July 2013

     It's the first day of July.  Another 5 am at the deathburger.  A couple of days ago, two teenaged couples were in here on a Saturday at the same time.  "Clean cut" kids, or at least ones who didn't look like they were part of some street hustle.  Not many like that pair of couples in here at this hour.  This morning, a couple of young, drunk guys wander in.  One decides to get the both of them something to eat.  He eventually communicates this to the other.  The other has on a local sports team jersey, sideways cap, and at age 19 or whatever, the first  Pancho Villia mustache I've seen in person.  He shuffles over to me and whispers that he is "trying to catch the bus."  (Long pause)  Can I help him out with some change?  They get their food to go, and they go and sit in the drug store parking lot across the street.  Further down the way to work, I'm at a train station.  Slowly hobbling along cones a young guy with hair from 1975.  He appears way too young for grey hair, but I see grey tips at his temples.  He has an expressionless face and moves along like some kind of television zombie.  He's in dress shoes, jeans, and a long-sleeved baseball shirt which reads "Property of HD Direct TV."  On a connecting bus home, a guy gets on with a transfer.  The driver appears suspicious.  The guy tells the driver that he left his wallet at home.  "I got up too early this morning.  It's all good."

     ...in reality, the economics of a country where whites are now becoming the minority means that big companies won't allow personality problems to hamper profits.  More common were the whisperers.  They were the ones who used breathy, hushed voices to point out that the folks who got promoted last week or who delivered the milk to the wrong house or brought yellow cupcakes to the second-grade holiday party was "colored" or "Mexican" or "oriental."   - Aurora Sentinel, 7/4-7/10, 2013
     ...I...a former Deputy Sheriff... heard outside my bedroom window someone shaking my padlocked wooden gate so hard they were trying to break the gate.  ...males in their mid to late teens.  ...a cop came...  About 6 more cops arrived.  ...a "Decoy" car and the shots someone had reported were to draw the cops to a different location.  ...the cops think there were a total of 4 guys trying to break into my house...to get to the only open window...which...could be easily seen...  They all looked like typical "gang bangers."  ...a man...with what appeared to be  Prison tattoos all over him including his shaved head.    - Nextdoor Westwood

     A maintainance guy pulls up to the bus stop across the street from where I live, 5 am.  He's cleaning it with a high-power hose.  I wondered, as I watched this scene, what would happen were there someone passed out in a bus shelter when a cleaning guy shows up.  I catch the bus up the street, where the cleaning guy has come to this stop.  He does some sweeping instead of using the hose.  Sitting in the shelter is a guy who appears to have been awoken.  He polishes off a can of Pabst.  I'm across the street from there when I hear yelling from the direction of the shelter.  July brings a new cast of characters to my usual bus stop and the nearby deathburger.  A white, bald guy in slacks and a polo shirt has a shopping bag.  A scared-looking white kid with an orange crew cut is coming up the sidewalk.  A couple with a single bike is walking bow-leggedly toward the deathburger.  Relatively speaking, there is some kind of 5 am rush on the deathburger, a bunch of guys perhaps on their way to a construction job site.  One of them, waiting for his order, is occasionally stepping to his right and making a tight circle, returning to where he started.  There's a regular comb over guy complaining about the price of his coffee and pie.  There's another couple, this one middle aged, who I assume didn't get up together to be here at this hour, but are capping off a late evening.  The guy is in a white T and jeans.  The lady is a bleached blond, with random tattoos in a pink cocktail dress.  Everyone seems to be coming to the counter, wanting something extra.  America is a nation of people who want something extra.  Outside, one of the construction guys is sitting on the ground, against the building.  I see a couple of bicycles parked up against two trees.  A woman in the parking lot is falling out of her sleeveless top, trying to shove an overstuffed shopping bag into the trunk of her car.  When I get to the station, the train is full of people.  The guy  in the seat next to me looks like he works in a front office somewhere.  He's reading a drag racing magazine.  He puts it away and pulls out a small piece of paper with a hand-drawn map.  Where the trains have advertisements on the inside, for universities and condominiums, now has one seeking applicants to Arby's.  Where I get off the train is a guy in a hard hat and a kelly green Henna tattoo on his left forearm.  He's sitting, reading the newspaper.

     ...the property...is under a nuisance investigation.  It was a narcotics case.  - Nextdoor Westwood

     July 4th, one of my neighbors had some friends over...and played loud music outside halfway through the night.  His sound system has serious bass speakers, and his music has lots of tubas.  The tiny parking lot is packed with trucks.  On the cab rear windshield of a Chevy is "The Heartbeat of America."  The evening of this 4th, the heartbeat of America is a tuba.

     Normally, we're lucky to find one film a year that pays attention to the intersection of race and sexuality...  ...LGBT culture buffs...exploring queer popular culture and coming into their own identities...  ...a Dynasty-themed drag brunch...  ...approach to gay teens in mainstream film...  They were disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holding friends of Dorothy...  - 5th Annual CinemaQ Film Festival

     Another Saturday at 5 am.  I am headed to the deathburger.  Across the street, next to a small car lot, is an ice cream shop with a couple of outdoor tables.  Seated at one is a couple of young women and a police officer.  They appear to me filling out written statements.  A big tow truck is leaving the ice cream shop parking lot hauling a small car.   It looks just like all the cars for sale in the lot.  It's a silent scene in the dark.  A police car pulls up to the dealership.  An officer with a flashlight is looking through the fence at the fronts of cars parked inches away.  (Suspected stolen car?)  When I come back from the deathburger, the entire scene is gone.
     It's ten after four on a Monday.  I'm out the door and across the street.  At a favorite panhandling spot at the gas station is a guy in a white T and white shorts, and a white cap.  He looks like everyone who I went to college with thirty years ago.  A middle-aged couple is coming down the sidewalk in the dark.  She is carrying a long twig.  They sit on a bench before he heads toward the gas station.  Today and the following one, I take the bus to the train, to a train station in an office park.  Both days, I ride the train with a middle-aged guy who gets off where I do.  He doesn't look at though he is homeless.  Both days, he does the same thing.  As we walk up a sidewalk behind a parking garage, he looks behind him before laying down on a strip of grass and going to sleep.
     Tuesday, at the bus stop across the street from where I live, is a different couple.  The woman appears to be a casualty of crack cocaine.  Her face appears as 90 or 100 years of age.  The guy is younger, and he walks to the gas station mumbling something.  When the bus gets here, she gets on with us.  He walks back, away from the gas station.  I hear him saying,"...immigration reform during the 17th century."  When I get up the street to my usual bus stop, stretched out on the bench is someone under a white sheet.  The following morning is a change in my schedule.  After an hour's walk to the train, I take it to a different station.  At the top of some stairs, a kid on a BMX bike is asking me how to get to a certain avenue.  There is a strange desperation in his voice as, rather than waiting until I get up to where he is, he calls to me from the top of a staircase.  His shirt hangs off his frame, and he stares at me as though he can not comprehend what I am saying.  Can I help him out with a ticket or some change for the bus he asks.  He rode here he tells me.  (From where?)
     After leaving the house earlier than usual for the first half of the week, leaving at my usual time makes me feel as though I am late.  At my usual bus stop, Richard Spotted Bird strolls by.  He asks no one for anything this morning.

     It's a new neighborhood for sure, and maybe these kids will appreciate it in a way that I can't.  ...things were changing so quickly that I hardly recognized the city my family raised me in.  ...a boisterous pack of recently-21-year-olds spilled out of the new bar...reveling in that brief time of life that mirrors these languorous, enchanting mid-summer evenings; a time when the world's...possibilities stretch in all directions...  I imagine them all in the midst of...pot upon pot of noodles...revolving casts of roommates, and dirty dished stacked in tiny kitchens that start to smell almost immediately in the hot, still air.  They will have loud, good music and Yellowtail-soaked philosophical arguments in apartments, rented rooms, and shared houses all over the city.  I remember these things like they were yesterday.  The tinge of wildfire smoke I can smell as I write this reminds me that the next few decades are also going to be an interesting and probably intense time for Denver and the rest of the state.  - Life on Captiol Hill, 7/2013

     It's 5 am.  Middle of the week.  Middle of the summer.  Chilly morning.  Diesel engine pickup truck after diesel truck powers up the boulevard.  On my way home yesterday, I rode the bus with with a family who gets on where my local supermarket is.  The place is sandwiched between a trailer park and some apartments, both of which appear to be residences of the down and out.  Standing out from the larger neighborhood of single family homes, it's odd that this collection of people should live here in this patch of municipal space.  When I spot this family I immediately recognize the father's gravel voice, which I can hear from the other end of the parking lot.  On this morning, at the bus stop across the street from where I live, another guy stretched out on the bench, covered with a sheet.  At one end of him is a big lotto ticket.  When I get to the stop for my connecting bus, I hear coughing behind me.  Behind the bench is a row of hedges.  Between these and the wall of a drug store is a space of stones.  I heard a homeless stir from there early one morning.  When I look there this morning, I don't see anyone behind the hedge.  There is only an empty beer can and an old pair of boots.
     It's another Saturday morning, a few minutes before 5 am.  I am at the bus stop across the street from where I live, looking at the same parking lot which I have seen at the same time (in the dark) for several years now.  This morning is the first time in all this time when there is someone at one end of the lot.  It appears to be w woman, who is bent over a parking space.  It looks as though she has perhaps a cleaning bucket or something like it.  She appears to be cleaning one small spot on the asphalt.  When I get to the deathburger, it's before 5 am.  The place is sometimes not open at 5, when they post their time to be open.  Today, not only are they open before 5.  Phil Collins is coming over the speakers.  There are a pair of teenaged girls sitting in their pajama bottoms reading text messages.  On the connecting bus, as many mornings, is a young woman.  She's a deathburger employee.  As usual, she has her young child in her arms.  They get off at a stop where a white dog with brown spots runs up to them.  The dog jumps on the mom.  The girl appears interested in the dog.  The mom has a strong, silent face.  From the station, I take a train to the next station, where a young couple is strolling together to a bench.  She is dressed in a groovy top.  She's statuesque.  He looks like a gangster wannabe.  He sits on the bench and lays his head in her arms.  She holds him as she surveys the scene.

