November 2016, "We're like horse crap. We're all over the place."

     The evening after Halloween, the side streets close to my neighborhood are quiet around 8:30 PM.  Another bike ride home from work.  This autumn has seen no precipitation and the trail has been clear of anything except fallen leaves.  Down the street, a police cruiser is parked with its lights on, at a corner dive bar called King's Court.  Overhead, the police helicopter turns its customary circles, it's light shining toward the scene.  The following evening, the helicopter must be tired of flying over my own neighborhood (and what police helicopter wouldn't get tired of my neighborhood), floating overhead before I am off the trail.  When I do approach the trailhead, I notice a couple of figures in the dark.  They are on the edge of the trail next to the river bank.  At first, I assume that they are fishing, though I see no fishing poles.  When I get up on the bridge, I'm down wind of who are actually three people who appear to be staring motionless at the river.  It's then I smell marijuana.  Thursday.  I'm up too early, and I don't have the energy to get out on the bike.  So I'm out the door to the bus.  At the newly renovated apartments across the street from where I live, two police cars are parked on the street and one is in the apartment parking lot.  The only thing missing is the police helicopter, perhaps on the roof.  The bus comes along and I get on.  The driver goes to the back, where he wakes a sleeping passenger who has missed his stop, apparently again.  After work, I am at a train station going on 8:30 PM.  A transit system security officer got a call from dispatch, who told him that a couple of people at the station were spotted on camera smoking marijuana.  he asks them if something on the ground belongs to them, and he checks their IDs before letting them proceed on their way.

     ...197 affordable new apartments in [my neighborhood]...  The $40 million project...replaces two mobile home parks that were at risk of condemnation.  All of the apartments will be available to households earning up to $33,660...  Del Corazon, "from the heart" in Spanish...will include vegetable gardens, a futsal soccer court...fitness center, computer center and car sharing services.  ...expected to open in Spring 2018.  Del Corazon is the latest development to be created under the Mayor's...challenge...  Announced in mid-2013...for the development, rehabilitation, or preservation of 3,000 affordable housing units over five years.  Recently, the city also created the city's first-ever dedicated...$15 million...source of annual funding to build and preserve...affordable housing.  - Denver Herald Dispatch, 10/27/2016

     ...Project Homeless Connect, a one-day event to...offer homeless people...medical checkups, clothing...a Homeless Court to help them clear up petty offenses...  ...a new city facility will soon open (north of where I live)  "Make sure they have a place to store their belongings."  (The council person for my district) hopes part of a new multi-million dollar affordable housing fund...will be used for homeless housing.  - the profile, 11/2016

     ...closed...after 40 years...  Famous for its Mexican food...burgers...and rabid Broncos fans, it's also the place where I first fell in love with my beautiful wife.  There's a lot of change occurring in Colorado right now, with neighborhood Italian and Mexican restaurants, friendly pet stores and entire blocks being bulldozed...  ...all the pot panhandlers hitting you up for a bud...on 16th Street.    - Elevation Outdoors, 11/2016

     "...the potential to be transformative, even in an area that's already vastly transformed."  I wanted a...market where people could do their gourmet shopping.  ...I wanted it to look like it had been there for a while.  In places like Highland, you have neighborhoods that were run down back in the '80s and became gentrified.  Here, we're creating a neighborhood...  ...I watched as...things changed.  After Work & Class came in, everything was different.  You can get tacos, ramen, sushi and pizza at Cart-Driver.  The RiNo district, and how it is developing, is representative of what should be happening if Denver is going to be up there as a major arts and foods city.  Younger people are a little more carefree, with more disposable income; they're enjoying the moment...dining out.  So the casual level is on the rise...going from fine dining to tacos and burritos. People have a short attention span.  People are more traveled.  They want things that are not here that are the norm elsewhere.  "A short attention span seems to bode well for a market concept."  - Westword, 11/3-9/2016

     As it has drawn more and more fundogs, the once sleepy town keeps evolving.  Over the Edge Sports...has been an institution here for over two decades...  It's hard not to end up headed for New-freaking-Jersey-style pizza at the Hot Tomato Café...  Buena Vista is hot.  ...things have been moving fast recently here with the...local paddler turned sustainable development sensei.  ...won a Wright Award...for...the free whitewater park, trails, homes, shops and eats by the river, as well as launch the new Vertex festival...which brought headliners like Trey Anastasio and Alabama Shakes...  ...a 43-year-old father of three from Chicago...tells me his wife issued him a hall pass to attend "Dad Camp."  "I've plateaued, man.  During the winter, I hang out at the terrain park with my daughters and see the things the kids can do these days.  I'm like 'I gotta try that!'"  ...landing new tricks...in-air bodywork and muscle memory training...   - Elevation Outdoors, 11/2016

     Friday.  I'm headed over a bridge late in the morning, on the way to work.  Walking toward me is someone I recognize from the bus in my neighborhood.  He's balding with white hair and white stubble on his weathered face.  I usually see him once in a blue moon.  He's usually in some kind of Jesus T-shirt, and he carries a dog-eared bible.  This morning, he's in an insulated jumpsuit and walking with a cane.  As I stop to write this, he has come back over to this side of the bridge.  he looks at me quizzically before looking around.  Further along the trek to work, down a connecting trail, I am traversing an underpass when an elderly man comes along.  He is carrying a snow shovel and another tool in one hand, and in his other he has a bicycle frame without any wheels.  At work, a customer comes in and spots my bike in back.  A fellow bike rider.  He inquires where and how far I ride, and mentions that he rides himself in favorable weather.  He will do 40 miles at one time.  I may do 50 in a round trip to and from work.  Asks where I live, and when I mention my street, he immediately knows the trail I take.  He strikes me as more of a loner, not one of our wealthy customers, not one of the lycra-clad cyclists who pass me in groups.  There do not appear to be many of us loners out there on the trail.  Some seven hours later, I am on the way home after work.  I am approaching my final turn off the trail before home.  Sitting there off to the side, under a streetlamp, is a woman next to a collapsible shopping cart.  She tells me, referring to my headlamp, "At least you have lights."  Yes, yes I do.

     'I know these African tribes,' wrote Trotha, the general entrusted with the task of putting down the Herero and the Nama: "They are all the same.  They respect nothing but force.  To exercise this force with brute terror and even with ferocity...was and is my policy.  I wipe out...rebellion tribes with streams of blood and streams of money.  Only by sowing in this way can anything be grown, anything that is stable.'  ...European production...led to a continual disintegration of traditional systems of community life, law and self-respect.  ...1954 an official inquiry into...Kenya African workers found...wages...'generally insufficient...even for their own needs...one half of the workers in private industry, and...one quarter of those on the public services, are in receipt of wages insufficient to provide for their...health, decency, and working efficiency,' a fairly bleak memorial to the benefits of sixty years of colonial rule.  ...colonial...trading and mining companies...played a key part in fixing the terms of trade: the prices...which African growers could realize and...were obliged to pay for European goods...  ...general...non-commercial investment remained very low...  - Davidson

     ...most...of Africa...is...still under colonial rule, and...that is not likely to be upset for many years to come.  Sensible Europeans know that the price of peaceable European survival on the continent is reform.  Are Africans capable of self-government?  Of course not in many areas.  ...an African in the Congo bush...is nowhere nearly as advanced as...a Negro in Harlem.  - Gunther

     Monday is the day before Election Day.  By the time I leave the house late in the morning, it's warm enough to ride in shorts.  I'm headed toward an underpass when I notice a couple with their dog walking in the distance.  When I pass them, I notice that the woman has no shoes on.   Around some more bends, I happen upon a small class of grade school children, all in their uniforms.  They are with their teacher walking along the trail.  This is the first class of school children I have ever run into on the trail.  I get to the shopping center where I work and Irun into a sandwich place for lunch.  There is an avuncular gentleman in line with his adult granddaughter.  He's in the standard tweed cap and flannel shirt, and a big Trump button.  When they get over to the soda dispenser, he tells her, "You know, I'm votin' for Trump for you guys."  She informs him that they will discuss this when they sit down.  I don't stay for their heart to heart.  The following day is Election Day.  It's late in the morning and I am back out on the trail through my neighborhood.  I spot who at first I think is a dad with a stroller.  As I approach him, I see it's actually a young guy in a shirt with a smiley face on the front, pushing a shopping cart loaded with crap.  I get out onto the next trail.  Just over the first bridge on the way to work, I see the same guy from yesterday who I recognize from the bus on my street.  This morning he carries a yellow plastic bag full of something in his hand.  Up ahead, another guy is sitting on a dirt path next to the trail, and appears to be tying or untying a cord.  He sits next to a bicycle and another shopping cart full of crap, and he's wearing a T-shirt with a grey skull on the front.  I pass as he sings along to his I pod. From there, I head out onto another trail.  I pass a couple of moms.  One has a stroller and the other two small dogs.  The one with the dogs asks the other, "Now who's the one who's crazy?"  The other replies, "I just think there's the ultimate conspiracy..."  Wednesday.  From the beginning of October 2015 until the end of last May, and beginning again last month, I have been taking the same route to and from work on these bike trails.  This month I have seen some firsts along this path.  Today are three more.  Along one trail, from across the river, a rotating tornado siren begins blasting for perhaps a minute.  A bit further along, I run into construction guys directing traffic for bicycles.  And down an adjoining bike trail, the concrete has just been shaved along the raised end of a slab, eliminating a bump I have been slowing down for since first running into it a year ago.  I arrive at my strip mall where I head for my favorite lunch place.  The waiter asks me if my phone is the latest 'something something.'  I reply that it is not.  He then says, "Oh, squirrel." (?)  Another eight hours later, I am out on the trail home, approaching the bridge I took toward the store where I worked this past summer.  Here in the dark, I immediately recognize what I thought, some weeks ago, was a tandem bicycle.  It has a distinctive pattern of lights on the frame.  Instead of a tandem bike, it is in fact a cargo bike. I let the rider turn in front of me onto this trail.  As soon as the bike rounds the bend up ahead I see it stopped to the side.  Further along is a guy on foot with a couple of dogs.  I slow down as not to startle the dogs.  He says, "Don't worry, they're friendly."

