." Some ten hours later, I'm back in my own neighborhood. My girlfriend is taking me home as a police cruiser makes a sharp turn and comes right next to us. He turns his lights on to stop the car directly ahead of him. Last summer (and fall and winter), no police in sight on these streets. This spring, they are here out of nowhere. The following morning, I am down the street and on the way to work. I ride past an apartment building. On a split rail fence is a tag for an El Salvadoran gang. Only here in the Mile High City. I reach the train station around twenty to 6 AM, where a guy is wandering the platform, asking passengers if they "shmoke shigarettes?" In a short while, I smell cigarette smoke, and I turn to see that he got one. On Sunday, I head downtown on a hot spring day to see what's up at this year's People's Fair. As I was ready to leave, I went over to where my bike was parked, in front of the Colorado Supreme Court Court of Appeals. Around the corner, listening to a three-piece heavy metal band, was a woman smoking a joint. When I get home, I read a post on my neighborhood's social networking site. Someone who lives across from a school was listening to street racers in the school parking lot. The racers were doing jackrabbit starts and then immediately slowing down. They had a parking lot without traffic, and they were doing the same thing they do out on the street.
With the new bars that accompanied the ballpark came a new crowd, and...here was a real culture clash in LoDo. ...tension between new residents...and those who were already denizens of LoDo. At one neighborhood in the early 1990s...a new resident who had moved into...the first loft project downtown...stood up and said, "You're just like the farmer, Dave. The town has grown around you. It's time for you to move on." - Westword, 6/9-15/2016
"We have heard from an angry group of citizens who don't like anything being done, so when you do something, you have pissed them off immediately." ...30 people...are anti-development, anti-growth and anti-progress. - Denver Herald, 6/23/2016
"I'm watching my family be displaced in Golden, where their rumbling trucks and muddy work boots don't fit with the new high dollar condos. ...my hometown of Fruita, is a place that is very blue collar and feels like it has been written off. ...know the meaning of hard work and having to hustle and always having to be better than everyone else." - yellow scene magazine, 4/2016
In February 2016, a new housing development opened its doors. ...this one...had...103 units designated to house...currently homeless...previously...homeless, or would be homeless... "If they don't return to jail and they stay in the housing, then that's a successful model." - Denver Voice, 5/2016
UP [University Park] has recently grown by the hundreds in apartments. By Spring of 2017, four more five-story, half-block-long apartments will be completed. ...the city...OK'd all this growth..."quality of life" (trees, lawns, quiet, healthy living) that developers say attracted them to this area. The city...starting a two-year study...called DenveRight - righting the present Denverwrong? The city is considering...to allow residents to come listen...
With the national unemployment rate now at a level not seen since before the Great Recession, and with the economy having replaced most of the jobs lost since before 2008, Americans are returning to their usual routines, and a chief component of every American's routine is driving. [Well...almost every American?] ...CDOT..."hey have been changing the structure of the [public] meetings so that there's not a venue for public [sic] to speak out and inform others." ...CDOT feels it has made room for public comment at several junctures. - the profile, 6/2016
Both before and during the housing boom, farmland around the country was bought cheaply and developed into houses, schools and shopping areas - a build-out that ignited homeownership. Now, in a twist, many of those cul-de-sacs are occupied by renters living in homes whose former owners lost them to foreclosure. - Aurora Sentinel, 6/23-29/2016
"...we are trying to do something a little different that what's typically found in Frisco or even in Summit County with some of our cooking techniques."
...tucked away in an intimate setting... Recently named one of OpenTable.com's Top 100 restaurants in the country for the second year in a row, its wine list also boasts an astounding 580 different wines. ...sommelier...said the Torre dei Beati "rosa-ae" of Motepulciano from Abruzzo, Italy, and the Chateau de Paraza "Cuvee Speciale" from Minervois, France, (a blend of syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre) are shining right now... ...a four-course menu for dinner that changes daily. "...we live in such a prefect age for enjoying wine; technology in transport... Some cocktails are even based off recipes from the Prohibition Era, such as the Violet Femme...