Imagine 2020
The city of Denver is creating a new plan...called Imagine 2020.  ...designed to give Denver a renewed sense of direction in the promotion of the arts, culture and creativity.  - Curtis Park Times, July 2013

     Denver County Fair returns...  "We're bringing the dinosaurs this year," says fair director...  "Each year, we try to represent more and more of what makes Denver special...from dinosaurs to diesel trains..."  "The square dancers are going full time this year," says fair co-founder...  "They're a perfect fit for us, because they embody the traditions of the past, with the fun of the new.  By that I mean they have Lady Gaga square dancing."  Blue Ribbon competitions...include:...Best Colorado Fossil...  Other new innovations...include...Camel rides...  The Kids Pavilion will...play host to a special appearance by Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants on Sunday.  - Denver News 7/10 - 8/10, 2013

Title artwork: White Video Visitation Torture  By Paolo Cirio
The term "White Torture" originally comes from Iran, where...the prisoner is...in...a totally white environment - from the walls and lighting to an all-white uniform...the detainees lose their sense of personal identity.  Experiencing human interaction through media impoverishes...interpersonal communication, often producing a deep sense of solitude and emotional displacement.  The artwork questions the use of Video Visitation technology introduced in US prisons over the past several years.  ...communication...through a poor media...generates a distortion in the perception of emotion and sensibility.  ...hallucinations, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia and suicide...
     REACH is a free...arts studio space where artists in Denver's "not exactly" homeless and in-transition community can...express themselves creatively, be exposed...collaborate...learn...and challenge each other to take the next step - in their art and in their lives.  - flyers, Red Line Gallery

     I went to see several art exhibitions which are part of Denver's Biennial of the Americas celebration, a mouthful of a title.  Red Line Gallery has an exhibition of work made by homeless individuals at the gallery's workshop.  The most recent issue of a local GLBT biweekly newspaper has a fashion layout with this exhibition as its location.  Both a city council person and the mayor, each responsible for a single ban on overnight camping within the downtown city limits, appeared at the gallery to speak about how great the city is.  At a building downtown are a couple of the other art exhibitions, one on a floor above the other.  Out of a window here, I can see homeless sleeping under the shade of trees.  As I was coming inside, one of them awoke and reached toward my direction, saying something incoherent.  From the window, I can see him rolling back and forth on the grass.
     Both exhibitions in this building are part of the Biennial theme of 'celebrating the Americas', North, Central, and South.  I've been to shows before on a Sunday afternoon, on many a year with Sunday as my only day off.  The show with work of a featured artist, and the group show above it, have me wondering.  The first show is one with curious imagery, along with a variety of use of the medium.  The second show has a good piece or two.  It makes me wonder, though, am I experiencing art or am I witness to the presentation of a theme?  Outside in the park is a small festival-like gathering which has no attendees besides myself.  I don't see any banner announcing what it is, but I hear classic rock coming from a sound system on a stage.  There is a huge container, with a sign on it which says something about food donation.  There is a bar under one tent, and Grateful Dead stuffed animals under another.  At another end of the stage are tie-dyed T-shirts for sale.  On my way out, a middle aged guy is approaching the entrance gate on a bike.  His hands are in the air as he snaps his fingers.  He almost crashed into a recycle bin, before he says, "Whoa, recycle bin."  On one end of a huge dumpster outside the festival, someone is taking a leak.

     Beginning July 16, leaders in business, government, nongovernmental organizations, philanthropy, and the arts will convene for four nights of inspirational public symposia in a dynamic, cross-cultural experience...  ...urban space is inherently in flux.  ...brewing has become...a socio-economic organizer...  - Ideas Art & Culture brochure
     Routine has made the city dweller numb to the significance of each street, block, and corner.  Save for chance moments, our urban condition has become banal.  - Draft Urbanism
     In cultures around the planet, really, the village is disappearing.  - Energy Times, 7/8 2013
     The clean up is part of the Mayor's Denver Days celebration.  ...Mayor Michael Hancock...Jeanne Fautz...and his entourage ate at Towes Restaurant.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with the Mayor.  I took a strong stance of the increase of graffiti...especially along Federal Boulevard.  - Nextdoor Westwood

Notes from District 4 Commander's meeting July 24
     The manager and district manager of a drug store next to my usual bus stop asked for assistance in dealing with drug dealing, shoplifting, and aggressive panhandling affecting their business...
     ...since the change in police districts there seems to be less police coverage in Westwood.  ...injuries and military leaves have eaten into the ranks...  ..drag racing...has now taken over what was a cruising problem.  - Nextdoor Westwood

     Tuesday, I am at my usual bus stop.  I hear someone stirring on the stones on the ground behind the hedge.  I hear change rattling.  Thursday, I hear someone there zipping a bag.  Friday I am on a train home after a late shift at work.  It's 8 pm.  I got on with a gaggle of who appear to be students, at a station on a private university.  The all stick together, like some youth group on a mission trip.  One guy says that he has to piss, so I doubt that they are headed downtown to convert the natives.  When a nice view of the mountains comes into view, the guy who has to piss goes gaga.  These ain't locals.  At the station where I get off is a collection of mostly adults and seniors from the Far East.  I ask one of them, "Nippon?"  Blank stares.  Not from Japan.  "China?" I ask.  The oldest one replies, "Yes.  Vacation.  Colorado is very beautiful."  And then it's another Saturday.  5 am. I am on a bus to the train.  At one stop, a guy gets on with a teenager of Far Eastern heritage.  The kid appears normal, the guy as a friggin' goofball.  As they get on, the guy is telling the kid, "looser..."  They raced each other to the bus stop an hour before the sun comes up.  He tells the kid, "That's three bucks son."  I watch them in a mirror on the bus.  The guy is messing with the kid's hair.  When they get off, the guy is digging through trash cans for a cup.  What is the story with this pair?
     The following day, I am at my usual deathburger before grocery shopping.  In the lot of the deathburger is a smashed up Subaru hatchback.  A somewhat bewildered senior guy comes out of it and inside.  He orders and waits for his breakfast.  I can see. through the back window, a bird is inside hopping along the top of the back seat.
     Strange goddamned days  here at the end of July.  60 degree F drizzly mornings.  Low overcast, cold breezes.  Wonderful for what are usually the dog days of summer.  It's a couple of days before my birthday, and the last day of the month.  At my usual bus stop, I watch a derelict come down the sidewalk, loosing his balance as he walks.  Jacket, Red Sox jersey, shorts, black socks, shoes, wooden cane in one hand, cigarette between two fingers of the other, long grey 70s rock star-length hair.  He's thin.  He doesn't sound inebriated at all.  "Scuse me.  Would you have some change so I can make a phone call?"  At a payphone?  Sorry friend, you're in the wrong decade.