     Trump Protest Rally, 4:30 pm, (up the street from where I live).  Let's come together and channel our anger and fear into...peaceful action.  Now is not the time to be alone, now is not the time to be silent!  - Nextdoor Westwood, 11/9/2016

     ...I'd be leaving my very own doorstep on a long distance bicycle tour.  ...to...Burning Man.  Riding on the shoulder of I-80 was like navigating tire-popping landmines.  ...coming out of Carlin...  The next thing I remember...  We were splayed out on the side of the highway.  Dana lay buckled over in pain while I scampered around to get our bikes off the road.  ...'you broke your collarbone."  ...to the Battle Mountain Emergency Room.  ..they managed to X-ray the wrong side of her body...  ...the doctor barely spoke English...  - Elevation Outdoors, 11/2016

     Thursday.  I am on my way home through a neighborhood of opulence.  In the dark, a truck turns the corner and does not accelerate right away.  When the driver sees me, I scare the hell out of them. An hour later, I am on the last stretch of a long trail home in the dark.  Right next to the trail, someone has parked their bike where the bundle on the back sticks out in to the traffic. I barely see it in time to miss it.  The rider is listening to a radio.  Friday.  I get a message late yesterday that the sister can't workout on Sunday.  And I have to be to work early.   So, I am out the door at 6:04 AM and headed for a bus to the gym.  In the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant across the avenue, in the dark are three police cars which have a big pickup truck boxed in.  After my workout, the bus drops me off back on my boulevard.  I cross the street to the bus stop, where the shelter smells strongly of model glue.  The bus takes me home to get the bike, which I take to the train on the way to work.  Off the train, I am approaching a bridge over a creek.  At the close end is a middle-aged guy dismounted from his cruiser bike.  he is on his phone as his daughter waits for him on her own bike.  I wonder why she is not in school.  Eight and a half hours later, I am just across the street from work, headed back to the train station.  Right next to the curb, a homeowner is using a grinder on I can't see what in the dark, sending sparks into the air right next to me.  I return to the train, and to another station from where I proceed along a long sidewalk next to a busy avenue.  I refer to it as the bicycle superhighway, for its use by bicycles as the most direct way to and fro the train station.  Some distance along this sidewalk, I pass an auto accident which has just happen before I happen upon two drunk adult men with a child or two.  All are wearing sideways baseball caps.  I watch one of the adults put down a couple of aluminium cans.  The other tells myself and another cyclist behind me, "We have a situation here.  Sorry folks.  We saw an accident back there."  He mentions to the other drunk, "She's only seven."  The two of us must come off the sidewalk into the avenue to circumvent this sideshow.  A fire truck, police car, and ambulance rush past with sirens blaring.  A pair of drunks with a pair of children saw an accident back there.
     Saturday.  Closing in on 7 AM.  I'm back where I was yesterday morning, riding through the last neighborhood to work.  Yesterday and today, I am working at a store other than my own.  This neighborhood is right up against the interstate.  When developers advertise a dwelling next to the lightrail line, I don't believe that this is what they have in mind.  The bungalows are small, like the ones I go past in my own neighborhood.  Here, I pas one in serious need of paint.  These homes are decades old, and in between them are occasional brand new ones.  There's an American flag on a pole, secures against the house for the evening.  Another has sports wind spinners lining an overhang above the garage.  Yet another is displaying a 1st Infantry flag for the U.S. Army.  The Big Red One.  It's hung across a railing on the porch, giving the illusion that it's almost as large as the home.  Almost 12 hours later, I am a bit further past where the drunk guys and two kids were last night.  I'm headed down the alley behind the motor vehicle building and a Mexican shopping center.  Halfway to the exit are a small group of caballeros and women dressed in what otherwise appear to be white wedding dresses.  They are all dancing, facing the empty cinder block wall of the back of the center, next to a tractor trailer.  What they are doing there must be determined by someone tuned in to this gig far more than myself.  A short time later, I am at the Chinese place across my street.  There is a homeless individual inside, and one outside.  They each appear to be surrounded by some kind of zone of empty space.

     They hung out at the Lido, a bar for serious drinkers on Sherman Street, and at half a dozen other places in Denver's sketchy uptown and unregenerate downtown: : The Truckers Bar, the Green Spider, Café Les Tarots and, much later, a place called Muddy's.  Some got involved running art galleries or used bookshops or combinations of both.  ...always seemed to be a mere half-step ahead of the bill-collectors.  "Sometimes they paid the rent with food stamps.  They kept the place open to stay stoned and make art - and occasionally sell a book."  - Westword, 11/10-16/2016

     Anyone else hear something going off that sounds like a cannon?  I heard it around 3 am and several times today as well.  - Nextdoor Westwood, 11/13/2016

     A small pig is being picked up by the animal shelter (employees)...  If anyone has lost a pig come by...  - Nextdoor Westwood, 11/16/2016

     "This takes you to a place you've never been."  ...the longtime member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band...multi-instrumentalist Grammy winner.  Originating from Comcast's Westworks Studios In Centennial, "The Joey Canyon Show" is an intentional countrified throwback...in an era of...internet-stalled attention spans.  "I wanted to bring back the old variety-type television shows of yesteryear...  Now in its second season and in a newly-expanded hour format...available to 65 million homes on RFD-TV, a rural-country-formatted cable network...  "We're like horse crap.  We're all over the place."  The host is no fan of ...pop-dance music...on contemporary radio.  "It's not happening.  What they're doing now is just not country.  Country is a thing in the heart, traditional values.  It's patriotic.  It's love."  "I had a date with a set of twins the other night."  ...the Blstered Keesters house band, launch into the late Warren Zevon's..."Dirty Life and Times."  In this crowd, it won't take long to hear...quips about a  "controversial" collaboration with the Dixie Chicks...  Just randomly dropping the name Beyoncé is good for grins and giggles.  - Denver Herald Dispatch, 11/17 2016

     Hey, pre-gay, small-town Chris.  This is you in a decade or so.  You're...a full-blown homo now.  You look terrible in drag, and shaving is the worst.  ...you don't say "yes" anymore - it's now..."YAHHSS."  You're going to use gay apps...  Guys will randomly send their d+cks to you...order a blowjob if you want one.  ...they're your dad's age and want to cuddle...  - Out Front, 11/16/2016

Stolen Ford Explorer
Please call me if you see this vehicle, even if the plates don't match the above.  - Nextdoor Westwood, 11/19/2016

     Wednesday.  I must work open to close this day, as well as the day after Thanksgiving.  I am the nice one.  My boulevard is quiet this morning at 4:30 AM.  The bus takes me up the street, where I see that the former raided/shut down/Columbian drug lord money laundering medical marijuana place is done with its renovation.  It appears as if it may be a bank.  If only the Columbian drug lord waited to launder money through this new business.  On the floor of the shelter, at my bus stop old, is the guy who sleeps there each night.  When my connecting bus comes along, he is awake and watching it from under a blanket as he coughs.  On the bus I get to the train station, where I hop a train along with a transit system security officer to the next station down.  We disembark as the officer makes his way over to a guy asleep on a bench, with his feet on his skateboard.  The officer checks on him, and ten minutes later, he's awake and rolling along.

