There's something about...dealing with...people who lie about having trendy food allergies that makes servers want to get stoned. After dropping out of grad school...I ended up working at a...brewery...and quickly adjusted to a world of aggressive drinking, chain smoking and never having to buy groceries again. Everyone from the teenage hostess to the general manager was smoking weed [on] their shift. ...servers are on the complete opposite schedule of everyone else in the world. When most people are heading home from the office, servers are just going in. ...I was living month to month and had no idea what kind of impact I wanted to make on the world. Weed helped me [with] not...overthinking everything I was doing wrong in life. - Boulder Weekly, 4/26 - 5/2/2018
Jumping the sewer...is a pastime for the kids [, their] irises ivory-white with malnutrition. ...a bright, pretty woman in a black robe with a white headband - introduces her eight-year-old daughter... Then suddenly says, "Please take her with you." ...just thirty-three - and she is ready to give away her own child. At the end of the street there is a tooting trumpet, a fat man with a drum and a stooped old soldier [and] thirty-three middle-aged...men...in shoddy uniforms. These are the local Dads Army...preparing to withstand the might of America. They march around a traffic island while the children sing the Iraqi national anthem... Then the kids go back to sewer jumping. And this, I remind myself, is the country which, according to Messrs, Clinton and Blair, threatens the whole world. Grind down the people to this abject level and survival is more important than revolution.
For twenty-five years now the most fabulously designed [munitions] have been hurled in my direction by some of...the most moral armies on earth. In a quarter century I've seen thousands of corpses - women and children...blasted, shredded, eviscerated, disemboweled, beheaded, lobotomized...and otherwise annihilated by the multi-billion dollar arms industry... ...our ability to kill Muslims - and to help Muslims kill other Muslims - with our weapons. - Fisk
I'm not a politician. I'm a dad, husband, a local business owner, a Colorado native, a volunteer and proud...citizen. Most importantly, I am a neighbor... After more than 20 years in the corporate world, I made the decision to work for myself... Like you I want to see our city continue to grow... To me, getting involved at the local level of politics is about the desire to improve...community identity... As a businessman and parent, not a politician... Any of my friends will tell you, my passion is to...do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. ...we need to be smart about land use while continuing to be business-friendly. ...to be understanding of the social issues... ...current residents, and just as important, those who come after... - Englewood Citizen, Summer 2018
...go visit countries with people who don't look like you. Don't go to a resort that was built to cater to your specific needs, but to where real people live. There is nothing less sexy than a bitter white guy... As a space maker, I spent the last twenty years creating environments where people could work out their humanity while eating and drinking. My goal was to momentarily soothe the collective consciousness, to offer up an affordable restoration treatment. We built successful restaurants without meat or TVs. Nobody wants to talk about old Denver. You look like a crybaby... ...a boring conversation... Perhaps I miss the danger of a city that was not yet a luxury brand. ...kitchens were staffed with guys on work release and recent arrivals from south of the border. Now ruddy-faced kids who are $40,000 in debt to a culinary school are cutting onions waaaaay too slowly, wondering why they aren't chefs yet. In '98 it cost $30,000 [the author's restaurant.] No permits, no problem. Today, $30,000 will get you a crop-dusting from a passing developer and a scale drawing of what you can't afford. Even if you add another zero, you're still far short of what it takes to open a restaurant in this town. ...the problem of luxury Denver: It's too risky to open interesting concepts. - Westword, 5/10-16/2018
Wednesday. Rain. I'm on the bus up the street to work. Onboard is one of these guys: he sounds drunk, he says something, and he laughs at it. A kid with an afro gets on the bus. The guy says, "Hey Afro." the kids turns. The guy laughs. We arrive at the train station and a passenger gets on who appears bedraggled. "Yea! I don't have to stay in the rain anymore." He's in a U.S. Army battlefield dress coat. He gets on his phone and begins a conversation about "programs for vets" and mentions a "program for the Humane Society." He tells whoever is on the other end that navy vets are "in much better need." His sleepy voice says something about "much better perspective." After he hangs up, he almost whispers, "God, does the woman ever shut up?" We arrive at the stop before I get out. A stooped passenger steps through the door. He has a long grey beard and an enormous tumor on his nose, and his hands shake with neurological trouble. He asks the driver if this bus goes past "the police station?" The driver is unaware of any police station on the northbound route. He takes forever digging out the coins for his discounted fare. He hands the driver directions to the police station. They appear to have been printed in a desktop printer. A passenger in back says, "What the hell is goin' on?" The street the guy mentions sounds familiar. I believe he is looking for the station sixty blocks south, and a few east of here. The passenger in back says, "{I} need to get to work..." Indeed the driver tells him he needs the southbound bus. The guy is surprised, even though he has instructions. The passenger in back says, "Fuck!" The driver announces into the microphone, "If you're in a hurry you're welcome to come up and assist this gentleman." The Army/Navy/ Humane Society guy comes forward...and does nothing before taking his seat.