June 2013

     Glamour capital of the world, a technicolor metropolis jammed with...super-colossal grocery stores and drive-ins, zany architecture...a place where the way-out is normal...  The young come to do their thing, the old to retire, the people in the middle to find, hopefully, a way out of the rat race - or...more congenial surroundings, with a barbecue pit in the backyard, two or three cars in the garage...  - TWA Getaway, by Faye Hammel, 1971
     WELCOME TO HISTORIC downtown LITTLETON...where since 1867 the shop keepers have been pleasant, the food fantastic, the products unique, the entertainment enchanting, and the services personal.  ...one of the Denver area's 10 best places to live, shop, and work.  ...the best place to raise kids in Colorado.  -  Historic Downtown Littleton 2013 Spring/Summer Merchant Directory
     ...dads...to take on their share of responsibilities...don't want to look like a mom...  "All dads have a style.  We don't want to wear some pink quilted ladies diaper bag,"...
     ...this town, which won award after award for being among the happiest places in the country...one of America's Dream Towns (Outside Magazine)...  - Colorado Parent, 6/13
      ...the new morality and the evolution in codes of conduct...taken over by the immature who have built up no sustaining social disciplines...it means "doing one's own thing"...with little regard for the social consequences.  When such a rejection of codes of conduct is accomplished by a rejection of "the Establishment"...a cultural revolution is upon us.  - Women in Church and Society, by Georgia Harkness, 1972
     The practice of radiating 'True Light' from the hand is called Mahikari No Waza or purification and was practiced by Buddha and Jesus Christ according to ancient teachings.  -  natural awakenings, 6/13
     I GOT A NOTE THE OTHER DAY from a business owner downtown.  ...featured in our newspaper...she didn't want.  ...what do homeless people want with her product?  ...she was too busy to talk, to learn, and said she'd call back.  She hasn't.  So I sent a sweet note.  Can't win them all.  - Denver Voice, 6/13

     It's a Sunday.  I'm on my way crosstown.  At the bus stop across the street from where I live is a guy doing push-ups.  When I get there, I see that he is drinking something in a brown paper bag.  He says to me, "After a 12-hour shift, this beer sure tastes good."  He gets on with me and is telling someone that he works next door to a liquor store.  They come in where he works "all fucking night," but when he goes into the liquor store after work, they ask to see his ID.  There is another guy sitting up front.  He's complaining that the native Americans "we're doing just fine, smoking their weed," when the white man landed and made it illegal.  When a kid comes on and off just to grab a transfer, after he gets off, the guy says, "Queer."  From the bus, I jump on the train into downtown.  There are a group of adults listening to one guy, rapidly talking about the best place to purchase fresh meat.  When I glance at the guy talking, I notice that the tip of one of his fingers is missing.  Today, there is a comic book convention in the performing arts center while a festival is going on in the park.  From the train, I jump on a mall shuttle.  Amid the beautiful people is a homeless guy, in overalls and a sports jersey.  His cardboard sign is folded between his bib and shirt.  I have to walk a couple of blocks past the festival to catch another bus.  At the stop is a young woman walking back and forth between a door to some upstairs apartments and an apartment window, up above a store front.  She yells up to him at the window, "We fought last night.  I need my small bag of change.  Don't throw it down, open the door!"  I catch my bus to see a movie.  Afterwards, I make it back through the festival and convention-goers to a stop for my bus home.  It's at the edge of a community college campus with benches made of concrete and tile inlay.  On one of these is a middle-aged couple with their mouths open, as if they have just witnessed a murder, at a couple of drunks.  A young couple, perhaps from the comics con, are waiting in line with those of us headed back to my neighborhood of thieves and cutthroats.  The girl is dressed in a short dress and black fishnet hose.  When the bus comes and we get on, they pass up a seat with crumbs, which I sit in.
     It's later in the week.  I am at my usual bus stop.  It's perhaps a quarter past five am.  A derelict who does not appear familiar shuffles up next to me.  With a standard, "Hey, bro...", he tells me that he was hit by a bus, and he slowly pulls up his sleeve to show me a gigantic lump on his arm.  I ask him how this happened.  According to him, he was witness to a crowd of high school kids watching a fight.  He was "at the wrong place on the grass."  I suspect that he means between the sidewalk and the street.  And they bumped him, he was knocked into the street, and was hit by a bus from behind.  The hospital also told him, he claims, that they want to amputate his leg.  I ask why.  He says that it's because it has "screws and a plate" in it.  He appears as they all do, tired from having been awake for who knows how long.  He speaks and moves slowly.  He tells me that he is trying to get to a hospital.  I ask what a doctor told him.  He replies that he was told to come back for a check-up.  He just needs fifteen cents.  At the same time, he doesn't "even know how much the bus is" now.  Is it "twenty-five cents?"  It may have been before I moved here more than twenty years ago.  He hasn't asked me to call an ambulance, of which I see plenty on these boulevards from day to day.  I ask if he is going to any hospital in particular.  He mentions several relatives who have homes.  When the bus shows up, he steps in front of me.  I step around him and get on.  He follows me as the driver tells him, "No.  Off.  No."  He asks me, "So, you can't help me out?  Please?"  He really wants that fifteen cents.  I say, "Bye."  Eight months later, I will see this guy on a bench down the street in the afternoon, leaning over and either passed out or dead with his eyes open.  He will be taken away in an ambulance.
     The following morning, I am back in the deathburger behind a guy who appears dressed as a contract transit employee.  I watched as someone dropped him off.  He says to the woman behind the counter, "No cream I said."  He points to the coffee pot.  "How fresh is that coffee?"  The manager comes out to tel hi that they can brew a fresh pot if he so desires.  He takes his coffee and disappears.  I say to the woman in Spanish, "white people."  "White people," she answers.  When I get to the bus stop, a guy is there who must have been there the morning before.  He asks me what the derelict said to me.  I told him, and he said that he was going to pay the guy's bus fare.  I have an unexpected reaction to this, which is that it makes me feel a part of the gang waiting for the bus early in the morning.

"neighborhood chit chat"
     ...we get a lot of STRANGE people in our neighborhood passing through so Most of us around here just kind of stay to ourselves with all the weirdos around here!!  I hear dogs crying at night when I go to let my dogs out...  ...I used to walk my lab years ago but won't now too dangerous!!!  Too many strangers.  If I had the money, I would move out...
     We have had murders, robberies, break ins.  Drug dealing.  ...the cops never did anything about this neighborhood.  Here...people come SPEEDING...  ...kids...won't even play in the front yards.  TOO SCARED!  This neighborhood is changing for the worse...
     ...we walk our dog, but nobody is friendly.  The landlords in the neighborhood are scumbags.  ...across the street from me...  The tenant has been there for years, she sits outside and screams at people coming and going from her home.  A couple of years ago, her "guests" sat in their pickup truck and removed the steering wheel, started it up and backed it out - into our gate.  No ticket was issued b/c no steering wheel on vehicle.  They were drunk!  ...unless you want everyone to see you file a complaint, ain't nothing going to happen.  If we had the money, we'd up and move too!
     It was not even like this even 10 years ago!  Everyone is afraid...as we think they deal drugs...
     Let's figure a way to get together & talk about these problems.
     We've been here for 20+ years and it's going downhill rather fast.
     We must get this neighborhood back.  I'm so sick of what's going on around here.
     Called the police about the huge fireworks going off...  They...tried to talk me out of signing a complaint!  They...did nothing...because they could not get anybody to answer the door.
     I have tried to force the issue several situations to get the police to act.
     Seems to me this area is becoming a powderkeg the cops are afraid to come down here...  AND LORD knows, you wouldn't want to...be afraid if you walk out of the door someone will shoot you!!!  Or them!!!
     We stopped calling the police  b/c they won't do anything about...fireworks going off in our neighborhood...  I've been told on several occasions in the past our (local district's) cops are the worst for getting anything done.  - Nextdoor Westwood

     I'm downtown on my day off, to copy of my ID.  Later in the evening, I will close on a refinance of my home.  I stop by my bank to make a withdrawal and see if they can make me a copy.  Their copy machine is down.  I grab breakfast and head off to the downtown library's annual booksale.  I pick up 14 books.  As I am putting them into a big duffel bag, a homeless guy comes by with his shopping cart.  "Is this where the booksale is?"  "Yeah," I say.  Can I help him out with some change, he wants to know.  I tell him, well, I just bought these books.  He wants to know if I have anything left.  On the corner, someone offers me a couple of small bags of pretzels and a sample of hummus in an uncovered cup.  I put it in the bag with the books. Before I grab some lunch, I stop back by my bank, which still is not able to get its copier to work.  I pick a copy of the city's homeless newspaper from a vendor, who tells me that he is this month's featured vendor.  At lunch, I go to pull out a book.  I find that the hummus has spilled onto some of them.  I spend some time wiping globs of hummus off of Chinese travelogues from the 1980s.  From there, I spend some time walking for blocks, looking for a Kinko's.  I finally find a Post.Net.  I make it to a train, which takes me to a stop for a bus home.  Downtown is hosting both a comics convention and a baseball game.  At the bus stop, a guy asks me for spare change.  When the bus comes, it's almost full.  The driver tells waiting passengers not to be rude and to let a wheelchair get on first.  After the wheelchair made it on the bus, the driver told the rest of those waiting to board that there is no more room.  A woman with a stroller says, "Are you fucking serious?"  She says about her daughter, "She's just a baby baby. "  She asks about folding the stroller and holding her daughter on her lap.  Nope.  Someone else tells her, "It's like they want you to kiss their ass."  Someone else yells at the driver, "This is the second bus!"  Meaning that the last one for this same route to come by was also full.  I decide to walk to another train station, which will take me crosstown to my connecting bus.  It begins to rain...but turns out to be a false alarm.
     Space in the priority seating and securement areas is limited.  Disabled passengers, including individuals in wheelchairs may not have other options for seating.  - transit service pamphlet
     The following Sunday is the first day of the season during which I make it to the pool.  On the way, I walk past the home of a panhandler, just down the street from me.  Today, the front door of his house is either open, or it's missing.  What I can see of the inside is completely empty.  There is a grill and/or a hose gone from the back yard.  There is a car in the driveway.  I don't remember the last time I saw him in his usual spot at the corner of a business.  The next morning, at 5 am, I'm on my way across the street to catch a bus to work.  At the gas station are who I think are a couple of kids, but is actually a middle-aged couple with a little dog, at the Red Box.  When I get to the bus stop, I see them walking across the middle of the boulevard, the wife/boy packing a pack of smokes.  An oncoming car has to slow down for them.  A couple of mornings later, I watch a different couple cross the middle of the same boulevard.
     The middle of the week, I work a closing shift in the southern part of the city.  When I step off the bus, for the first time in my life I am standing in the midst of visible smoke.  On the grass is a charred piece of I don't know what.  There are four forest fires burning in the mountains and one fifty miles to the south.  By the evening the air had cleared.  The sun went down as patches of orange through an overcast sky.  It came up the following morning the same way.
     ...when embers began raining down and a state trooper pulled into his driveway, yelling they had 10 minutes to flee...  "When we moved out here, there were no houses, just prarie."  ...20 years ago.  "There must be thousands and thousands of houses now."  "You can either choose to neighbor or not, and if...not to, everyone leaves you alone.  You live in the country so you can do what you want."  Ariel images showed...blotches of grey ash where houses once stood.  "Every time the black smoke shoots up like that, it's got to be a house"...  Trailers had melted into streams of molten metal.  "...I knew my house was going to be gone"...  The fire had stopped at his fence.  - Denver Post, 6/13/13