MUSCLE RELAXATION As the message progresses and the effects of the cannabis oil become prevalent... ...all of your muscles...are relaxed... A cannabis-infused massage...aids in the nourishment of the skin... OUR NEWEST CREATION, is a match made in weed heaven. ...it gets your head right for the day... Take a hike or do your taxes... ROCKY MOUNTAIN MAGIC...you can float and focus while you go about your day. - Explore SUMMIT, Spring, 2016
...the City plowed under "The World's Most Expensive Dog Park, a sweet community garden and a UN-like convenience store (where I often would hear three or four different languages...) If I had known...moving here for a legal high...rents would soar, homelessness increase... While we have the bulldozers running, how about plowing under Cherry Creek North... ...I vote for man-buns being outlawed and no more crispy Brussels sprouts of kale. Enough is enough already. - Life on Capitol Hill, 6/2016
Monday. The public pools are open for the season. I begin this year's swimming with a 6 AM dip in the pool at the gym. As I head down the hall with my sister, we are passed by a woman in her sixties, in a hurry. The three of us are in the pool. Two of us are swimming laps. The woman is asking the lifeguard about the water temperature. The water is heated during cold late spring mornings. She tells the lifeguard that the water is supposed to be 84 degrees F, but it only feels like 81. A short time after she begins her own laps, she informs the lifeguard that she found a rock at the bottom of the pool. She holds it up, wants to know where it came from. My sister and I do more laps as she easily eclipses me. The woman is asking a new lifeguard about the water temperature. Why is the temperature off, the lady wants to know. The lifeguard tells her that perhaps the cool air is drawing heat from the water. Ya know, high school physics and transfer of energy? The woman asks her the same question a second time. My sister and I are ready to make our exit. Six and a half hours later, I arrive at another pool for a swim before work. It's a middle class neighborhood across town from my own tempestuous barrio. I ask for a season pass. It was my first mistake. Today is the first day this pool is using their new computer system. The staff has to call the boss to manhandle the software. He's the guy with the codes and the brimmed mesh hat. While he's dealing with making my pass, a family with an impatient father and an apologetic mother comes along. The father is in some kind of a state of indignation with the staff, and condescension to his kids. When asked what he needs, the father says, "We were told that if we came down here at one, we could inquire about swimming lessons." An entire team of tie dyed-uniformed staff is at the counter to help both myself and this jerk. The father tells his kids, "Hey kids, here's an idea, why don't we go see what the Colorado Athletic Club is like? Yeah, let's go kids, let's go." He mentions a private health club with a swimming pool, up the street from here. The head dude tells me to go ahead and swim and they will figure out my pass, which they do indeed. When I head out to get on my bike, now surrounded by kids bikes at the bike rack, a mom is there. She tells me that she is checking her kids' bikes, making sure that they have locked them up just as she so instructed. She's here clandestinely, she tells me, as she does not want her kids to loose their trust in her. I tell her not to worry. Her kids won't begin to mistrust her until they turn 13 years old. She mentions that her oldest is 13, and the rest of them are here under the supervision of the 13-year-old. Some seven and a half hours later, I am coming home down a stretch of sidewalk in front of an industrial parl. At a singular circle around an electrical box, a spot frequented by drunks, sits a teenaged girl. Her legs are curled up inside of her big black T-shirt. On the front of a shirt is the image of someone young who lost their life on the mean streets. As I cruise past her, she asks me if I have a cigarette which I am willing to part with.
Tuesday. I am on my way to the pool before work, season pass on my key ring. As I cruise down the street on my bike, a pair of tiny lemon yellow butterflies chase each other across a breeze. On a crosstown avenue, I have my eyes on the sunny street. I notice the unmistakable shadow of another butterfly overhead. I look up to see a Monarch. When I arrive at the pool, I stand in line before one of the staff kindly lets me know that...I don't have to stand in line, I simply scan my pass and go in. I should know this. I saw patrons doing this yesterday. I sometimes swim with my sister, who does not enjoy being encumbered by crowds. The public pool near where I now work is yet another one never short on children. I can't imagine a pool without children. I arrive there some time before 1:30 PM. To one side of the pool is a group of boys all with big water guns. One is yelling that another is a traitor to his team. He then yells, "All guns out of the pool!" A lifeguard asks them to "keep the water in the pool." A tall, blonde, beautiful teenaged girl in a bikini is telling her friend something about her "ex's new girlfriend." Before I left the house, I was watching the ladies on The View talking about being young and learning to navigate relationships. Here it is in action. After a short swim, I ride over to the doughnut place. Sitting at an outside table are a middle aged father with his two teenaged kids. All three came here on their bikes. The girl is sorting through some landscape stones. Dad is in a tie dyed T-shirt and is on hi phone. His salt and pepper hair is trimmed short. He looks like a mod professional. When I arrive, he keeps shooting glances my way. Perhaps he wants to know if I can dig him. Dad has a styled helmet. The kids have skate helmets (such as mine.) When he is done with his conversation, his son asks him who the guy was who he mentioned in his phone conversation. "He...is...my friend." Cool it dad. If I'm gonna dig you, don't be so self-conscious. Don't be the heavy. Then it's, "Let's go." All three are into their helmets, on their bikes, and following dad away. And I've got to get myself, back to the garden.