After work, I'm on my last bus home. A couple of guys in back are very loud. "We need more nigga!" "Us too nigga!" This is the only comprehensible part of the conversation. A guy gets onboard. He notices that I have a book and asks me if I "like reading." I respond by staring at him. He turns around to converse with someone else. "You need to get one nigga!" someone yells from the back. The following evening I am on my first bus home after work. We pick up a young guy in a martial arts T-shirt and with a chain on his wallet. He talks to the driver about trying to sleep on the street last night, during the rain. He had found a place out of the downpour, but the police twice woke him up and told him to move along. They were going to confiscate his expired ID. I change buses. At one stop past two or three police cars with lights flashing, three passengers come through the door. A young woman enters and takes a seat. A young guy follows her and mentions something about the woman being the victim of an assault. An elderly woman enters and takes a seat. The guy finishes speaking to a police officer outside and then hauls in several plastic bags full of groceries. He puts them on the seat with the elderly woman. As we get going the bags fall on the floor. A grey-haired guy sitting next to the woman picks up her bags. The guy is spotted by another passenger. This passenger can barely speak except for noises, reaches to shake his hand only with difficulty. He shows the passenger his ankle monitor.
...a former hostel...now houses [on] the second floor...studios for graphic designers and marketing types. And a couple of craft-beer joints are just a block away. All of this...within the past two years...exemplary of...certain urban neighborhoods in Denver. ...the refurbished buildings...scrubbed of their grime, they've lost a little of their soul. ...a last bastion of [Denver's] Five Points [neighborhood] that existed just a few years ago...is quickly being resurfaced or erased altogether. Not long ago, venues like [these] peppered Five Points, competing...on the strength of their soul food, the price of their drinks and the loyalty of their crowds. ...light-rail construction swallowed...business... ...the community was changing. Property values were rising and more affluent families were moving [in and] buying up houses from longtime residents...who were disappearing to the suburbs. "The reason I continue [in business is because] my customers...ask me to. There's no place for the black community to go. ...people...come into town...to see Five Points, and they're going to be shocked to see it like this. It ain't that some of it's changed; everything has changed." Five Points and adjoining Whittier were the first neighborhoods to extend beyond...Denver's original grant from Congress...during the silver boom of the nineteenth century... In the '20s...the city's moneyed set moved to Capitol Hill...90 percent of the city's African-American community resided in Five Points, having been excluded from other neighborhoods. ...it was dubbed the "Harlem of the West." "The Rossonian...the crown jewel of Five Points. ...was a hotel for African-Americans who'd perform for white crowds downtown but weren't allowed to stay in those hotels." "Many third-generation Hispanic families still live in the area; during World War II, it hosted a Japanese enclave. ...African-Americans moved to new neighborhoods...by 75 percent between the end of the '50 and the mid-1970s." ...in the late '80s. ...FIve Points...had lost its...reputation. "There was a time when if you lived west of Downing, people thought you were trash." ...African-American-owned businesses continued to define the place and keep it going.. ...seven years ago...residents were less concerned about...the prospect that groups who'd long lived there might be displeased - than they were about the neighborhood's revival. Denver's first light-rail route...in 1994, ended in Five Points [and] was supposed to revitalize the area. It didn't. Five Points was named the city's first historic cultural district in 2002 [which] was supposed to do the same. It didn't. '...in the largest economic cycle of Denver's history, it became harder to maintain the character of African-American ownership." Many of Denver's urban neighborhoods exploded over the last decade... - Westword, 5/3-9/2018