     On Fathers' Day, I run into a middle-aged guy who is looking to borrow a phone.  He sticks his head into a deathburger to ask someone.  He tries the door of the business next door, but it's locked.  He is wearing a T-shirt which reads, "It's five o'clock somewhere.  Let's start drinking."  The next morning at 5 am, I am headed across the street to the bus stop.  I watch as a line of high school senior-aged kids file to the stop.  There are perhaps four males in T-shirts and caps, and a couple of girls dressed for a night on the town.  When the bus comes, they all file on, and one of the guys says hi to "all the drunk motherfuckers on the bus."  In the deathburger are three more kids younger than the others.

     A recent drug bust netted 45 weapons.  Residents...reported a white van acting as a mobile drug selling point.  ...a small girl was dragged, screaming, into a building but it took over an hour for police to respond.  - Nextdoor Westwood

     I'm back at the bus stop across the street at 5 am.  I watch a teenaged kid on a mountain bike.  With his left hand, he is steering a second bike he has with him.  He's just slowly cruising up the dark boulevard with it.  At the stop, a guy tells me that the kid asked him if he wanted to purchase a bike "cheap."

     ...I had to be a victim of att. auto theft Sunday night...neighbor says happened at three but didn't tell me until 4 pm next day.  They broke my whole ignition...cops say that summer has not even started and they have tons of these reports.
     This is the new normal.  My neighbors watched as i did when a black Humvee II with two male Hispanics started shooting out the passenger window in broad day light around 11 am last summer.  ...and...refused...to even...make a witness statement.
Bicycle Thefts
With the warmer weather...we have...bicycle thefts...around RTD bus stops and Light Rail Stations...  - Nextdoor Westword

     ...reluctant to accept as their equals these...who submitted to no one, who came from nowhere and spent half their time in hiding, who captured baggage trains and shared the spoils...  Civilians do not ordinarily desire to disrupt the pattern of day-to-day living with violence of military conflict.  Large cities provide suitable access for the activities of partisans engaged in actions...not usually military...  ...although he may at times assist...the community, cannot be considered as one of its self-sufficient or even contributing members.  The day may come when nations, with their cities leveled and communications systems destroyed, will be forced to rely upon extremely decentralized organization and highly flexible strategy in order to survive.  - Modern Guerilla Warfare, ed. by F. M. Osanka, 1962
     ...it's also a mad liberal's vision of an America beset by white wingnut terrorists, set in a sketch-comedy White House so broad that...starring as its president you might guess it to be Leslie Nielsen.  Set in a science-fiction America where nobody's ever seen Die Hard...  I won't spill their leaders' affiliation , but I will give this hint: It's with one of the industrial complexes.  The dozens of dead hardly bleed, the word "fuck" is only spat once during the greatest crisis America's ever faced, children endlessly weep with guns in their faces.  - Westword, 6/27 - 7/3

     It's 5 am at my usual bus stop.  A guy, who is taking large steps, comes up the street and tries the door of the deathburger, only to find it locked.  He strides to the newspaper box to check the coin return, strides to the trash can at the bus stop to peek inside.  He turns around and heads back to the deathburger.  When he sees that it is now open, he says something about "paying customers."  He has an empty cup with him.  He strides over to the fountain and fills it up with ice.  He says, "What, no water?" and strides out, saying, "Gonna break my jaw?"  He disappears into the dawn.
     Unlike the average citizen of a democratic country, the guerrilla does not feel ill at ease in the presence of conflict...  - Osanka

     A staff writer from the Denver Post is doing a story about the history of Westwood.  Who has lived here for over 30 years?
     A youth and adult group from Arlington, TX will be here in Westwood...working on outdoor projects through Extreme Community Makeover...   - Nextdoor Westwood
     Community members seeking to help the homeless will be able to make donations by swiping their debit or credit card or dropping spare change at any of the Better Way to Give smart meters located throughout the city.  ...replacing the existing red...with new, light blue smart meters.  "We selected the color blue because...  Blue symbolizes strength, new beginnings, optimism, all qualities the homeless must embrace on the journey to self-sufficiency," Mayor Hancock said.  ..designate all meter donations for the next year towards mental health services and substance abuse treatment.  - Denver News, 6/10-7/10/13

     It's Saturday.  Five am.  The streets are empty.  The bus up the street is full.  In one seat is a middle-aged guy in boots, denim pants and jacket, cowboy hat, and teardrop sunglasses.  He is surrounded by passengers who look nothing like him.  At my usual bus stop, local drunk Richard Spotted Bird shows up, looking for someone to  acknowledge his presence.  Alas to no avail.  He passes me and busts one of his trademark moves.  He quickly put his hand out as if to ask for money, before taking it back just as fast.  He's off around the corner.
     On the bus home from work, a guy and a kid are talking about just being released from county jail.  The guy tells the kid that he was arrested and put in the hospital.  He has a reaction to aspirin, "That's why I went off on that nurse."  They discuss three jails being closed down.  The guy is waiting for a shipment of sunglasses to come in.
     The following day, I am on my way to the swimming pool.  I pass by a home where a panhandler lived, at least for the six years during which I've lived in this neighborhood.  A couple of weeks ago, I passed by and saw the door standing wide open, the place empty, and a car in the drive.  Today, there is a completely different family living there, with a huge inflatable swimming pool in the back yard.
     The next day at work, I glance outside to see what may be a red-tailed hawk, turning circles in the air with another smaller bird.
     A new week begins, when I will catch a ride to work with a neighbor.  On my way to her place at the beginning of the week, I am passed in the street by a teenager on a tiny BMX bike.   I wonder what a teenaged kid is doing on his bike at 4 am?  A couple of days later, I'm in the gas station across the street before I head over to catch my ride.  The guy behind the counter pulls out a foot-long pipe, maybe PVC, with a key on a ring attached to one end.  is talking to another employee.  "Look what the boss gave me.  It's the key t the bathroom.  I could beat someone up with this, right?  I could mess their legs up.  I don't want to show no heart."  (?)  The other employee says, "Yeah, you don't want to leave no evidence."