...someone had taken my sprinkler valve cover box and used it as a step to look into one of our windows... - Nextdoor Westwood, 6/7/2016
...about 20 juveniles were at the heart of the spike in crimes in January and these persons are now off the street. ...Officers know who the problem children are and closely track them, and ditto for problem known locations. ...DPD is also working with landlords and DHA to evict those criminals. ...a hit and run... Residents...followed the suspect. The suspect's car became disabled and the driver took off on foot (with one leg in a boot cast...) ...he had left his checkbook in the car... - (Police) Commander's Meeting Notes, 6/8/2016, Westwood Residents Association facebook page
...they are Americans and they are not Americans... They are not alienated from America, they are alienated within America; they are aware, more aware, of the presence of the Bomb than most white people are, and sense that annihilation haunts the entire human race; they discern the presence of violence in a society which has lost its community, its humanity... The violence will be spontaneous, without leadership, without control; the fuse will be the chains of depravity running from heart to heart... Everybody will be a guerrilla - men, women, teenagers, and some children... As the collective mind is superorganic, pitting itself against the mythological odds of an unsurmountable monster, this demon will rise, for only demons can destroy demons and thereby become human again. There may be some looting at first, some rapes, and other immoral deeds, but after the first few days their madness shall reach beyond good and evil, deep into the mysteries of being. Their madness will no longer be attached to any identifiable norm... For having been purged of faith in all human values...their madness will be the only god in whom they can put their fidelity without being...betrayed. ...the naked oppression of a minority race not only by the state but by the ordinary citizens of the master race...is the normal, natural way of life in this country. ...the black revolt is now underway... ...the historical and dialectical development of the United States, in particular, has made the blacks the chief social force for the revolt against American capitalism... - Jones and Neal
I reported...that my neighbor has someone living in their shed... ...the young male has been very violent, yelling obscenities slamming and breaking things...I called the cops. I was told by police that they can't...tell him to move out of the shed... - Nextdoor Westwood, 6/11/2016
Wednesday. I'm out at my corner, on the way to work. I watch another brand new Camero turn a corner. This one does not take off like a racecar. I notice that it has a Susan G. Komen breast cancer license plate. An hour and a half later, I'm at the pool. The head hat honcho greets me by name. This is but my third day here and he already knows my name. I wish that I was that good. This guy is everywhere, all the time, keeping an eye on everything. I spot him sitting on the pool deck. I reach for my camera. Don't move Hat Man. This pool is a place of summer romance. 'Tis a local kind of dynamic which gives meaning to life. I hear a young girl tell her grade school friend that a boy is here who she likes, but he goes to another school. I watch three fifteen-year-olds arrive; two boys and the cutest girl I think I've ever seen. She's even more cute than the long-haired blonde here yesterday, and again today, who mentioned her ex's new girlfriend. Where was I 35 years ago when my own peers' drama was happening? (And where were the girls who look this good?) After my swim, I am at Starbucks, attempting to decipher its messages. Any tasty treat from this case will get you GOLD STATUS. $8 power lunch. Some five hours later, I am cruising down the bike trail. In a tunnel under the lightrail, I roll up behind a guy with greasy grey hair. He is carrying a plastic grocery bag in each hand, full of what I assume are groceries. He is walking dead center down the middle of the trail. I follow him up a hill before I sneak past. A short distance beyond, I happen upon a woman with a couple of small dogs on leashes in one hand. I notice a cigarette in one corner of her mouth. It's almost burned down to the filter. Around the bend, a disheveled and forlorn-looking guy is shuffling along, carrying a full ruck sack in one hand. His expression is one of bewilderment.