From 1958 through 1964, the CIA trained Tibetan resistance fighters...west of Leadville... - Elevation Outdoors, 5/2018
...an Instagram hashtag full of people posing in front of murals, maybe... "This is typical gentrification behavior. Move into a neighborhood with a historically significant name and rename it..." River North...is a district...where...owners contribute extra tax dollars to fund...the neighborhood. The district also overlaps...several blocks of...Curtis Park. "...we have...the...new name developers came up with...that...divides us up...to...sell the area as something new." - Denver Herald, 5/17/2018
Friday. I'm on my last bus to work. We are at the transfer hub. I hear a train horn and look across the lot toward the tracks, and what to my wondering eyes does appear but a test train for the new line to work. A short time later I am off the bus and at the corner. I hear a guy yelling at the opposite corner. When I look across the intersection I see an elderly guy in his sixties on a big tricycle. He's wearing an orange vest and has a pole with a claw at one end. There are plastic grocery bags tied all over his tricycle. He is bent over and yelling to the driver of a car stopped at the intersection. "If you have something to say...!" I think I hear him yell. Some nine hours later it's after work. I roll up on the stop for my first bus home. This evenings random rotating character at this stop is a young guy with a girlfriend on the bench. Black T-shirt, skinny black jeans, black Converse All Stars. Silver chain around his neck. he is eating a "party size" bag of Doritos by himself. He gets up to ask me what they all want to know. "You know what time the bus comes boss?" His arm tattoos appear when he lifts his arm in some kind of heavy metal gesture.to a passing vehicle. By "the" bus I assume he means mine, headed east. And it is late. He doesn't notice when it sneaks up the road and turns to make its loop back toward where we sit. The bus for another route rumbles past without stopping. I don't know how many come through here without stopping this time of evening. He watches it and stands up with his arms outstretched. He looks at me and asks, "What's that about?" I explain it as simply as I can.
When the bus does stop and pick us up, I hear him tell the driver where they are going. They are two more in a line of wandering souls who are coming from way up here, within spitting distance of the mountains, headed for reasons again unknown across the 100 some blocks to downtown. I suppose all roads lead there. He tells the driver that he's "not familiar with the bus routs ['round these parts.]" Something compels them to travel the hobo jungles, strewn with plastic grocery bags and wasted minds. Guys out of prison, women off work who cherish their apartment balconies, mental patients looking for "the nearest hospital?" We pass through an artery of the defeated. I get out at the corner for my last bus home. I grab some food from a deathburger before rolling up on my stop. Standing in the shelter is a girl, perhaps a teenager, with a bike. She's in a winter coat, short denim shorts and striped knee socks. When the bus arrives she doesn't take it. But, along the way, a woman with a mop gets on board. If I'm not mistaken, she asks me if I can move over so she can sit sown. I ask her if she wants me to move to the right. She walks past me as if she didn't hear me. Further along, we pick up Army/Navy/Humane Society guy. At the train station, another passenger I recognize comes through the door. He travels with his possessions in a laundry basket and talks to himself. At the stop before mine, I see through a window a guy with blood all over his face. The door opens and a woman gets on. She tells the driver that this guy has been "harassing her." The guy tells the driver that he "just got beat up," doesn't have fair, and just needs a ride down the street. The driver tells him to get lost. I get out at my stop and head to the Chinese place for more food Out front is someone other than the usual panhandler of late. This evening, it's a young man.