     For the majority...colonial education...had no meaning...  ...anti-colonial struggles...little of it owed anything to...school.  ...anti-colonial prophets...of African religion or separatist Christianity...Messianic teachings...  Although the period of full colonial installation had scarcely begun, and the last wars of pacification were still in progress, the year 1920 saw a meeting...and the formation of a National Congress of British West Africa.  'We desire, as the intelligentsia of our people, to promote unity among our people.'  During the weary years after 1920 more Africans escaped from stagnation at home...  Some went to western Europe where they could compare their own situation and struggles with those of other 'depressed classes.'  Others...to the United States, where they could learn from the teachings of Afro-American thinkers...  Still others reached the newly founded Soviet Union...  By the early 1930s...  What now mattered most was no longer what happened in the mission schools, but what happened in a host of little centres of political discussion...  In Egypt...Tunisia and Algeria, national movements became largely the work of middle-class intellectuals acting within the Islamic tradition...  ...challenging the right of the Caliphate...  ...Muslims...had seen the invading French army in the light of Christian power...  But they advanced to a more directly political ground in 1930...  ...breaking from Christian church community seen as dominated by Europeans for their own ends.  - Davidson

     Monsignor Claudio Celoi...informed me that Najib had requested that the pope mediate...between his regime and the Mujahidin.  Celoi was rightly skeptical that Muslims would accept the pope as a mediator.  - Tomsen

     There are four independent countries in Africa today, run by Africans...  A fifth...is...not run by Africans.  ...one of the richest colonies in the world, has an African prime minister and cabinet and a largely African legislature...  No fewer than six African colonies, as well as Somalia are..."trust" territories of the United Nations.  Each is administered by a European power...  ...the European rulers...have to the UN...particularly sensitive to their responsibilities.  ...Article 73 of the UN Charter...recognize that the interests of the native inhabitants are "paramount."  ...44 per cent of African Africa is free or almost free...  Five European powers rule the rest.  French policy is...to make Africans...Frenchmen.  ...the British...are giving Africans serious political responsibilities.  ...every British colony of consequence have by this time...Africans...taking part in their own government.  If Communism is ever let loose on the great mass of black illiterates...a development might arise like that in China.  - Gunther

     Thursday.  I have to fill in for another employee, who is under the weather.  It's open to close today.  Which is why I am out of the door at a quarter after 4 AM.  Across the street, at the gas station, a middle-aged guy with a backpack is digging in the dumpster.  I'm at the bus stop as the old guy with the cane comes along.  When the bus pulls up and the door opens, he is hesitant about crossing the distance between the curb and the doorway.  He goes to pull a handle to let down a seat which is in an upright position, and it falls down into place.  In a seat behind be is a young guy asleep, curled up in his Vans, his knit pants, and his hoodie.   get out at the corner.  In the quiet dark, a rooster crows somewhere.  An unmarked police car waits at the light.  Across the street, at my bus shelter of old, is the guy with a walker who lives there.  He's curled up in a corner, under his blanket.  Around the corner of a big drug store behind the bus stop comes a big black cat.  The bus comes along and whisks me to the train.  I take it to the next station, where I get out with a guy in red shoes, red sweat pants, and a red hoodie.  He asks me slowly if one of the "tracks" goes one particular direction.  I answer, "Yeah."  He asks if he may catch "an-y train...on...this...side?"  I answer, "Yeah."  He proceeds to watch a video on his phone.  He's easier to answer questions of than the guys here last month registering voters.
     The following morning, I am downtown on my way to the Denver Public Library Winter Used Booksale.  Earlier this week, I looked it up online to see which week it was and found out it was the end of this one.  Around 10 AM, I am coming from the bank and walking into the deathburger on the pedestrian mall.  This place is homeless central, a gathering place for those downtown without an abode.  As soon as I walk in, the first person I see is the current company mechanic of the business for which I am employed.  Work has just creeped into this narrative.  Sometime after the sale of my place of employment to new owners, the long time company mechanic was let go, along with most everyone else.  We then hired a guy who was living out of one of our stores.  Used to be our flagship store.  One of the new owners invited him to move in.  He was eventually dispatched for our current guy.  When I met him, he told me that he went to school to study HVAC, or air conditioning and heating.  Here he sits, and looks just like everyone else in here who has no place to go.  Like them, he's sitting at a small table not having ordered anything, talking to other homeless.  In his forties, his girlfriend appears to be one of our new employees, who is 26.  I assumed that she lived with him, but perhaps it's the other way around.  I watched him pick her up from work one evening last month, from the store where I was training her.  At the same time, a couple of drivers for the company made a delivery, and the four of them hung out outside for a little while, having a good time.  The drivers look like heavy rock fans.  The following week, I will come to find out that one of the deposit drop boxes for another store disappeared.  When questioned about it, our mechanic put the blame on one of the two other drivers, supposedly his friend, who was then fired.  The drop box was later found in a van they shared, as other money disappears at three stores, and the company realized that it was him instead.
     On Sunday, I went to see a very sad movie about a local Florida TV news anchor woman, who committed suicide on air in 1974.  ON the way there, the bike path comes out from under a bridge, where someone has placed a makeshift memorial to who I am sure is someone homeless.  It's next to the path along the river.  The movie is showing at a kind of art film center, and began at 4:30 PM when the place was relatively empty as it usually is for a Sunday matinee.  When I came out of this tragic film a couple of hours later, the lobby was filled with twenty- and thirty-somethings attending some kind of event or party.  It felt like a very odd scene.  On Monday, I worked our store up against the foothills, and an hour bike ride to or from the train.  On the way home after sundown, I find myself at the crest of a hill, overlooking every light of the west and south metro area.  It's quite a beautiful sight.  Another hour later and I am riding alongside a busy avenue in my neighborhood.  Two guys each have shopping carts full of crap.  Two families are also on the sidewalk, with rolling luggage.  A woman stands in the entrance to the parking lot of a strip mall, swaying back and forth, lighting a cigarette.

     "The Trinity Table...creates a celestial star gate...  The table rotates...four turns per minute.  Many attain Alpha, Theta and even a Delta state, within minutes..."  ...years of exploration into the "realms of the unexplained"...the esoteric intangible...  Variety of gifts and healing modalities...foot baths...sound healing...  We call in sacred space, pull angel cards...  ...a channelled vibrational language of light presence...  - natural awakenings, 11/2016

     ...of being in school in Fort Collins.  "I was part of Black Student Services on the CSU campus, because at the time, of the 25,000 students going there, only 400 of them were black.  There was a KKK group, like, ten miles from campus.  They would come to campus and hand out pamphlets and Bibles.  They tried to hand me one, and I was like, "You know I'm black, right?"  ...Kayla Marque's...debut, "Live & Die Like This...  The cover photo...captures a familiar scene.  A plastic chair rests on a cement porch strewn with discarded 40s, hollow Coors cardboard boxes and empty thirty-racks of PBR.  The front porch of a house like this used to be a familiar sight in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood, back when a group of friends could easily cover the rent in a dilapidated Victorian mansion and still get by.  "...it was a huge three-bedroom house for $1,200 a month...in 2011," Marque says, a fat sigh lamenting the rent prices of Denver's most recent past.  Dubbed the "House of 22 Moons" after an astrological reference shared by its inhabitants, the place became a 24/7 blowout.   - Westword, 11/24-30/2016

     As Denver gets busier and more crowded...we are even more sure that people are happy to be part of a community they can enjoy.
     That's the beauty of our urban village, a unique shopping area that grew out of the original enclave of independent entrepreneurs who started it all decades ago by building a retail neighborhood with superior products and outstanding service.  From clothing to edibles - today, it's better than ever.
     We all know about the chain stores-selling coffee by the paper cup.  Been there, done that.  (...writes...about arts, culture and the West.  A Denver native with a second career in design...)
     Think about which pieces [of clothing] can take you from the car to your next meeting, and finally, to cocktail hour...  ...your upcoming black tie event. 
     Find a professional to help with style advice.  The beard should enhance your features.  ...Famous Beard Oil Company Beard and Body wash.  - cherry creek now, holiday 2016  (I lived in Cherry Creek from 1991 to 2005.  I never did buttonhole a professional...)

     I love...ornament exchanges...  ...letters summarizing the year's highlights.  It's all so happy.  And beautiful.  "Nobody...wishes she were in Africa building schools rather than driving a...minivan filled with candy wrappers and dog hair."  ...the holidays are...  A time to appreciate the good and the beautiful.  - Colorado Parent, 12/2016