Thursday. I'm working a morning shift at a store in an upscale neighborhood. A trim, middle-aged guy pulls up in an Audi. He comes in and, while he waits, keeps an eye on his car. He exits and opens his trunk. He gets out one plastic bottle and pours the contents into another plastic bottle. It appears to be some kind of sports milkshake, which he drinks. He then waits a minute before getting in and driving away. During the end of my ride home, the sun sets as lightning flashes overhead. Friday. I wake up at 2 AM, thanks to a dream. I don't get back to sleep. Ten hours later, I am sitting at a bus stop, just up the street from where I live. It's a hot early June day. Along comes a thin young guy. He tells me that, as of yesterday, he's just off the bus from Texas. He wants to know if this bus will take him to a particular avenue. He is headed south to Denver's most expensive metro area neighborhood, where his fiancée waits for him with a letter which will assist his welfare case. He wonders if the train will be quicker. I mention the station at the end of the train line, and he replies that this is exactly where he is going. Except, he refers to the station by a name I don't recognize. He tells me that, right after his arrival here in town, he found a job, a stranger who is putting him up, and a list of downtown shelters. I don't inquire, but I suspect that he is not staying with his fiancée as this may be a violation of his welfare. Or perhaps hers, though he claims that she lives in a neighborhood of homes the value of which surely rival the state's welfare budget. He mentions that he is headed to donate plasma, and tomorrow will reveal his next "priority." Two and a half hours later, after lunch, I am waiting for one last bus for a short ride to work. The volunteers are out, registering people to vote. One of them is standing in some shade. He is in a black two piece suit, complete with skinny black tie. He looks like he works for the CIA in the 1950s.
Saturday. Plenty of sleep. I feel as if I have rejoined the human race. Shortly after 6 AM, I am out of my door and down the street. By the time I get to the end of it, I have a dog chasing me. It's owner calls, "Stacy, come here." It continues to chase me. Who names their dog Stacy? Twenty-five years ago, I lived in a college town in Kansas with a punk band. One of the guitarists told me a story about a conversation with the other guitarist about their dog's name. He told him that the dog's name is Doug. He said, "Watch, here Doug!" When he called the dog, their cat came running into the room. Forever after, the cat's name was Doug. This morning, around the corner is an SUV making a multiple-point turn. Someone is picking someone else up for work. The vehicle straddles the street. The next turn is down the bicycle superhighway to the train station, which is the sidewalk on the north side of this avenue. I come to an intersection where, coming from an adjutant street are a Caucasian couple on ten-speeds. They have helmets and jackets. They have smiles. And according to city ordinance, they are riding on the street. Sunday. I go for a swim at a pool in my neighborhood. It full. At the break, when everyone gets out for fifteen minutes, I go over and look at a spot which has been plumbed to come up from holes in the concrete. Children are playing in it as we wait to get back in the pool. One small girl is sitting on top of one of the holes. I can't put into the words the joy in her laughter. When the whistle blows, and we all get back into the water, it seems even more crowded than the short few minutes before. Teens are playing catch with tiny footballs. One lands near me and I toss it back. I hear one teasing his friend about his lack of athleticism, calling him a grandpa in Spanish. It gets too full for me to swim. It's like a party with kids, muscled teenagers, and overweight parents with tattoos across their backs.
Monday. It's sometime after 4:30 AM. I am back at my old regular bus stop of yesteryear mornings. The dawn breaks through broken clouds. An urban (and therefore illegal) rooster crows from a backyard, across the street from my old deathburger. I sit on a bench directly across from a medical marijuana dispensary, long since shut down by 5-0. Even the owner's lawyer was prosecuted. I guess that's what happens hen you launder Columbian drug money. A Great Recession-to-groundfloor riches story gone bad. I see a light inside, someone moving around. Or is it but a trick of the traffic headlights, illuminating the ghosts of economic promise? 15 hours later, I am at the train station, on a bus back to my neighborhood. I am watching out of the window as lightning arcs across the sky. The following evening, I am riding home from work. Just beyond my place of employment, I pass through middle class residential streets. Young woman and kids are taking after dinner walks and bike rides past manicured lawns. There are long late spring shadows stretching over all the green. A slight breeze blows. It's mesmerizing. In another hour, I am back on my side of town. The Caucasians here are few and of a different stripe. A young white couple walk along the bike trail with their dog. The guy has sleeve tattoos. Not the head to toe blue ink of the felon gangster, but the colored and picturesque, almost pastoral ink of the groovy employed homeowner. Off the trail and on the street, I come upon another white young guy. He has an unlit cigarette in his mouth and a mean face as he cruises a BMX bike. When I arrive at the corner, across the street from where I live, I come up behind some Vietnamese family members. Two kids are on bikes, a young women is on a razor scooter, and a grandmother is on foot. It turns out that we all live in the same townhome complex.