     ...a hookah lounge...a dance venue...where smoke pipes...are available...  They have been evicted twice as I understand it.   a recent post from their Facebook page...  I'm not really sure what some of this means.   Our newest District...Lieutenant...has made it his goal to learn as much as possible about these establishments...
     .3 different people while coming to my house...to pull into the driveway...have been cut off by the people behind them.  The other car is generally swearing, honking, throwing the finger, etc.
     Several chases...netted several suspects, including one related to a homicide and the other a 3 or 4 times convicted felon.  - Nextdoor Westwood
     ...if we ever put a thumb on the scale, it should be...always looking for what, and who, is being left out of the mainstream consciousness.  ...a journalistic ethic...an activist ethic, an anti-oppression ethic, a community-building ethic and a spirit of arts and humanities...  - Out Front, 6/19/13 - 6/3/13
     "...drive...to Greeley and tour the mall.  Half the shops are shuttered, and just about the only people left are the little bangers with nowhere else to hang out and a handful of shoppers who don't feel like heading all the way to Loveland...  ...we were enamored with Park Meadows...  It was like taking a time machine back to when malls were relevant but without having to listen to Tiffany or Debbie Gibson..."  - Westword, 6/27 - 7/3

     It's my day off from work.  I'm on my way to do some grocery shopping.  Outside my door, I head across the street.  There, in his usual parking lot, is the panhandler who moved out of his house.  He has a 40 oz. bottle in a plastic grocery bag, out of which he is taking occasional swigs.  Last Mothers' Day is the first time in my six years of living in this neighborhood, and seeing him, in which I ever remember seeing him drunk.  On the bus home from shopping is a woman in her fifties, with a suitcase with wheels and a handle.  She is standing and talking to the driver, who appears to know her.  She is telling him that she can get free beer, that she gets people out of jail...  I notice that she is missing the tips of her first two fingers on her left hand.  A short time after getting home, I am back out of my door to go swimming.  I cross the street of the panhandler's previous home, to see him standing in front of his old digs, his thumb briefly out and his bagged bottle in the other hand.  When I come back a short time later, he is passed out on the sidewalk in the shade of a tree, across the street from where I live.  Some passersby stop to make sure he is still alive.
     After work on the last Saturday of the month, I am waiting to change buses in my neighborhood.  One of the people waiting with me is a woman in a white sequined tank top, work gloves, and random tattoos including one for Danzig.  In the bus shelter, she has a red toy wagon with a bag of big wires or equipment.  She bums a cigarette and tells someone that she can build her own motorcycle.  When the bus comes, she asks the driver how soon we can make it sixty blocks north.  I am waiting to watch her bring her wagon full of crap on the bus.  She must not have liked the driver's answer, because she declines to come along.  She wheels off into the afternoon.

     One car pulls up, remains idling.  Second car pulls up and either drops someone off or the driver gets out and gets in the first car.  First car drives off with the new passenger.  The first car is likely the dealer...  The police...recommend reporting...and....the dealers will find somewhere else to go.  ...no sense inviting trouble by walking outside...  - Nextdoor Westwood

May 2013

Commander's Meeting Notes
Snowy May 1, 2013

     ...the shooting...that resulted in the injury of an 8-year-old may involve an altercation between rival taggers...  ...a known...tagger...had shot at another tagger before.  A female passenger told responding officers...that she "has enemies" as well.  An attendee asked for...help with ongoing graffiti that she believes is retaliatory as her husband is a city employee.  ...the homicide at Denny's...there doesn't appear to be any relationship between the victim and the suspects.  An attendee asked about...a suspected gang house...  An attendee...reported...a complaint of a homeless woman camping out on the attendee's front porch...  - Nextdoor Westwood (neighborhood social network)

     Before I read this, I rolled past that Denny's with a bus load of passengers at 5:30 am.  All we saw were five police cars in the parking lot.
     It's the Friday before Cinco de Mayo.  I am on a bus to work a half day shift.  We are rolling past places such as a prep school where the students study Greek antiquities.  There are two women on the bus with a child in a stroller.  One is looking at her phone.  It sounds as though either she or they all are looking for another place to live.  Every minute, she asks the other woman where this or that street is, as if she has never heard of them.  The streets which she is rattling off are locations all over the greater metro area.  Some of the streets to which appear to mean nothing to her are a significant part of my past two decades here in the big city.  I am spending an hour before work in a neighborhood shopping center; having lunch at a place which makes handmade pizzas, with a grocery with products "direct from farm to market".  It's a feel good place full of dreams of sustainability.  Both the city mayor and the governor would love this place, with their own visions of a "world class city".  I can feel the distance here from my own neighborhood, a world away from the yogurt shop here with its kids in little league uniforms.  Every time that I am here, staring at the homes and lawns, it brings back memories of growing up in places just like this.  I try to imagine where the two women grew up; where the child will grow up...
     I think it's the next day.  I get off the bus home and decide to walk home.  I pass a medical marijuana dispensary.  A woman is outside washing out a plastic bin.  She has long blonde dreadlocks.
     On another day, I am waiting for a bus for the short ride home, down the street.  Down the sidewalk comes a guy in clothes which appear new.  His head looks like a red-brown tomato with hair on it.  He sits down after a bit of difficulty being able to tell where the bench is.  After a minute, as if from a TV script, he says in slurred speech, "Hey buddy, can you spare any change?"  When I say no, on cue, tomato-head is on his way.  On another day after this, I am on a train to work.  On an interior panel is an advertisement.  It reads, Change Happens Here.  In the foreground of a photo is a man with a grey beard.  Next to him are a line of young people.  Everyone is in caps and gowns.  It strikes me that this ad is implying that the man in the foreground either is or recently was homeless.  The "Here" in this ad is the Denver Rescue Mission.  It's asking me to donate my car.  To help the homeless get a degree?  I have no car to donate, but I do have an MFA.  And a couple of drycleaning certificates.  On the train, a beautiful young woman is looking at her reflection in the window, mirrored by the inside lights against the pre-dawn sky.  She checks her makeup, removes her beret and tosses her hair.  On a packed bus home, I sit next to a guy with a grey beard, and a tattoo on his neck as so many others I see.  I wonder if the tattoo is recent.
     The following day, I am on a bus home in a neighborhood across town from where I live.  The majority of passengers appear to be both African-American and high school students.  I hear a young woman behind me who is white. She asks one of the students if she can ask her some questions as a part of her own studies to become a teacher.  Sure.  What grade is she in?   Ninth.  What's her favorite subject?  Math.  "That's cool.  No one likes math."  Are there teachers who you love, or one who leave you just feeling dejected?  She's lost her.  "Do you have any teachers who don't suck?"  Before I head home, I grab some Chinese food from across the street.  A local regular drunk is panhandling by the front door.  I remember watching several people getting on a bus he was on, as they were telling him how sorry they were that his sister had passed away.  He's wearing a T-shirt which reads "dogs rule".  As he often does, he talks to a dog on the other side of a fence.  On a connecting bus is a young woman talking to a guy behind her, telling him stories about her life which sound as though they were former mole hills which she is speaking about with much ado.  It sounds as though she is trying to come off as street wise, making dramatic expressions with her face.  She sounds as though she is from the sticks.  If she hadn't gotten off at the next stop, this would have been a long ride.  Sitting across from them is a young guy with hair I can only describe as a combover with everything shaved off except the combover.  He is wearing a hoodie with a crude drawing on the back, of a boom box from decades ago.
     It's before 5 am on a Friday morning.  There are a couple of guys at the train station who appear to be on their way to work.  One guy is coughing, and the other is prattling about his life, which includes drunks asking him for money.  His voice is echoing around the train station on this quiet morning.  "I was there myself, I was drunk, I didn't want to face responsibility."  After they get on a train, a regular train came down the track, hauling bodies of airliners.  After work, I am back at the same train station.  There is a middle-aged guy sitting on a silver chopper bicycle.  Five Ethiopian teenaged girls come along and sit on a bench, next to the guy on his bike.  They are dressed in colorful robes and all speaking their native tongue.  On a bus with others listening to the scene, I hear someone remark, "You're in America; speak English."  The guy is going back and forth with his bike on the platform...
     The next morning is the day before Mother's Day.  Shortly after 5 am, I am coming back from the deathburger.  I glance at the entrance sign for a Diary Queen across the street.  It's in the shape of a big ice cream cone.  For a split second, it looks from the side as if it is a statue of the Virgin Mary.  Less than a half an hour ago, I walked out of my front door and immediately heard someone across a street arguing.  It turned out to be two drunks, each with an open beer can.  One was telling the other loudly to "mind your own business."  (Perhaps the other was telling him to quit drinking, and he didn't want advice from another drunk.  Where is Shakespeare when I need him?)  The two part company quickly, yet none too soon.  A couple of young women in party dresses at a gas station across the street are fueling their SUV.  They are doing so pensively.
     ...I saw my neighbor chasing two girls down the alley...having caught them peeing.  ...a young man...  We...found... peeing on the side of the house...  Then while we were talking to him, a man...we...found...peeing on the side of a garage, and he ran off as we approached.  ...a police car arrived, we pointed to...another man...peeing, and they...gave him a ticket for consumption of alcohol (he was carrying his beer can)...asserting his right to pee.  - Washington Park Profile, May 2013
     ...from Harvey Park  The house...gets tagged almost weekly...  I...have tried to catch the kids in the act, but have stopped smoking so I am not out front as often as I was.  - Nextdoor Westwood
     ...there are a ton of people who would do their own little dance if they never heard another note ring through their town or neighborhood.  ...in Boulder last month...a...quiet outdoor barbecue and live show...was shut down due to neighborhood complaints.   ...going through a small battle within its town board that could shut down music festivals  and many other gatherings for good in that burg.  From an economic perspective alone, it's not a very bright idea.  That wasted dude who pissed in a resident's garden?  He'll be under that guy's skin until the festival goes away.  The town conservatives who whiffed a bit of pot in the air?  They won't be happy until they "Save the Children" by shutting it down.  - The Marquee, 5/13