     Tuesday.  The cosmos is actually controlled by small business owners.  I bet you didn't even know this, did you?  For the decade between 2005 and 2015, I worked a 40-hour week of five days.  I had every Sunday off, and I had another day off during the week which usually was Friday but not always.  Since the beginning of last year, I have been working six days a week with most of my mornings off.  And I've been enjoying not having to get up at 3:30 AM every day for the past ten years.  But I digress.  This is to say that today, due to a fluke in the cosmic schedule, I have a weekday off which is not a holiday for the first time in at least a year.  And what do I do with this day off?  Get out on the bike, of course.  The back tire needs air.  The morning sees the second snow of the season.  I leave around 10:30 AM in a light drizzle.  Just past the interstate, I turn up a street past a new condominium next to the train.  There in the parking lot is a woman who appears soaked and miserably cold.  Her head is without any hat and her hair is wet.  She holds her coat closed with a fist as she grimaces.  She waits for traffic to clear, to push a big shopping cart full of stuff across the street.  I head to the bike shop and the tire gets air, and several blocks later I happen upon a diner where I have never been.  A sign in the window announces that "Dine and dashers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."  At the entrance, a homeless guy opens the door for me.
     The following morning, I am out on the trail through my side of town sometime around 5 AM.  From the weeds to the side of the trail, a coyote jumps out in the frigid dark and runs across the trail ahead of me.  The next day, Thanksgiving Day, is cold and sunny.  It's a beautiful day.  I'm headed across the street for an authentic Mexican breakfast.  On the corner is a pinion nut stand.  As it's not open as yet, it's missing it's canvas roof, the roaster, and any nuts.  Under the bare frame are a couple of cozy chairs.  I can see who I think is a woman in one of the chairs, and I hear someone yelling at who I think is her.  When I get close, I can see that it's a homeless young guy who is randomly yelling at the traffic.  He's in a hoodie with "Just Do It" on the front, in rainbow letters.  Saturday.  I'm on a train to work around 6:30 AM.  I got on with a couple of middle-aged down and out-looking guys.  They take a seat behind another one.  The train takes off, and the one already on the train begins yelling that the train is going too fast.  He gets out at the next stop. After work, I am on a train downtown to purchase a Christmas present.  It's around 5:30 PM.  I am sitting across from a middle-aged woman who is dressed like everyone else on this train.  But there are deep lines in her face.  And I get the sense that she is most comfortable not having to respond to the people or the environment.  When the train gets downtown, she either jumps or stumbles off the steps.  As I head down the platform to the pedestrian mall shuttle, I approach a guy with a grey beard in a leather bomber jacket and jeans.  Once again, he looks like everyone else.  But he is staring at the crowd apprehensively.  And he standing in the middle of everything, as if he has absolutely nowhere to go.  As I approach, he asks me if I "have a ticket that" I am "not going to use any more..."  The following morning, I have breakfast with my sister, who tells me that there are 10,000 homeless in the city.

     The victim of a two-car crash [a few yards from my home] died after sustaining a gunshot wound...  ...deceased at approximately 4 p.m..  - thedenverchannel.com, 11/26/2016

     A couple of days later, a local news website reports that the "perp" was in his car behind the victim at a red light.  He honked at the victim after seven seconds.  The guy in front flipped him off.  So he drove around him and shot him.  He claims that his intent was not to hit him, but to "prove his point."  He has tattoos on parts of his face.  His eyebrows are shaved and tattooed.  He has the standard tear drop tattoo at a corner of his eye, as well as a rosary tattoo.  The criminal fascination with both Christ and Mary has been one particular oddity in the mystery to me in this life on my neighborhood streets.  I suppose that it's official.  You can be shot and killed for stopping too long at an intersection on my street.  On Tuesday, I am down the trail to work on one of the chilly but otherwise beautiful waning days of November.  On this leg of the trail, spread into the distance are fields, gravel yards, and junk yards.  Around noon, I am coming across a bridge over a tributary of the Platte river.  Standing on the bridge and looking out upon the river are a couple of guys.  One is in a camouflaged coat, and the other is wearing a pale green blanket over his clothes, which includes a pair of bright red sweat pants.  The pair appear as if they walked out of an episode of The Waltons.  Some eight hours later, on the way home, further up from here is someone inside a sleeping bag.  They are under a bridge, on the side of the trail, with their roll away luggage at one end of their bedroll.
     The following morning, I am out on the trail early.  If I can make it to work in time, I can pick up my paycheck and cash it, and then make it back to work on time.  I pass under the bridge where someone was inside their sleeping bag for the night.  They're gone this morning.  By 10:30 PM, I am down a connecting trail through a series of parks.  I come up behind someone walking their bike.  It's a guy in skinny black jeans with a bandana in the back left pocket, a designer motorcycle jacket, horn rimmed jacket, and has his hair greased back.  As I pass him, he pulls out his phone.  When I get to work, my paycheck isn't there.  I decide to have lunch at my favorite place in this shopping center.  One woman tells another, both at another table, that she is part of a $10 million deal at work, and something about a new CFO.  "My husband does work down here" in the center, she mentions to her lunch companion, "and he recommended this place."  That's a positive note upon which to end this month, and a sign of the Age of Moloch...

October 2016: Puppet Master, street racers, and the Soul Patrol

     Moloch, with your fare waiver assumption and your helmet a drunk wants you to wear...  (With apologies to Allen Ginsberg.)

     October 1st.  Saturday.  I am off to work at a store at the western edge of what's left of the metro area, right up against the foothills.  I get to the train station right about 7 AM.  As I look toward the Rockies, I see the sunrise move its light from peak to base.  Later on, I leave work at 3PM.  I'm headed home as I come upon a lonely free standing cardboard garage sale sign at a highway intersection.  I stop to take a photo, and then I turn around to see a woman at least a decade younger than myself.  She says, "Excuse us."  (Us?)  I hear her pick up the sign and I realize that it's hers.  I still don't know who "us" refers to until I realize that she and her sign got into one of the cars stopped at the intersection.  At the next block, I look south along another highway.  A band of light rain falls between here and the Rockies.  A lightning bolt strikes the ground.  At the train station are a couple of young women who are dressed up for an evening.  One has long boots and a short dress.  The other has a long dress with a neckline so open that I can see most of her boobs.  When I get back on my street, I ride a short way with a girl on her own bike.  I watch as her completely rusted chain comes off.  I wait to see if she wants my help.  She;s got it.
     The following morning, I am out on my corner shortly before 8 AM, waiting for a bus to go grocery shopping.  "Catty-corner" to this on is the gas station, where I watch a guy with long grey hair, along with another guy who has white hair and a white beard, drop by on BMX bikes.  The latter is taking it easy as he rides in what appear to be fur-lined fair-skinned boots of some kin.  The other one is trying to do tricks, and appears to be wearing a leather jacket.  At the supermarket are a handful of assorted Hollywood-cast gangsters and motorcycle club members.  After shopping, I go to a movie.  In line at a concessions stand, I'm behind a guy who strikes me as a nerd.  His shoes match his shirt and he has on a big lopsided backpack.  He asks the employee, "What's the name of that other thing?  ...kettle corn."  He gets a "kettle corn" and an ice water from the soda machine.  I'm behind him at the cashier, and there's a line behind me, when she tells him that he will have to pay for the water because they charge for the cup.  Just like at every single fast food place.  He's dumbfounded.  He can believe neither that he is "being charged for water," nor that the prices are as high as they are.  Perhaps it's kettle water.  He makes me wonder when the last time was when he was in a theatre.  He wants to speak to the manager, who is right there, and word for word repeats what the cashier said.  He tells her that their "prices are outrageous."  He sounds almost as if he should...be in a movie.  He will pay the prices, and having made this...concession, eventually gathers his concessions.  I go to see Deepwater Horizon.  At the end, when I come out of the theatre, he has come out of the same movie.  I hear him say, "That was intense.  I mean, I knew what was going to happen.  But still..."  Have some water sir.

      ...the disparity of economic opportunity...  ...property threatened by...outside interests - interests that do not...call the neighborhood home.  "[The city] has been systematically going down...buying out and replacing...structures with something else.  I know that people would like to revitalize...and basically wipe out all the...businesses that are currently there.  ...that's...happening right now.  ...old iconic...businesses are being bought up, torn down, and replaced with condos."
     ...a rendering of his new office building...  Almost immediately...appeared on social networks Nextdoor...where it garnered a startling 88 comments over four weeks.  This is on a network that deals mostly with lost dogs and used furniture...  - the profile, 10/2016

     Denver City Council president Albus Brooks's district includes the...neighborhood.  "I'm disappointed in the neighborhood that they went after the developer, only because we had an understanding that, let's attack that issue that's in the zoning code instead..."  ...Brooks refers to Denver as a "tweener" city, meaning...it's not...wholly conducive (yet) to only using alternative modes of transportation.  The board of Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation...more than 100 neighborhood organizations, voted in favor of the...Neighborhood Association's appeal.  - Westword, 10/6-12/2016

     ...the city and developers revamp buildings, parks, and streets on all sides... " It's important to keep people in this neighborhood longer.  And we want to help give this neighborhood the attention it deserves."  - Westword, 10/6-12/2016

     ...once the Americas were discovered.  ...an underlying dependency...the colonial period would complete.  Only hard work could open mines and make plantations flourish.  ...recourse was had to Africa.  ...of the people who lived south of the Sahara.  Up to the sixteenth century their civilizations had evolved out of their own unfolding dynamic...to the influence of the outside world...the reactions had been very much their own.  This...came to an end...  ...Western Sudan...in the 1590s...  For the Guinea Coast...a little later with...the Atlantic trade.  For the East Coast...1498 with...Vasco de Gama and the years of ruin...  In North Africa...the Ottoman conquests of the early and middle sixteenth century...while...1652...the Dutch made..the Cape of Good Hope.  ...a long series of attempts to rebuild once more a grand Muslim polity...from the Atlantic to the Nile, within...Islamic law and order...of the old Western Caliphate.  For a hundred and fifty years this vision will glow...  The older attitudes...for whom Islam offered an ideological basis...for central government in multi-ethnic states...  Relatively new states were built on a hierarchy of privilege...  ...large regions of Africa were now pulled ever more closely...into the affairs and ambitions of a rapidly changing world...  Africa is carried...finally into a political subjection which goes on until the 1950s.  - Davidson