The following morning, I am out on the bicycle superhighway. My front tire felt a bit low before I left, but I'm cruising along. I approach an intersection where I'm seeing Caucasian ten-speed riders on the street. This morning, stopped at the sign is a white woman in a black lycra top and bike shorts. At the next corner, on the other side of the street, is a middle-aged white guy on another ten-speed. I arrive at the train station, where a train driver is yelling at cyclists to dismount their bikes on the train platform. I take a train for a few stations down, and I get out and over to a supermarket. On the way inside, I pass a guy shuffling along is a haze. He's wearing white striped pants and a white shirt. He has a Rasta tam on his head and a cigarette between two fingers. When I come out, I see him mumbling questions I can't make out to a couple who are unlocking their bicycles. He asks me something I can't make out as I am unlocking mine. I tell him that he has food on his beard. It sounds as if he responds by telling he that he knows, as he wipes it off. After another question I can't decipher, I ask him if he's going to work. He has to ponder this. I grab lunch and go swimming. When I come out of the pool, my tire is flat as a pancake. I walk it to work, and after work I try to put air into it. It won't hold anything. This evening, for the first time ever, I will put my bike in a rack on the front of every municipal transit system bus. My bike is on such a rack of a bus back to my neighborhood, shortly after 8 PM. Down the route, we stop for a middle-aged couple, each with a bike. The bus bike racks hold only two bikes, and mine is one of them. I assume, as I've seen before, that the driver will allow one of this couple's bikes in through the back door. Both each have a cigarette in one corner of their mouth. The driver says that one of their bikes can not come in through the back door. The woman says, "Fuck."
Thursday. I'm on the bus this morning, taking my flat to be fixed. A woman in a wheelchair gets on with someone who is her caregiver. The caregiver appears as if he could be 300 lbs. He is wearing a tiny backpack, on the back of which is a McDonald's logo, with "I'm lovin' it." After I get my flat fixed, I head up the street to a main transit system station. On the way in, a young guy on a skateboard asks me if have a transfer (which is not yet expired and which I am not going to use anymore.) I point out that we are at the main transit system station, where he can purchase a multiple variety and numbers of fares. On my way out of here, someone asks me for a cigarette. The following morning, I decide to head to the Mexican restaurant across the street from where I live, to grab breakfast. It's a colorful and informal place. After I get my food, a middle-aged Caucasian woman comes in. She's dressed in the kind of gear which someone the age of her potential daughter may wear, a halter and Capri pants with a jewelled and styled silver crucifix on each back pocket. I watch her as she half-dances to the Mexican music before she impatiently wanders back and forth across the length of the counter. She asks to see a menu. She orders a soda before she sits down. Then she is back at the counter. She wants to know if she may borrow a phone, so that she may contact "a friend" who will pay for her order with his credit card number. "He's a producer with Charlie Sheen," she assures the waitress. She looks like a used up barfly. "Is their anyone here who knows how to take a credit card over the phone?" she asks in English of mostly non-bilingual staff. While she is on the phone with one of Mr. Sheen's people, she turns to ask anyone of us if we "know the name of the cross street?" I tell her but she does not appear to hear me. Before I leave, I watch her go and get a plastic bag, full of what appears to be clothes, and she heads to the ladies room. Winning! An hour and a half later, I'm at the bus stop. After the bus pulls up, a woman in her thirties disembarks through the back door, which is behind the line of people waiting to board through the front door. She walks with a cane. She turns to us and asks, "Does anyone have a ci-gar-ette? Ci-gar-ette? Ci-gar-ette?"