     On Mother's Day, I decide to spend a few minutes cleaning up a six-year-old pile of dirt, as well a throw away some junk from my basement.  As I am carrying the refuse out to the dumpster in my parking lot, I hear more arguing directly across the street. Two men are at the far corner of a building, in the alley.  One is changing his shirt as he sounds agitated about I know not what.  When I get back from celebrating Mother's Day, with my mom and sister in the car, the drunk panhandler who lives down the street appears to be holding himself upright by holding onto my fence with both hands.  He is there with three teenagers who live in my complex.  A police car comes and stops in the entrance to my place.  It appears as though the officer is asking him some questions.  The guy sits on the ground.  He looks worse than I have ever seen him, bloodshot and swollen eyes.  He lives with a woman who may be his mom.  This is how he spends Mother's Day?
     The next day, I get of a bus and am walking home.  I hear someone yelling.  I recognize a local drunk, who I see yelling at a woman walking ahead of him.  He is walking parallel to her through a field.  He has a fresh cut over his right eye, which is bleeding down the side of his face so much that it makes his right eye appear as if it is gone.  When he comes out from behind the side of a building, he is suddenly joined by a teenager.  They appear to know each other, and the teen is helping him walk.   A half hour later, I see the pair across the street, pretending to fight with each other.  The following week, I am at a bus stop, waiting to catch a bus home.  There is a middle-aged woman selling bus transfers.  She has several in her hand.   She makes a sale to a young man with tattoos and no shirt on.
     ...slum dwellers who wake up to neatness and order are much more likely to keep it that way.  - Steinem
     I am downtown after work, to grab a new bus pass.  I'm now on a train which is waiting to depart downtown.  I am looking out of the window at a homeless guy sitting on a concrete base.  He appears to be without belongings and not in a hurry to go anyplace.  He sits in a simple T-shirt, not watching anyone or anything.  In the time it takes me to eat half of a leftover hamburger, the guy is surrounded by three transit security personnel, and a supervisor.  In a sweater.  When the train gets going, a couple of young white men get on.  A guy wit tattoos and a tank top is talking to a shorter, quieter guy who appears more as a student.   The first guy says something to the other, about, "having a baby at 13 or 14.  Your life is effed-up.  I mean, that's the nicest thing to say about it."  He is looking at a newspaper or something, when he mentions that Alice Cooper and Marylin Manson are coming to town.  "A real freak show, huh?" he asks the other guy.  At the next stop, transit security gets on to check fares.  Both of these guys had no clue that they needed to pay fares before getting on.  This is their first time on the train.  The first guy thought that transit security were fare collectors.     The following morning, I am up with the dawn patrol at the deathburger.  At the counter is a middle-aged guy in an NFL cap, a hoodie with the name of a high school followed by "seniors" on the back, and untied sneakers.  On the bus, we roll past a guy curled up right in the middle of the sidewalk.  The driver puts the bus in park, steps out to ask the guy, "Sir, are you okay?" before coming back on to say, "He's alive, so we're all good."

THE BIG SHIFT: Low Inventory Levels, High Demand...
     The 2013 real estate market is in full swing, and it is clear we are continuing the steady recovery that began early last year.  Denver, The Mile High City continues to be recognized by the national media outlets as one of the premier cities for several different metrics (arts, cultural center, theater, transportation, employment, housing, 300+ days of sunshine,access to the resort markets, scenery).
There is No Place in America Quite Like The Mile City
     Denver appeals to everyone from the young in years t the young at heart.  Denver is truly a mile above and beyond mainstream American cities.
Live the perfect day, every day.
...dedicated to finding the most qualified tenants for property owners in order to maximize their income and help maintain and grow property values.
...a vibrant community that offers the benefits of city living and the pleasures of suburban and semi-rural life in beautiful and well-kept neighborhoods.
...electronic Lutron System throughout...elevator, six zoned heating and air conditioning...his and her offices, children's computer room, ice-melt system for the entire driveway, SSI German keyless access system...auto-wash bay in the garage...eleven bathrooms and 10-car subterranean vault garage.
.....among the ten wealthiest suburbs in the country.  Here, it has been said, "gravel roads are a matter of deliberate choice rather than a lack of funds."  ...raise a family, start a career, retire, run a business, enjoy lunch with friends.  - The Gallery - Issue 2 2013
     ...she was, I told her, the only person I'd ever met, including myself, who liked everything written about them.  There was a flicker of annoyance...  ...she was never bored...  She had worked her way through college, tried to be an actress...  The woman in history she most admires...is Mrs. Eisenhower.  "Because she meant so much to young people."  I was in college during the Eisenhower years, I told her, and I didn't think Mrs. Eisenhower had any special influence on youth.  ...she said..."I never had time to think about...who I wanted to be, or who I admired, or to have ideas.  ...I...talked with people and learned all their funny little customs.  Now, I have friends in all the countries of the world.  I haven't just sat back and thought of myself or my ideas or what I wanted to do.  Oh, no, I've stayed interested in people.  ...the minute I sit down, I write my thank-you notes.  I'm not like all you...all those people who had it easy." - in her phrase, "glamour boys," or "buddy-buddy boys" in (her husband's) - would somehow pull gracefully ahead of them in spite of all "their work."  - Steinem

     It's mid-week at the end of May.  I am out the door to work at 5 am.  Across the street, I see the panhandler who lives in a house a block away.  He's the one who was blind drunk next to my fence on Mother's Day.  This morning, he is across the street at a liquor store.  I watch him move something away from the front door before he tries to open it.  Is he surprised that the front door of a liquor store is locked at 5 am.?  He tried a second door, also locked.  He lights a cigarette and turns to face the street, standing in the parking lot.  On my way up the street, a guy goes by on a ten speed.  In the distance, I hear a "fuck you!" 

Denver Police District 4 Commander's Meeting Minutes - 5.29/13
     A police officer reported a tagger vandalizing property down the street from where I live.  ...the tagger...threw spraypaint cans at the officer, who chased the tagger for about 6 blocks - even with 20 lbs of equipment...with the assistance of a civilian...  ...the suspect confessed to some 46 tagging incidents and provided "very good information" on other members of the...tagging crew (about 20 members).  The officer received a hearty round of applause.  ...the problem hooka [sic] lounge...is closing (yea!), but looking to relocate somewhere else in District 4 (boo!)  ...Officers have not seen the woman reported to have been camping on various front porches...  ...the lockdown of a middle school was the result of a problem ex-student...posting threats on her facebook [sic] page.  ...the student had been...arrested.  An officer recovered a kilo...of crystal meth...  Officers investigated...defrauding a senior, uncovering tens of thousands of dollars... 
     ...cultural...transformations are typically preceded by...alienation...mental illness, violent crime, and...religious cultism...essential steps in the development of civilizations.  - The Turning Point, Fritjof Capra, 1982

"A luxury in disguise"
     It's the middle of the week.  I am preparing to cross the street at another 5 am.  With me, I've just noticed, is a woman who rode the bus the short distance up the street with me.   She is in slacks and a Hawaiian print blouse.  She asks me if I am going across the street.  This is the first time in my life that anyone has asked me this.  I say, "yeah."  We both cross, and I go to and from the deathburger.  At the stop across the street, I can see that she is back on the other side of the street, taking tenacious steps down the street.  She sits down at a bus stop over there, and the bus comes by and picks her up.  The following day, I am a bus home after a ten hour day at work, with a young couple talking to each other about spending time in jail.  She is doing most of the talking, about how good it feels to be out.  He says that this is the first Spring he has been out of jail, since he doesn't say when.  She says, "I'm wearing my own clothes, my own underwear.  It's a luxury in disguise."

April 2013

     It's 5:30 am at a train station not far south out of downtown.  I see a trio of transit security guys waiting at a stop for an incoming bus.  I don't recall ever seeing such folks waiting for a bus before, but they are all standing around shooting the breeze.  I am not looking their direction when the bus comes to the gate where they are.  The next thing I know, I hear them chase a guy who must have stepped off the bus, and began running away from them immediately.  He guy only got as far as the curb before they caught him.  Those security can haul ass.  I hear a passenger say, "I was right.  They was teaming up on somebody."  Someone in plain clothes is holding up what in the dark appears to be a black marker, as he brings it over to the security guys.  I hear the apprehended guy say, "I was just scared dude.  For real.  I just want to go home."  He is non-stop talking.  "Alls I seen was dudes in uniforms saying, 'Gimme that.  Come here.'"  Two police cars pull up before my bus shows up.
     Back at my usual stop on another morning at 5 am.  There's a guy asleep on the ground, under the bus shelter on a rainy morning.  This morning there is another guy again in dress pants and dress shoes.  This guy has two earrings in each ear.  He's pacing up and down as he waits for the bus.  An second guy is doing the same thing.  Neither are regulars.  A third guy I haven't seen before, a kid, gets off the bus when it comes.  He looks like a blonde high school student from the 1950s.  His expression reveals that he realizes this is not his neighborhood.  The following morning, same time, I am at the deathburger.  Mr.  U.S. Polo Association is in the house, with his contents on his usual table.  This morning, included in his cache, is a nail clippers and an empty bottle of red nail polish.  He seems to know a couple of other guys seated at another table.  All three must go to the same clothing store to get their denim jackets.  One of the other two guys appears to be copying notes from a pad into a spiral notebook.  He has a hardback book titled Mayflower, and what looks like his mail.