     The Grand Mosque Uprising...outcome of...was decided in...December 1979.  Juhaiman and his accomplices mobilized religious fanaticism to overthrow the Saudi government.  They fought for power in the name of Islam.  It radicalized a generation of young Saudi devotees of the ultraconservative Wahhbi sect.  ...Saudi money, continued to fan the messianic ideology and operate the extremist training network on the Pakistan Frontier...  They created the Taliban in 1993 and assisted it to conquer most of Afghanistan.  It's natural offshoot of global terrorism poses an existential threat to the West, to moderate Islamic countries..  Saudi control over...Saudi funds inside Pakistan ranged between weak and nonexistent.  Pakistani President Zia and ISI made those decisions...both Saudi and American aid to the construction of...thousands of madrassas educating Afghan children - some of the 3 million refugees...  The madrassas gave one to two years of madrassa indoctrination to thousands of young Afghans, followed by military training.  At that point, they were sent across the Afghan border to confront the Soviet Army..  - Tomsen

     Monday.  I'm downtown at the bank shortly before noon to deposit my paycheck.  Another week when the direct deposit is thwarted by the owner's "forgetting" to approve payroll.  Which he can do from home.  My checks haven't bounced in the couple of years during which they've owned the company I've been working for.  Chilis for lunch.  Waitress takes my order.  Immediately comes back to tell me she forgot what I ordered.  Desert is cookie in a pan, which I prefer without the ice cream scoop.  She brings it with ice cream, takes back the scoop.  I have a bite left, I don't notice her take it away.  I ask her where it is.  She says she tossed it.  I ask for a complimentary something the size of a cookie bite, and out comes a guy with a more extensive vocabulary than my waitress.  He gets me something small to go.  It comes with ice cream in a cup, which I leave behind.  I head out to the train, where a derelict guy stares and listens to the ticket kiosk give him verbal instructions.  A cigarette burns in his hand.  A cloud of smoke obscures the screen.  'Open the pod bay doors please Hal.'  The train arrives and I get in and take a seat.  I smell cigarette smoke and look up to see the derelict guy in the door way.  He's stealing some final puffs before entering the train.
     Three days later, I am out of the door around noon.  The morning was dry, but I see a handful of raindrops.  I don't have time to take the bike back inside and switch to the bus.  As soon as I am out of the parking lot, a squall comes out of nowhere and opens up.  My the time I get to the train station, it lets up.  Along comes a guy who looks homeless except for his clipboard.  Long hair and handlebar moustache.  He asks if I am registered to vote.  I say, "Sure."  Then he asks, "And you are going to vote...?"  Oops.  Wrong thing to ask me.  "Please, please vote..." he begs.  "The government is begging me to vote?"  I associate his faith in democracy with the messages about the importance of voting from government sources.  I am familiar with the angst over the outcome of this election.  "I'm not with the government," he clarifies.  A few minutes later, he comes back around to ask me again if I am registered to vote.  Now, I'm not difficult to remember today.  The parts of me which are not covered by my camouflaged poncho are soaking wet.  I remind him that he already asked me.  I don't remind him that he is not with the government.  I will let him rediscover this.  "Okay," he assures me.

     Like most people who make their living off beer...worries about what's happening in the...industry...  "Every time...we lose a big brother, one that is replaced by an unfriendly entity."  In the old days...he used to drop in...to borrow yeast...  "It hurts.  It hurts a lot."  ...shelf space is getting tighter every day.  ...thirsty drinkers in the Platt Park and Washington Park neighborhoods.  ...they drink it all down and ask for more.  "The neighborhood appreciates the neighborhood."  ...breweries are...replacing neighborhood bars as local hangouts.  Although small, these breweries are the engine that power the beer world - from early morning until late at night...creating cool places to hang out...  ...the neighborhood, like all Denver neighborhoods, is changing.  ...more young families with kids...coming into the bar.  "People who are sick of the bullshit.  They just want to be with their family and have a good time."  a solid clientele of heavy-metal music lovers,...hipsters, beer geeks and other locals.  ...the brewery has...pulsating sounds, of a black-metal clubhouse - complete with a goat's-head altar and a bathroom sign that reads, "Employees must carve Slayer into forearms before returning to work" - the staff...is all about smiles and beer knowledge.  "The better a reputation we get down here, the more we will draw from River North."  "We take more of a lifestyle approach, and people dig that."  ...most people come...for pizza and beer.  The ambiance is nothing to scream about - unless you like heavy-metal music, in which case the gory album posters will make you feel right at home.  ...as many ear gauges as neckties, as many sleeve tattoos as pairs of khaki pants.  "We get the heavy-metal guys at night.  I didn't think we would get that."  ...screams Colorado from the outside.  It does the same on the inside, where there's a woman sitting alone with a beer and a laptop...and a group of seven men...each with three, four or five tulip-shaped tasting glasses...  - Westword, 10/6-12/2016

     ...I gave a group of snowboarders a ride...  "How are the avy conditions?" I asked...  "Great, super soft up there, man," he replied, pulling a silver can from his otherwise empty backpack.  "Did you check the avalanche forecast?" I asked, realizing there wasn't a shovel in his pack.  "Huh?  Yeah, the weather is good, bro, more snow coming."  He sipped the beer and passed it to another.  I realized he didn't know what forecast I was talking about..
THE SOCIAL
MEDIA MAVEN
...how #blessed you are when you #experiencemore and #getoutside?  Ding #SUPyoga at #sunrise doesn't make you more #blessed than me.  Especially when I see it on your...feed within minutes of your #accomplishment.  Instead it's like #OMFG.
THE REARVIEW
MIRROR LOOKER
 ...how rad the 401 trail is.  Let them have Schofield Pass.  The real goods are out of Crested Butte South...three quad-burning, multi-mile climbs with as many single-track descents.  This is supreme mountain bike riding, except for...conditions ...not superlative after heavy storms...big divots in the trail, or after motocross folks tear up the trails, leaving a thick layer of dust...  ...riding it with someone who starts off raving about the flow...only to emerge...complaining about how - "seriously" - this was so amazing last season.  "Honestly...  You're really missing out now."   - Elevation Outdoors, 10/2016

     "There are reasons why Colorado is doing so well," Hickenlooper said...that the arts are doing well.  "We have taken the seed of the SFCD and created something that has attracted all these millennials.  Arts is a strong partner of economic development.  ...the critical mass of creative energy." 
     "We literally made Cap Hill the spot, then got swept out of our own groove.  Of course we'll ,make a groove anywhere we  go..."  - Westword Fall Arts Guide 2016

     Saturday morning.  I get on the 6:02 AM bus to work.  The driver says to me, "Mornin' brotha'."  Twenty-five and a half hours later, I get on the 7:30 AM bus to the supermarket.  Along the way, a woman gets on who I have seen around the neighborhood for years.  She's who you might refer to as a bag lady.  The driver questions her discounted fare, and she speaks the first words I've ever heard her say.  She tells him that she's a disabled veteran, to not question her fare, to "be quiet," and to simply practice "peace and love."  She forgot 'semper fi.'  She tells him that she has been hauling "this stuff" (her collapsible shopping cart full of clothes) around "for three or four years."  I know that I have seen her around the neighborhood for longer than that.  I get out and head over to my favorite breakfast place.  A guy goes inside ahead of me.  He looks as though he is homeless, but I decide that if he's going in for a meal, I must be wrong.  He comes right back out again.  The following morning, I am up early after hitting the hay early.  Very early.  I'm out of the house on the bike at 4:30 AM.  I don't recall the last time I rode before dawn on a regular basis.  It's been a year no since I've been back on the bike, since I quit riding some eight years ago.  Riding before dawn is different than using the transit system before dawn.  On the bus or the train, you are moving along a system and inside the rattling metal environment.  On the bike, it's quiet and the few lights along walkways or porch lights give the impression of neighborhoods asleep.  It makes you feel solitary as you move through dark and empty streets, with only the occasional cat.  You see a schoolyard with the bones of its playground equipment backlit by lights on the school building, as if the school itself is sound asleep.  I am told that I will soon be headed to work back at the store I worked for a year, before spending the summer working at the one where I am headed this morning.  I don't know how many more rides I will be making along these residential streets, through these neighborhoods where families enjoy strolling after dinner.
     Late the following morning, I am on a bus back to the store where I worked for a year, from May of 2015 until this past May. I turn my head to see a woman sitting next to me.  I haven't seen her since last spring.  She is sometimes on the bus when we both get out of work in the same shopping center, she at a pizza place..  From El Salvador, she speaks no English.  I ask her in Spanish how her cat is.  It's name is Gorda, which is Spanish for 'fat.'  Gorda had a kitten.  I ask the kitten's name.  She tells me it's Gorda Chica, or 'Little Gorda.'  At work, where I watch out of the windows as the winds blows golden leaves into a tornado, customers are coming in to welcome me back.  One tells me that my hair looks different.  I've enjoyed spending the summer cruising through the residential streets of another set of neighborhoods.  But it's good to be back in this shopping center.  Is it like home?  Different locals in which I find myself bring back feelings from other memories.  I miss the bike ride through the parks to get here.  I enjoyed getting on the bike again a year ago, pulling out headlamp and tail lamp with the same batteries which still worked.  I knew the long time manager of the store I am returning to, before she passed away.  I always wondered if she looked out at this same vista across the street, a neighborhood which reminds me of the one I grew up in.  She grew up in Guatemala.  But the son she leaves behind is growing up in a home with a lawn.
     Just after 8 PM, I'm on the train home.  Sitting across from me is a idle-aged guy in a Polo shirt and pants with the cuffs rolled up.  He has an unlit cigarette between his lips.  On his lap and on the seat in front of him are papers which he appears to be sorting.  He takes a call, on which he says, "Five minutes.  Five minutes.  I'm on the train.  The train  will be there in five minutes."  When he hangs up, he says, "Fuck."  He turns to me to ask me when Fathers' Day is, in a voice so quiet that I must ask him twice what he said.  He and I get out at the same station.  He gets up slower than myself, and he has to reopen the door after it closes after me.  On the platform is a guy with a 10-speed and a cycling cap.  He tells the guy with the cigarette, "It looked like you weren't getting off."  I jump on a bus which drops me off on a corner of my boulevard, where I must cross the avenue to get to the bus headed down said boulevard.  This evening is the first time, in the decade during which I have been living in this neighborhood, that I can't reach the corner where the crosswalk begins.  There is a familiar group of Hispanics with signs which mention Jesus taking up space on the sidewalk.  The first and only other time I saw them was this past summer, as they came marching past a gas station parking lot which was standing room only filled with police cars.  During that outing, they had a bullhorn.  I don't see it here tonight, but one of the signs is a handmade Harley Davidson logo altered to mention Jesus instead.  This isn't a biker neighborhood, and if they live here they should know that.  At their summer march, a Caucasian member of their flock told me as he marched past that Jesus saved his life from drugs, 'etc.'.  Right now, Jesus is blocking the sidewalk of a boulevard where trucks and freaking Mazdas street race.  Mysterious ways indeed.