...a fourteen-minute film called "The Denver Olympic Story." ...was put together...around 1969. "The American West. Massive. Majestic. You can feel it all around you." Denver, the...golden-throated narrator...explains, is steeped in the traditions of the West...but facing forward, "changing and growing with the country. Denver will encourage an intimacy of man's work - of the mind and the body. A festival of what man can do!" Politically polarized and frustrated with the established order, the nation as a whole is in the midst of another popular revolt. Just as in the early 1970s, Colorado residents are complaining about rampant growth...paralyzed traffic and costly mega-projects, green-lighted without the benefit of a popular vote... - Westword, 6/16-22/2016
In the twentieth century, the United States has advanced rapidly from semi-urban, semi-rural society into an overwhelmingly urban society. The farms...employed nearly half the working population... Their land is now the city streets. The unemployed or underemployed...are a constant threat to the system. Not only must they be fed in order to cool off their chances of rebelling, but they occupy the choicest and most socially critical land at the heart of the nation's cities... ...the need for...a positive and redemptive force in a society degenerating into a form of totalitarianism... ...this "debate"...dependent upon, and at the discretion of, forces and institutions within the white society... "Powerlessness breeds a race of beggars. We are now faced with a situation where powerless conscience meets conscienceless power, threatening the very foundations of our nation. ...violence which middle class America inflicts upon...he inner city. ...Without the capacity to 'participate with power, i.e.', to have some organized political and economic strength... ...until both we and America accept the need...to have and to wield group power." ...not to develop...community as a...segment of the total society with its own cultural identity, life patterns and institutions, , but to abolish it - the final solution to the...problem. ...people...feel that they are victims of...white power without...their needs represented...frequently simple needs:...welfare inspectors to...stop kicking down your doors in the middle of the night, the cops from beating your children... - Jones and Neal
In the past 10 years...an egalitarian vibe has swept through running as people in cities...establish running groups, known popularly as run crews. They tend to explore urban areas on the run at night... "...[group running] fulfills a basic need to be a part of the community. Even though New York City has lots of people, it can actually be difficult to feel like you're part of something. ...there's that collective energy that's shared... There's an actual transfer of energy that happens..." "...an amazing person to introduce people to what we do as a running community in New York City,"... ...she often works with at-rick youth in her day job. "...she gives off this heavenly energy. ...found running the same way as many people do:...as a way out from a previously destructive - or at least unsatisfying - lifestyle." "...you can't go out t happy hour and then go run." ...the typical satisfying pleasure of altruism, and the contagiousness and zeal of gospel-sharing that self-improvement often inspires. In 2013 she started...a mini running hub full of artists, musicians, freelancers and other creative types whose schedules allow for morning runs followed by coffee... Then there's...a run club out of Samsung 837, the brand's new experimental digital playground...
"...we'd just see each other in running gear... At the Christmas party, everybody looked completely different in nice clothes. That's when you could really start to see people were interested in being part of a community." "...running is almost secondary to the community. Running is...the reason we're able to...hold each other accountable." - competitor, 6/2016
...cool, clear mornings, dramatic afternoon thunderstorms that quickly roll east to eave fresh, back-lit evenings... Who could ask for more? ...I KNOW you'll find fascinating...efforts...for Nepalese recovery; the new experience of "Pot Parings" with local cuisine... - Boulder magazine, Summer 2016
All around I felt the vibrant, pulsating city - traffic on the road, the railroad beside it, the hundreds of bicycles. Every truck seemed to have a canopy of jungle leaves and branches and many of the cyclists had leaves woven into their sun helmets - camouflage. It was the order of the day and of the night. - Behind the Lines - Hanoi, by H. E. Salisbury, 1967
On Sunday, I take a long bike excursion in 100 degree F heat, to a downtown festival and then to the swimming pool. On the way back down the street to where I live, I stop when I recognize an alley leading straight to my home. At the end of the alley, I see someone on a bike. They are in long pants and a winter coat, and it appears as if they are waving me down. I'm stopped at the alley entrance as they approach. When he gets to where I am, I realize that he is not some old man, as his tired movements suggested. He looks as though he's in his early twenties. He wants to know if I have a phone he can use. Tuesday. I get home around 9 PM. I watch a local news story about pandhandlers on the downtown pedestrian mall. A short time ago, another story mentioned violence by some of these panhandlers. Tonight is another story with video footage of panhandlers trying to fight...a guy in a buttoned down shirt and slacks. A witness reported hearing one of h the panhandlers refer to him as "internet yuppie scum." Yuppie. Haven't heard that in three decades. The panhandlers doing this are not the guys with the long grey hair, civil war beards, and clothes with a dingy grey pall. Who can barely stand upright let alone swing a fist. These particular panhandlers appear young, in fashionably dishevelled Goodwill clothes. And they appear to be too young to have even been born yet when yuppies walked these streets. And branding the internet as a kind of menace? Are these guys sure they don't work for some Christian anti-porn organization? They appear to be some kind of hobo rebel wannabes.