     The Yugoslav Foriegn Minister...in June 1954 Edward Kardelj...said..."to use honest people, even if they are religious, in the system of social reconstruction of the country."  He stated that religion should be taken out of politics and should be removed from the influence of the clergy...outside of...socialist activity.  - Hutten
     True fair trade also supports systematic change in government and international trade policies, to alleviate...capitalism bent on exploiting farmers and workers...  ...small producers...are the backbone of the global food supply, the guardians of biodiversity and key players in advancing democratic communities.  ...fiar trade must impact not only the individuals that produce raw materials, but also the communities where they are sourced.  ...the diversified revenue stream provided by ecologically-managed lumber...stabilized soils...anchoring culture and traditional knowledge for generations to come.  "The roots of development must start from the village and move upwards, rather than the trickle-down approach,"...  Our prepayments and fair contract pricing have enabled...growers to stay profitable every year, and in turn have allowed us to offer stable, affordable prices.  "Fair Trade" was originally conceived as a way to address disparities between conditions of small farmers in developing countries ("the Global South") and those of subsidized farms in industrialized countries (the "North")...  The goal was to help farmers...not be forced to give up their land and become farmworkers or plantations.  ...almost half of the global population is peasants...  The majority of people in the world still depend upon food produced by peasants.  ...the commercialization and monetization of all natural resources has been renamed "environmental services" within the new framework of "green capitalism."  - For a Better World, Issue 6, Spring 2013
     In October, 1955, a German reporter suggested to a Romanian government ministry chief that "the Orthodox Church helps to keep the faithful loyal to the party line.  The priests admonish the people to do the seeding and harvesting at the right times and t follow the planned economy.  ...the clergy are paid like officers of the state..."  The Bulgarian Orthodox Church had a monopoly for the manufacture of wax candles and made a tremendous profit.  ...the state was protecting this candle-making monopoly...  In a trial in 1959, the prosecutor demanded long prison terms, and even the death penalty, for employees of the church who had obtained candles illegally and had sold them privately.
     ...the leader of the Congressional churches, Vassil Ziapkoff in Bulgaria hinted: "Behind the American Protestants stands capitalism, which is the greatest enemy of humanity.  The leaders of the World Council of Churches are the agents of that capitalism."  Accused of high treason...foreign money manipulations...and relation to...representatives of  international reaction...  Ziapkoff was arrested.  It was a show trial...  The accused were anxious to outdo each other with confessions...  The verdict was life imprisonment...  That was in 1949.  Nine years later, he was released.  - Hutten
     "Not even death excused you from going to Mass."  ...people "understood that the Catholics would support Catholic business and the Protestants would likewise stick to their own...interaction with the opposing religion could be seen as a threat to local morale or even to the safety of local lives.  ...every child in Northern Ireland knew exactly where he (or she) could be safely..."  Readers continually meet with contrasts: exceedingly strict and orderly schools, religions, social mores, and customs yield to off-the-chart rates of alcohol abuse and drug addiction, domestic violence, school violence, and widespread fear.  - the Celtic Connection, April 2013
Some Roman Catholic higher-ups say you shouldn't receive communion
     ...a theologian and legal advisor to the Vatican, said that priests should withhold communion from pro-marriage equality parishioners, while the Denver Archbishop Allen Vigeron called it "a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury" for equality supporters to present themselves for sacraments.  ...it is rare for...Catholic figures to say those...who live by Catholic teachings but disagree on political issues as a matter of conscience...should repent before taking communion...  - Outfront Colorado, 04.17.13 - 05.01.13

     It's an early Spring Saturday at 5 am.  The guy with his homework is at the deathburger.  When I come out, I see a black figure lumbering through a parking lot across the street.  He keeps going back and forth between the two lots facing each other across the street, returning to the same spot on the ground to pick up who knows what.  At my usual bus stop, someone asks me for a smoke.  A minute later, he's waving work gloves in his hand.  "Need some nice work gloves man?" he has already asked someone on the bench.  What is this guy's story?  Traffic is stopped at a red light, and he is standing off of the curb looking for the bus.  When it comes, he shows the driver a couple of sheets of paper instead of a fare.  He says something about Medicaid and loosing something, and that he just got out of the hospital.  Sure.  He's like everyone else who comes out of a hospital.  He's out looking for a smoke with a hot pair of work gloves, trying to get on a bus with some kind of documents.  When we get to the train station, he's already found a cigarette.
     The beginning of the following week is 12 degrees F at 5 am.  At the deathburger is Mr. US Polo Association in a longsleeved shirt and sleeveless sweater vest.  He appears as some kind of wandering former high school teacher.  He shivers as he stands in line.  On the way home, I get on a bus at the train station.  The passengers are all in conversation with each other as if, together, their lives constitute a common socio-economic struggle.  As if as 'invisible hand' of 'the man' is bringin' 'em all down, and they just gotta 'hang tough.'  They have disembarked by the time a trio of young guys get on, who begin talking about the friends and family which they know who are currently incarcerated or recently released.  From jail or prison.  One of them asks one or both of the others about obtaining "a case" (of beer).  He then asks his pal, "You're 21, right?"   At a stop, the front door opens.  A drunk collapses through it and drops to the floor.  His head is propped against the front, and he lays on the floor as he blankly stares at the passengers.  As they begin to show concern about the bus being delayed, the driver stares at him and tells him to get off the bus.  He speaks with a pure kind of incoherence.  A girl mentions that the police had been called five minutes previously.  He continues to stare at the passengers, through them, and into an infinity of inebriation.  He is an eye, disconnected from consciousness, in a storm of activity.  Two of the relatives of convicts get up and carry the drunk, who has fallen asleep, off the bus before we are on our way.
     When I get home, I watch a bit of local news.  There was a fatal stabbing on one bus route which I regularly ride on Sundays, and a fight on another bus route which I sometimes ride to work.  The report mentions that the driver of the bus where the stabbing happened "never stopped the bus, nor ever made an 'incident report,'" and that violence aboard the local transit system is rare...

     ...the small squids and crustaceans known collectively as krill...  It would be hard to imagine any other food mass having such  enormous economic and ecological importance .  Its abundance probably exceeds that of any other living matter.  More than half the earth's manufacturing by plants occurs in the sea...  Nobody knows precisely where the line between damage and destruction in any species lies...that point where the natural rhythm of the species has been shaken and fecundity impaired...  - Mostert

     It's my day off, and I am at a train station on my way to a grocery store.  Seated on a bench next to where I am standing is a woman with a high pitched and gravelly voice.  She tells me, all of the sudden, "I turned 58 yesterday."  When I come back on the bus to the same station, I realize that she is seated behind me.  She has a single garment from the cleaners with her on a hangar.  At the station, the bus has a short layover, where she asks the driver how long we will be here.  She steps outside with her garment, where she takes a seat on a bench.  She has a cigarette, which she appears to have difficulty lifting up to her lips.  She asks a kid next to her if he has "any spare change?"  In the afternoon, I get on a bus to go up the street.  When I walk on, a kid jumps up to give me his street.  He is animatedly talking to another kid, who it appears he has just met.  When they say goodbye, the first kid tells the other his name, "but they call me 'Little Nubs"."  He exhorts that he needs a new cell phone case, that he must get back to his neighborhood, does anyone want a transfer he just found?  On the bus back, I run into a neighbor.  He asks a friend of his what his plans are for the rest of the day.  His friend replies, "I'm a white guy living on Federal (Boulevard), I gotta be careful."