     Taking over...spiritual power vested in a particular...priest or wizard or soothsayer - Muslim leaders sometimes acquired a mystic authority denied to them by the orthodox tenets of Islam.  ...the Trjaniyya...an 'Islam for the poor.'  ...whereby the later Muslim revolutions of the nineteenth century were carried through.  It was to be the instrument for conversion of many peoples of the countryside...  ...against autocracy, political brutality...denounced the collecting of concubines and fine clothes and horses that run in the towns, not on the battlefields...'  Religiously inspired revolution could demolish an unpopular and stagnant polity lacking any new "material" policies, it found...building a better social structure altogether another problem.  A much larger expansion of slaving also developed along the central and northern sectors of the Swahili coast.  ...Imam Sayyid Said...in 1840...transferring his court...to...Zanzibar.  ...Zanzibar was already the greatest slaving port on the whole East Coast...  ...every year...between 40,000 and 45,000.  Sayyid Said pushed it higher.  - Davidson

     From the time of the Soviet withdrawal (from Afghanistan), bin Laden's main goals have been to...create a totalitarian political order stretching from Indonesia to southern Spain.  His tactics have much in common with those used by Lenin and Stalin  Juhaiman al-Otaibi's 1979 Mecca uprising inflamed a sensitive rift in Islam between cleric and ruler as old as religion itself.  Religious legitimacy to rule had been an eagerly sought commodity by kings and potentates in medieval Europe.  It was granted or withheld by popes...  Popes fielded their own army...and promised life in Paradise to Christian soldiers...  Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq's vision for Afghanistan's future was sweeping, audacious - and unrealizable.  In the longer term, Zia imagined the formation of an Islamist confederation of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Saudi Arabia's oil wealth would reinforce this powerful geostrategic bloc...  Zia envisioned that, eventually, the five Muslim-populated Soviet Central Asian Republics would join the...confederation.  The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan made Pakistan a leading candidate for President Reagan's support for Third World insurgencies targeting Soviet-aligned governments.  Reagan and his top advisors forged a close working relationship with Zia...and...assistance to Pakistan skyrocketed during the 1980s.  "Gulbuddin Hekmatyar:"  ...warlord...  Hekmatyar's party manifestos...calls for transforming Afghanistan's tribal society.  But...promised a Muslim utopia instead of a communist paradise.  The Pashtun firebrand advocated a centralized, revolutionary, Islamic state ruled by Sharia..  The ISI steered the majority of American-Saudi combined covert and private aid to Hekmatayr.  He was the ISI's favorite Mijahid and therefore the CIA's favorite Mujahid.  Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi also provided substantial funds to Hekmayar.  ...the White House...appointing Edmund McWiliams...to...special envoy.  ...McWilliams drew on his meeting with Mujahidin sources to pen a major policy message to Washington.  ...challenged long-standing U.S. support for the ISI's promotion of Hekmatyar.  Ambassador Oakley...ridiculed McWilliams in embassy meetings and to his face.  During an Afghanistan briefing for a senate staff delegation...Oakley ordered McWilliams to leave the room.  "...telling him to 'shut up,' and saying that he wouldn't take any more of McWilliams' 'bullshit.'".   - Tomsen

TAIWAN
A FLOURISHING DEMOCRACY IN ASIA
     On Oct. 10, 2016, the Republic of China (Taiwan) celebrates its 105th anniversary...heralding the dawn of a new era characterized by innovation, reform and the building of a more progressive, caring society.  ...the efforts of the citizenry to safeguard freedom, protect human rights...are recognized worldwide.  Based on the principle of mutual assistance for mutual benefits, the initiative paves the way for Taiwan to work with all like-minded countries and territories in playing a more significant role in the international community...  ...helps the nation quickly adjust to changing global conditions and the trend toward regional economic integration.
TAIWAN LEADING IN WORLD'S INNOVATION
     ...showcases unique ideas such as WiFi-powered rice cookers (start cooking with the click of a button when you head home from work) to compactable bicycles.  - Asian Avenue Magazine, 10/2016

     Thursday.  Going on 5 AM.  I am down the street from where I live, on my way to an open to close shift at work.  I pass a front lawn with a tree.  Hanging from a rope is an office chair.  Friday.  I'm too damned beat to ride today.  I'm on a bus up the street at 4:40 AM.  I get out with a guy on his way to a construction site.  He asks me how to get there on the transit system.  He's in a hoodie and cap with the logo of the city's football team.  He asks me, "Who won the game last night?  I fell asleep."  The bus comes along to whisk us to the train station.  This station has had new condominiums where the parking lot used to be for a year now.  Where the dregs of the city used to gather before these condos, the beautiful people now wait for their trains.  I remember being here one winter night when a couple of young gang bangers punched a drunk before they ran off in a choreographed sprint.  The bus showed up.  The police showed up.  One concerned passenger exclaimed, "I know six niggas on this bus with warrants."  Where this memory occurs now stands a young guy in a shirt and tie and Italian shoes, listening to his I pod, looking as if he has just stepped out of a catalog.  I watch a little blonde in long boots lock up her 10 speed, her headlamp in my eyes, her backpack almost a big as her.  She walks to the ticket kiosk where he spends the longest time, as if perhaps bewildered.
     The ride to and from work on Saturday takes me through parks and streets, all with forests of changing trees.  I notice that my front tire is extremely low.  On Sunday, I take it to the bike shop for some air.  Every gas station with a working pump will only fill my tires to 35 psi, and they need 90.  When I get to the shop, the tech tells me that I need to top off my air once a week.  Hmm, something else I won't be able to do.  I head down the boulevard to find a place to eat.  This stretch of the street is just outside of downtown, and in proximity to both a train station condominium and streets lined with brownstones.  It's a street of wandering derelicts between 30 and 60 years of age, and of tattooed Caucasian hipsters in there 20s and 30s.  I watch one guy go past, selling this month's issue of the city's local homeless newspaper.  Every day is like Halloween 'round these parts.  On a corner with a bus stop which always smells like urine is a big bar and grill.  This afternoon, there is a line.  Next door is a brand new little place where I had a good meal before.  For $18 I have a sandwich on a roll, yellow squash, a pickle and a drink.  New age music is coming  out of the sound system.  Perhaps after we eat, we will have take Ecstasy and have an orgy.  (I love you, a pickle and a drink, a pickle and a drink...)  The waitress comes around with an abundance of joy for the menu.  She wants to know how my lunch is.  A couple of thirty-something women in yoga pants come in.  The one with skulls on her pants tells the other that this is her favorite place.  The other asks the waitress how big the avacados are.  I go to the counter to ask the pensive-looking guy, who I assume is the owner, for a to go box.  "How about some foil?" he asks.  Low overhead,  far out.
     The following morning is another double shift, and I am up with the pre-dawn patrol.  I'm headed down a trail next to a street which trucks like to race along.  This morning, in the dark, a man walks along the street with a pair of crutches.  The following evening, on my way home I am approaching a bridge at the intersection of two bicycle trails.  To the side of one end, I can see in the dark the metal frame of a ten-speed leaning against the bridge.  On the bridge, a guy in a T-shirt has something long and metal in his hand.  As he swings it, it catches the light from distant streetlamps.  I hear him say, "Call the cops.  I'm serious, call the cops," as he walks toward the direction of the bike.  Thursday morning.  I am back at my bus stop of old, waiting for the 4:45 AM.  Across the street, the former medical marijuana place which was raided by SWAT some years past is now being transformed once again.  The usual folk are here.  There's the guy on the floor of the bus shelter, under a blanket.  There's a couple of other regular passengers.  Out of the dark comes a couple slowly moving along.  The woman is wearing hot pink and black print pajama bottoms.  The guy is decked out head to toe in the colors of the local football team.  He walks with his right foot to the side, and his leg appears to be in pain.  He asks if this bus goes to the end of the line.  When the bus appears and we all get on, the guy takes a seat.  The woman talks to the driver before asking everyone, "Do any of yous got change for a five?"  The bus is silent.  She tells the guy that they must disembark.  He painfully makes his way back down the aisle.  The fare for two people is more than five dollars...(?)
     Some nine hours later, I am out of work when the sun is out.  It's been a while.  I get on a bus back to my neighborhood.  It has mostly kids who look like they are in high school.  I sit next to an ROTC kid.  A corner of his hoodie is on the seat and I sit down on it.  It's a few minutes before he asks me to get off of it.  At one stop the driver has just let out a passenger, and a kid jumps up and asks to be let out.  The driver slowly pulls forward.  The kid says, "I...wish...you...would...let...me...the..fuck...off."  Up the street, the ROTC kid pulls the cord to let the driver know he wants the next stop.  He doesn't realize that another passenger has already pulled it and alerted the driver.  In a high school voice, he says, "I need to get off here."  When I get home I decide to get a workout in, and I jump on a bus headed down the street.  One guy with a distinctive voice in back is talking to someone else.  The other guy comes to the front of the bus and takes some small plastic trash bags from where they hang by the door.  The guy in back says, "Driver, he's having a medical emergency."  The other guy tells the one in back, "I've got my paper work."  He has a file with him.  "I just partied too much last night."  He proceeds to dry heave into one of the trash bags.  Where I change buses, the street is blocked off going one direction.  At the stop for my connecting bus, I hear one bus driver tell another that a bus jumped the curb and ran into the stop.  When my other bus comes, there is a child and a parent in separate seats.  The child is standing in her seat, next to another guy.  We suddenly hear the parent yelling at the guy, telling him not to talk to the child in a way which disturbs the parent.  I don't look up, but the parent threatens the guy, and the guy mocks the parent.  Then there is silence.  When I look up, the child is being held by a woman.  I wonder if the indignant guy is the one now sitting behind them.  He has greying hair and a shirt with Grumpy from Snow White on the front.