After a customary open to close shift on Saturday, the sister picks me up for a mad dash to scenic Boulder, where she will be attending two outdoor plays tonight and tomorrow during the annual Summer Shakespeare Festival, on the University of Colorado campus. Along the less than an hour drive, we grab some road food and eat it during the rest of the way. I am deposited in a motel room along with the luggage before she runs out to this evenings performance. Exhausted, I go to bed at 8:30 PM. I only remember not being able to fall asleep and I relinquish any hope of feeling anything other than even worse in the morning. Ten hours later, I am awake and somehow well rested. We hit the buffet breakfast with a crowd of white, middle-class vacationing families before a quick dip into the pool. The groundskeeper/mechanic apologizes for the hard water spots on the bottom of the pool. Against one wall are four giant green vases belching water. Afterword, we check out and head into the People's Republic of Boulder. It's a new dawn. It turns out to be, in spite of the blazing heat, some of the most fun I can remember on a weekend. I go with the sister who grabs an early lunch before leaving me to spend the next four and a half hours exploring the throngs and shops of this self-spiritualized pedestrian strip celebration by myself. I'm in and out of shop after shop. The heat radiates down. A trio of young Buddhist radical wannabes wander the mall, one with a burning pot of incense in his arms.
Wednesday. This feels as though it has been a long month. And yet it's blown past. It's late morning. I am on the bicycle superhighway to the nearest train station; a sidewalk along a busy avenue. As I approach an intersection where on a regular basis I see Caucasian riders on ten speeds. Today, as many as ten grey-haired riders, all clad in neon lycra, are lined up at the light before they sojourn across across the street. A short distance down the way, I spot another guy on a bike. This one has a long white beard, and he has what appears to be one bike draped over another, which he is walking across the avenue. An hour later, I am having lunch at Chilis. A women's match at Wimbledon is on a flat screen. Tsvvetlana Pironkova is serving against Belinda Bencic, not so much having her service broken as rather, as a result of faults, handing the game to Bencic. Bencic is already up by a set. The grass at both ends of this court is worn away. Pironkova continues to fault into the net as Bencic shoots scoring balls past her. Pironkova comes back with some serves that Bencic barley returns before taking this match in straight sets. Seven hours later, it's after work. I'm headed down a detour off the trail through an alley. Pushing a shopping cart from Target is a woman in a black tank top, black shorts, and running shoes. Cyclists are going past her.as she comes down the alley. As pas her, I see no groceries in the cart, onleya handful of clothes. As she continues behind me, I watch as she stops to adjust her shoe. She looses her grip on the handle, the cart heads toward the embankment. A minute later, she is back in the alley. Perhaps twenty minutes later, I'm on a trail back in my neighborhood. Across the street the trail continues next to a big drainage ditch. A kid on an adult tricycle appears to be waiting for something or someone ahead of him before he continues down the trail. When I get across the street, I see a woman on the trail taking off her shoes and socks. When I pass her, she asks me if I want a cigarette. When I decline, she asks, "No?"
Thursday. Sometime before noon I am on the same trail where the shoeless woman asked me, not if I had a cigarette for her, but if I wanted one. From the weeds of a field, I watch a hawk take off. I switch trails at the river and, a ways down, I am riding on the left side in the lane of oncoming traffic. The right side of this part of the trail is covered with stones which washed down and setteled here from Tuesday's downpour. Someone comes up behind me and clearly does not expect me to be there. "Bike," he says, instead of 'On your left." I am preventing anyone but the river from being on my left. As he passes, he says, "Je-sus Christ..." Around the bend, I am on a connecting trail, which takes me to a long crosstown residential street. At one corner, I happen upon an SUV with a flat tire. The father sits next to the flat. His young son stands beside him. On the road is an open athletic bag with a couple of soccer balls inside. I cruise through a neighborhood of families and old trees. A grandmother hold's her grandson's hand as they, on the lawn, race is older sister on her scooter, on the sidewalk. I grab a buffet lunch before work. On my final leg to work, I am making a last turn at an intersection with a church next to a small open plot of land. On the plot is an elderly couple . The wife holds a fishing pole as the husband stretches the line away over the plot and towards the street. I watch as a mailman comes walking along. The wife explains what they are doing to him. All I catch is that they are going fishing next week. The husband greets the mailman, "Hi John!" What a ride. What a month.