     ...our lives often bring us from one city to the next, we tend to hop into city bars, clubs and coffee shops to hang out...  ...pollution, sprawl, spiking fuel prices, and war or recessions...  ...we would-like-to-but-don't-always-remember to put our computer screens on the "energy saver" setting...  - Out Front Colorado, 4/17/13
     I've said this a million times.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.  ...whether our legislative system works and represents people versus private interest...this is the current system...  It's a lot different educating the public when there's going to be a ballot initiative at some point...  A legislator recently...said that he wished for one year he would not have to hear from marijuana legislation advocates.  So I was like...we will not lobby...on marijuana for a full year if you can prove that marijuana is more harmful than alcohol.  ...it needed to be conveyed to the rest of the world in a manner that gave it a good face.  - Westword, April 18-24, 2013
     The City Beautiful movement was...based on the belief that a quality public and civic realm was key to the public health of the citizenry and the financial stability and well-being of the community.  ...still revealing the possibility of social beauty, utility and harmony.
     Mayor Hancock has a genuine commitment.  He urged me to be bold.  "Denver needs to lead because we need a lot of other cities to come with us.  The perfect can be the enemy of the good," said...chief of Denver's newly created Office of Sustainability.
     ...broader changes...dictate a more modern "packaging" of...ideologies.  ...Pastor Tom Draayer...merged with an independent Chinese church.  Many of the members, raised in atheist China, have no religious background.  - Washington Park Profile, 4/2013
     ...in 1946 the Communist leader, Georgi Dimitroff...stated that at the time when the nobility and other important people became traitors to the people "our Bulgarian national church in her monasteries supported the national self-consciousness...and preserved...identity as a nation."  In a special law the church was recognized as a legal person.  ...the government was forced to write a law in February 24, 1949, for the protection of the canonical purity of the Bulgarian Church.  ...defined in an article in the Chinese magazine Philosophical Research...  Only when followers of a religion obey the social and political system...can their faith be tolerated."  - Hutten

     It's two days after tax day, 5 am.  My usual bus stop is next to a stone wall along the sidewalk.  At two spots one the wall, someone sprayed silly string.  The silly string is not covering up any graffiti.  I've never seen silly string together with snow.  Silly String and snow, it should be a country song. On the Monday of the following week, my alarm goes off at 2 am.  I had called for a cab for a short ride to the light rail station the afternoon before.  I check the voicemail for messages.  A dispatcher called and left a message, apologizing for not finding a cab.  I call the dispatcher back to cancel the cab, when I reach someone who tells me that they found one.  It will be here soon.  When I step out into the parking lot, I see who I think is the driver next to his cab.  As I get up to the cab, I can see that, instead, it is a guy urinating in the lot.  I get inside, where the driver lets me know that the guy is his friend, who gets into the front seat before we depart.  Driver: "You couldn't find your dick with both hands."  Friend: "What?  You want to suck my dick?"
     Earlier this month, I found a brochure on the sidewalk in my neighborhood.  It's in Spanish.  "gran mision  Arquidiocesis Catolica Romana de Denver.  Ano de la Fe"  There is a great mission coming to the street, more specifically to the corner on which I live.  At least there are five appearances scheduled on Sundays, from 4 pm to 6 pm.  This church group comes into a big parking lot with a couple trucks of folding chairs, a stage, a gold cross on a pole, and a six-foot high Renaissance illustration of the face of the face of the one and only Jesus in red and white.  I asks around at the local businesses, no one knows anything about it.  After a sermon in Spanish from one of the priests, the audience gets up from their seats.  Several have acoustic guitars.  At least one of them is on stage with the priest, who is singing into a mic hooked up to a PA system, and everyone dances back and forth and then in a slow circle as they join the priest in singing "hal-le-lu-ja."  There is a conga drum one Sunday, on another there is a flute.  It's all very, very 1970s, and the vibe is seductively communal.  The event makes me wonder if my neighborhood, mi plaza, has been chosen as a mission field.  Only the missionaries are speaking Spanish, and am a native English speaker.  If only Ralph Reed could be here for this.  I watch the dancing and singing from one of two remaining upright bus benches, at a bus stop in front of these proceedings.  The seat of the other bench remains on the ground, where it has been, next to an old pay phone which is missing the entire phone, but still has the line hooked up to the pole.  The Latter Day Saints used to drop by this very stop, among others up and down this "plaza", on a regular basis.  Several would pull up in a vehicle, and one would get out with an assortment of Watchtower and Awake! magazines.  Powerful mojo, as the late Dr. Thompson used to write.
     ?Que es la inglesia?  ?Cual es tu expriencia de la inglesia?  ?Quieres ser ayudado por una comunidad cristiana?  - brochure for the Arquidiocesis Catolica Romana de Denver
     As early as March 1949..."An Open Letter to the Clergy of Peking"...accused the church of having used the methods of feudalist facism.  ...it was claimed that the church and Communism were following the same goals...  ...committees of so-called Parish Soviets were organized.  ...to lead the parishes democratically and to become cells to reform the church.  In the Chinese Communist press, the Pope was depicted as the slave of American imperialism.  The government even toyed with the idea of appointing a Chinese pope.  On January 18, 1952, Pius XII sent an apostolic letter to the Chinese Catholics.  The church was not interested in worldly power, but was working...to strengthen the basis of human society...  "When they kill us, they increase us.  The blood of Christians is the seed of the church."  - Hutten
     He must summon atrophied instincts, and shake off the sloth of all his preceding days...a man in whom the weariness and cynicism of a lifetime have suddenly become accumulative...   - Mostert

     I am headed for a bus home after work, just south of downtown, next to a cell phone shop.  I hear a guy speaking loudly from across a two-lane boulevard, to someone in a car parked in front of a gas station.  I can't make out what he is saying.  He sounds slow and determined, yet incoherent.  When I look, I see that he has a big sign for the cell phone shop next door.  He backs up from the brown sedan and spins his sign a few times before knocking on the open door of the gas station.  He wanders back to the cell phone shop.

     Until recently, our sea commerce...took its time because costs were relatively low, economic pressures less, and...crew not expensive...  ...the maritime nations...employed thousands of ships...  But inflation has put up the costs...and prosperity in the affluent societies has made it difficult...to get men to go to sea.  ...ship-owning families...North European dynasties...from their stolid family seats...  Many of their fortunes grew from...the decades following the Napoleonic wars and the collapse of the East India Company monopolies, when the industrial base of Britain and the rest of Europe was rapidly expanding...  ...you could usually tell nationality...by rake, colors, or just by...a strange assortment of...family traditions, and national tastes...  - Mostert

     Last year's 4/20 Smokeout, as our city's recent local downtown communal annual marijuana happening is referred to, I don't remember as huge.  Then again, last year I was downtown during the Sunday part of the weekend's festivities.  Stragglers wandered through downtown, vaguely extolling belief in the virtue of marijuana.  In Civic Center park, a gangsta crowd with a mean vibe listened to someone on a microphone who spoke as a cult leader, about how marijuana cures everything from cancer to anxiety.  Cures cancer.  Yes, sir, you have successfully gotten high.  I was downtown this year for Saturday's get together of what turned out to be ten thousand folks.  I went downtown after work, to get next month's bus pass.  I didn't inhale.  I never saw so many people on the pedestrian mall.  This mall, from which have been chased by new city ordinance the night's slumbering homeless, numbering a hundred times fewer that this crowd who appear all to be dressed in black.  It was as if I was trying to elbow my way through some kind of enormous wake.  Could this be what the governor, who is the former mayor, and current mayor mean when the extol their urban mantra of a "world class city"?  The line for the lightrail is significantly longer when ten thousand are waiting for it.  Thanks to my intimate knowledge of the transit system, I got on a bus one stop before the waiting thousands, across the street from a now closed billiard hall where I once saw someone who appeared to be a male farmer with makeup on his face.  At the next bus stop, a middle-aged woman with a tattoo on her neck came on, pleading with the driver to let her and her two kids on without fare "because their was a shooting" in the park.  When I got home, I saw some news footage.  At the sound of shots fired, I see a mass of people running in the direction of an expanding circle.  I remember listening to a TV interview with a veteran of the Korean War.  He described the Chinese troops crossing the border with the appearance of "wind through a field of wheat".  Ten thousand people; the kind of numbers which the gran mison can only dream about.  It's hard to comprehend why so many people would come out of the house for...marijuana.  Where do they hide their black germants during the rest of the summer's full calendar of endless outdoor festivals?
     The following Sunday's gathering was canceled.  A full week after the 'marijuana shooting' (if only I controlled the introduction of labels for mass usage), I am at a bus stop across the street from where I live at 5 am.  A young guy in an orange construction vest is drinking a Rock Star as he recounts his Smokeout adventures to another guy.
Personal Styles
     The following day, I am on my way to work later in the morning.  On the bus up the street is a guy who appears to be dressed for the Australian outback.  He is on his phone, telling someone that he "designs things".  (Did he design his outfit?)  In the usual deathburger, a regular drunk from section 8 housing is sporting a bright tie-dye T-shirt.  At the usual bus stop, a guy on a bike goes by.  On his pack is a marijuana leaf design.  A middle-aged guy on the bus with an unlit cigarette stub in his hand has on a square dancing T-shirt.  A young, skinny kid with waist-length hair gets on at a stop.  He's in a marijuana T-shirt.  On a connecting bus is a woman in a T-shirt which reads "tax refund joy".
     On this same bus, a woman, a Mongolian native, begins asking the driver for directions.  I help her out, and she tells me about her life.  She came here to Denver with her young son and husband.  Her husband passed away, and her son is now studying economics at a mid-western university.  I have no idea, she tells me, how difficult it is to come to another nation and learn a new language.

     What we felt about ships was...a curious combination of our then sense of distance, the time it took to cross the seas, of the balance of the world, the way it connected and held together...slow changing.  - Mostert