     More than 100,000 moved to Colorado last year.  Is that good news?  There are roughly now 200 more bars and restaurants in the metro area than there were a year ago...  ...too many spots are coasting or even falling short - whether from lack of training, overextended chefs, tired concepts or a tight talent pool.  - Westword, 10/20-26/2016

     While partaking with confused zeal of much that the western world has to offer many parts of Africa are at the same time attempting to throw off the political shackles of the West...  Africans want our education and techniques, our mode of life and standard of living...  Of course there are millions of Africans still too ignorant, too backward, childlike, and uneducated to know what nationalism means...  ...Africa lies open like a vacuum, and is almost perfectly defenceless - the richest prize on earth.  ...it pants for development.  - Inside Africa, by John Gunther, 1953.

     This fury carried all before it.  The imperial scene was set in western Europe an atmosphere of frantic national competition for oversea possession.  European imperialism...a driving power of its own.  Pursuing their interests and ambitions, they blew the trumpets of patriotism and banged the drums of national rivalry.  Early Catholic endeavors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were now reproduced on a continental scale.  Nineteenth century missionary enterprise...did much to promote...a Christian educated elite.  This was to play a part...even before 1900, in the formation of anti-colonial trends of thought.  ...what "The Times"...called the 'scramble for Africa.'  ...Leopold II of Belgium...carving out for himself an enormous central African colony...  ...decisive pressures.  ...were released by...western European capitalism...  It was all above men like Goldie and Rhodes who ensured that governments in Europe should underwrite imperial enterprise beyond the seas.  And it was out of their efforts...that the strenuous ideologies of European imperialism now took shape and action.  ...limits of expansion for Britain, France, Germany, Belgium...Italy, Portugal and Spain - were defined with little trouble at the Berlin colonial conference of 1884-5.  - Davidson

     Friday.  I'm back on a closing shift.  Out on the trail in the morning, it's an unseasonably warm week for the middle of October.  Caucasians are on their bikes, and they are all over the place.  In matching Lycra and riding in formation.  This may be the last week to represent for the team trail riders.  With turning trees and temps in the low eighties, it's a gorgeous day.  There is a detour through a set of concrete berms, with four ninety degree turns. A group of ten riders come through it, one at a time.  When I turn off the trail onto another, the swarm of riders disappears.  Until I make my way through a neighborhood of opulent homes.  A couple in matching black Lycra comes along.  The next day, I am too damned tired to get on the bike.  I'm at the corner up the street, preparing to cross it to my Saturday bus stop at a quarter to six AM.  Coming along the cross street is a young guy with a skateboard.  I'm in my winter gear, and he's in an unzipped hoodie.  He wants to know what time it is before he is on his way.  Some thirteen hours later, I'm home from work after dark, and I head to a pizza place behind where I live.  I come back through an alley to my parking lot.  At the exit of the alley, in the dark, is a middle-aged homeless couple.  The guys says, "Whazzup?"  The woman is, in denim shorts and a hoodie, both of which appear too big for her.  Her sunken eyes peer out from inside her hood.
     Sunday.  I am a bit late out to the bus stop this morning.  A couple of guys pull up to open the roasted chilli stand on the corner.  One of them is a portly grey-haired guy with a crucifix on a chain around his neck.  A middle-aged couple comes walking along.  The guy asks me, "Is there a bus comin'?"  The Mrs. takes a seat.  An SUV pulls into the parking lot, and before I know it, a woman in a long coat is standing in front of me, asking me to pick out a Watchtower Magazine.  She points out to the guy, "Your money is about to fall out of your collar."  I can't see his collar, but apparently this is where he keeps his money.  It's 9:30 AM and the sun is burning off the chill during this Indian summer.  The Mrs. on the bench next to me, she turns and says, "That sun's startin' to kick, huh?"  Sure 'nuff, ma'am.  After the bus comes and takes me to the supermarket, I am waiting for the bus back home.  A middle-aged guy with a bike comes along.  He has a Scooby-Doo cap and is talking to himself.  On the back rack of his bike are secured a couple of small cardboard packages.  In his hand is a shopping bag for the department store across the street.  When the bus shows up, he turns to me and asks, "Gettin' on?"  Sure 'nuff, sir.  He asks the driver, "Fastest way downtown?"  If he lives downtown, he should know the way.  But if he's from downtown, why is he shopping all the down here?  He puts his bike on the rack at the front and gets on.  He tells the driver, "I'm a mess, kid.  I'm a fuckin' mess."  He sits down and continues to talk to himself.  He's constantly jumping up.  Instead of placing his shopping bag next to himself, he has it on an empty space above one of the front wheels.  I notice in his bag that one of his purchases is a new box of crayons.  After dropping off the groceries, I pay an overdue visit to a favorite lunch place up the street.  Riding through an alley, I pass a guy with his shopping cart parked against the fence. Later on, for dinner, I'm at my usual Sunday spot; the Vietnamese place behind where I live.  Whatever Sunday dinner used to represent in the traditional Caucasian household, I now spend it at a Vietnamese restaurant with...half a Vietnamese restaurant full of college-aged bohemian-looking white kids.  One huge guy had a T-shirt with, I don't know, a video game logo?  Outside in the twilight, the Jesus crispies are back, complete with bullhorn.  This evening, their numbers are comparatively tiny compared with the last march of theirs I saw during this past summer.  It becomes clear that they are advertising an event, described on a card one of them hands me as "Puppet Master live on stage."  That's right, it's Howdie Doodie time.  I saw the guy bringing up the rear of the march in a T-shirt with "Soul Patrol" on the back.  The event is produced by Victory Outreach Denver.  The card which I was handed has an image of a new Camero in one corner, a tool perhaps of the defacto mercurial Puppet Master.
     Monday.  If all goes to plan, this will be the last time I have to work an all day shift until the next foreseeable emergency.   Yet again and again I find myself at the bus stop across the street from where I live, here at the hour of 4:30 AM.  At the intersection, where 12 hours ago the Soul Patrol was approaching vehicles to tell them about Jesus, the usual guy with a cane follows my path here from the other side of the boulevard.  In the bus shelter this early morning are four young adults, two guys and two girls.  One of the ladies has what appears to be a small bike for an older child.  The frame has been spray-painted white, which had stained the tires as well.  If it isn't stolen, I wonder why it appears as if it was repainted as quickly as possible.  The bus comes along to take all of us up the street to my bus stop of old.  The guy with the walker is asleep in the shelter at this hour.  My connecting bus arrives, and I get on and sit across a guy in a long coat with his head inside of a big hood.  He reminds me of the Spirit of Christmases Yet to Come.  We all pile out at the train station, where a guy with long hair and in a woman's coat is looking inside all the trash cans.  At this station which used to be a transit hub for homeless, they still collect at the side of the new condo, right next to the "White Whale Room Coffee + Cocktail" bar.  I am Ahab...
     Thursday and Friday, I only had 6 hours of sleep each night.  Saturday night was only 4, and Sunday another 6.  Yesterday, I was falling asleep at work.  But today, my friend, today is Tuesday.  And somehow, I went back to sleep after waking up after only 6 hours again.  I tell you, I feel like a new man.  You know, you make me tired enough, and eventually I will get a good night's rest.  Some time around noon, I am awake enough to get back out on the bike trail.  This is the week when the trees are losing the last of their leaves.  It continues to be an uncharacteristically temperate week for the end of October.  I am cruising through a string of connected parks.  Among the housewives walking their dogs is a lone guy on a bicycle.  On this overcast day, he is wearing sunglasses, a hunting cap, and overalls.  I see him looking in a trash can.  The trail lets me out in a neighborhood of opulence.  When I stop under a tree, I am attacked by falling acorns.  Some seven hours later, I am out of work and on the bike path home.  At the trail head, I stop to put on a warmer shirt and windbreaker.  Across a creek is a high school athletic field, lit up by stadium lights.  A year ago I would come past this place during football games.  On this evening, a marching band is out on the field, and a band director is leading practice.  He's telling one section that they are 'going to have to come in faster, the are just going to have to come in a little faster.'  Further along, off one trail and onto the next, I am almost to a street back on my side of town.  I forgot to bring my headlamps and tail lamp with me today.  In the dark, I come up on a guy slowly riding one bike in the dark with his left hand, and guiding an empty ten speed with his left.  Over his shoulders are three full trash bags.  As I pass him he says, "'Scuse me, sir."  Dow the street and on the last short trail to my own neighborhood.  I approach a spillway in the dark.  As I do, I can see the street illuminating the embankment.  I smell marijuana.  A couple are crouched there with their dog.  The light catches the face of a young guy with a foot-long goatee.  Overhead, southeast of where I live, the local police helicopter turns circles as it shines it spotlight.  When I arrive at my corner, I watch another, middle-aged couple cross the street.  The guy has a tall can in his hand, and he gestures as he barks words at the lady.
     The next morning, I come out of my door and I hear a middle-aged couple in conversation.  I don't recognize them, but they obviously live in one of the town homes on the other side of my complex.  The guy is in camouflaged shorts and has a walking staff.  That's what I need when I see the Soul Patrol loitering on the street corner.  When I see the Puppet Master, I can use it to "smash him, homie..."  When I get out on the trail, I pass an oncoming woman who is running.  Her head is in a big white hairnet.  Thursday.  I am out of my door at the same time as yesterday.  At the corner, I wait at the light as I watch an SUV race a pickup down the boulevard at what appears to be around 55 mph in a 35 zone.  On the way to work, I'm almost there.  I'm passing the football field as the marching band is out for a late morning practice.  On the trail home, emerging from an underpass are three guys slowly walking in the dark.  Off the trail, I get to the crest of a hill.  Once again, I watch the police helicopter turning circles over my neighborhood.  Further along, I am coming up a street as I watch the helicopter cross over the block ahead of me.

     ...Beg laid out his geostrategic vision for Pakistan and Afghanistan...that the two Muslim countries combine forces after Afghanistan's liberation.  Beg called for...Islamic revolution in the Muslim world.  There was, Beg claimed, a leadership vacuum in Islamic countries.  Utilizing a map, the general pointed to the five Soviet Central Asian Republics.  A different color distinguished them from the rest of the USSR.  He predicted that India would disintegrate when the Islamic revolutionary wave reached an advance stage.  On November 21,1990, an article written by retired ISI brigadier Mohammed Yousuf, chief of the ISI's Afghan Bureau in the mid-1980s...sounded the alarm...  Yousef...hallucinated that the victory America denied in 1989 'would have created a politico-religious base and momentum for beginning of Islamic revolutionary warfare against the USSR...  The psyche and natural follow-up of this movement would have led to an Islamic bloc comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Islamic Soviet Republics.   With friendly China, this Islamic bloc would have stood against the expansionist designs and aspirations of the superpowers and regional powers like India...  The whole superpower structure and political scenario of South Asia and the Middle East could have changed.' - Tomsen

     If the years 1880-1900 were broadly those of the conquest and the 'establishment of presence,' the decades 1900-1920 may reasonably be defined as the 'period of pacification' during which installation of colonial rule was made complete.  ...this helped the...dismantlement of traditional forms of rule.  ...products were gathered by...forced labour...  In...what Coquery-Vidovitch has called 'economy of pillage'...the companies were purely parasitical on African life and labour, while the colonial state...guided the colony towards 'civilization'...  - Davidson

     ...at...Stapleton's 36,000 square-foot gaming center...more than 160 games and 210 player stations since opening it doors last March.  '...premier entertainment and gaming experience in a safe, welcoming environment.'  ...a 5,500 square-foot split-level laser tag arena...  ...up to 24 players...  "The whole experience is state-of-the-art."  ...eSports LAN gaming zone...  ...nearly two dozen Xbox One S consoles, and five Nintendo Wii U systems.  ...parents can enjoy American food and a craft beer...  ...a full bar and 16 taps...  "We offer killer happy hours."  ...a collection of large screen TVs for sports lovers.  - Colorado Parent, 11/2016

     Friday.  I get a call at 4 AM.  I have to open today.  I find myself out on the trail before sunrise.  In the dark, I pass a tandem bike with a headlamp in front of the lead rider and another headlamp beneath the handlebars of the rear rider.  Red lights dot the bottom of the frame.  It's a lot of battery power just to ride a tandem bike in the dark.  The following morning, I'm too tired even to ride a bike for one person.  I inadvertently leave my camera in the bag I have over my shoulder when I ride.  This morning, up the street at my Saturday bus stop, I am directly across the street from a billboard.  In the dark at 6 AM, it's lit up with an ad for an audio book company.  A twentysomething woman is in her workout gear, on a rowing machine.  Fastened around her left bicep is her audio book player, and on her head is a slammin' pair of headphones.  Sitting next to her is a Viking sailor in fur with snow in his long hair.  Behind them is the rest of the crew; on the bow stands one who blows a ram's horn.  They row through a blizzard as, beyond their shields lining the boat, mountains rise off the port and starboard.  The entire scene sits atop a small Vietnamese office.  And my camera sits in a bag at home.  After a nine-hour day at work, I am back home and coming back from the Chinese place across the street from where I live.  I see the strangest thing I've seen on the sidewalk in this neighborhood.  A young, blonde, Caucasian guy in a tuxedo is walking into the brand new apartments across the street from my own place.
     The following Monday is Halloween.  On my ride home, right across the street from work is the neighborhood of opulence.  Children and parents are both in costumes, and out in the street with glow sticks.  One parent asks a child, "And did you thank Mr. Norton?"  This morning, I scouted out a route from the train to the trail to work.  I had to stay a few minutes late on this, a busy afternoon, and I decide to try the train home to see if it's any faster.  It quietly comes along, and I see a transit system security officer checking fares in one of the cars.  I get on with only three short stops to go.  At the next one, a guy who also has a bike gets on.  He has blonde hair like a surfer, beads around his neck, and a Bob Marley T-shirt.  A couple dressed as pirates also get on.  The last passenger to come on is a thirtysomething geek.  He's asking the others if the transit system is letting everyone ride for free today.  He's confusing today with New Year's Eve, when the transit system will let passengers ride free from around 6 PM to 6 AM New Year's Day, to prevent drunk driving.  At the next stop, the security officer changes cars and comes into ours.  Everyone has fare except the geek.  He tells the security with a laugh that he thought we could all ride for free today.  Amused, the officer says, "No..."  The geek tells him it's a hallowed day.  The officer wants to know how today is hallowed.  "Because it's Halloween," the geek replies with a laugh.  The officer asks if he is getting off to puechase a fare at the next stop.  The geek is in fact doing so.  He tells him that a ticket in Denver county is $82.  "I don't want that," he says, this time without a laugh.  Transit system fare.  Yep, it's hallowed.  Back in my neighborhood, I cruise through an alley, behind a backyard with a glowing blue ghost hanging from a tree.  Walking through the alley is a guy with a plastic bottle and long hair who appears not to live any place in particular.  I turn up a street where I see some more trick or treaters.  I pass the gas station across the street from where I live.  A young guy I haven't seen before is out in the parking lot.  He's singing and he sounds drunk.  As I go past, he tells me, "Wear you helmet at all times, young man."  I cross the boulevard and I hear him yelling at me.  It is, I think, a fitting tribute to this, the Age of Moloch.  Happy Halloween kids.  "Moloch, with your fare waiver assumption and your helmet a drunk guy wants you to wear..."