Saturday. Cinco de Mayo. I stick my head outside the door around 7 AM to check the temperature. Across the small courtyard, two hip-looking police detectives or private investigators are at a neighbor's door. One of them has sunglasses and his hair combed up into a peak. "You're nineteen?" the other one asks a Vietnamese girl leaning out from behind her screen door. "Do you know the girl in the picture?" I should have gone out and done my Inspector Clouseau routine. "Ah! A beekeeper who has lost his voice. A cook who thinks he's a gardener. And a witness to a murder. It is obvious to my trained eye...that there is more here than meets the ear." I'm sure that not a one of the three has even heard of any of the Pink Panther movies. I'm on the bike and up the street, to catch a bus to get some blood work done for my next doctor appointment. Along the sidewalk comes a woman of perhaps forty. She's in a tube top and a hoodie with a logo of a tattoo parlor on the back. She has golden dreadlocks, a chain around her waist, tight camouflaged pants and a scowl on her face. Her skin has the hue of being out on the street. Her body looks great. She takes both of the same buses I do. I get out at a train station where I used to go on my way to work. I would get here before 5 AM during the week. Now I almost never come here anymore.
My doctor is way across town, requiring a trip on the train. I arrive and wait in line for an hour. The blood work takes about a minute. The Caucasian blood techs are unimpressed with my Spanish. The one in charge is moving the patients along. The young Hispanic woman at the front desk, however, is quite thrilled with it. The it's off to IHOP for a late breakfast. The place is hopping this morning. My wait for a tale is twelve times shorter than my wait to get blood work done. There are many families of color here, and a couple of balloon artists are performing for the kids at tables. At one booth is one Caucasian couple. The guy looks like Charles Manson. At the table next to me are four friends. It becomes apparent that two of the women are engaged to be married. One of them mentions being "blocked on Facebook" by a FB friend, who she messaged that she "would always be there for her." The other one mentions a "candle ceremony" planned for the wedding. I wonder if they are Jewish? After breakfast I head downtown to the Cinco de Mayo fest. Then it's home for dinner at a deathburger. The one I used to go to in morning before catching the bus to work. As I am eating, a couple of grey-haired police officers come inside. They are not in metro uniforms but what almost appear to be pale green jumpsuits. They almost look like sheriff's deputies. They are handing out Slurpee coupons to kids, asking them if they like Slurpees. A homeless guy comes wandering inside. He asks me if I know what time it is. I tell him that I don't have a watch. There is a pause before he says, "You don't have a phone?"
Tuesday. I woke up way too early and I've had only four and a half hours of sleep. I'm on my first bus to work and my eyes are closed, and my head is slumped. This morning, I'm sure that I appear as many of the passengers who I describe. A young woman sits behind me. At first, I assume that I am listening to her speaking on her phone. I listen to her say very quietly, "What are you doing? What are you doing? You are not supposed to do that. Jesus Christ." I open my eyes to see the driver making a multiple point turn amidst the traffic loop of the transfer hub. After the turn is complete, the young woman is on her phone texting. The bus drops me off down the street from a breakfast place. After I eat, i am looking at my bill to figure the tip. The hostess is a character. She asks me, "Why do you look at it {the bill]? You get the same thing every time." She tells someone else that if I "fall down I will need to be fed." She's lost me but I play along. I try not to alarm the locals up here in northwest Denver. This place flies an American flag outside, and it's next to a gun shop. I'm off toward work, with a quick stop at the bank first. In the shopping center is a Subway. Outside stands an elderly guy. I notice him when I hear him say, "Nine! You open at nine. It's after nine."
Wednesday. Bang. I've had some sleep. I'm out of the door and on an earlier than usual bus to work. Sitting behind me is a woman who sounds tired. I was there yesterday. "Does this bus go north?" she asks someone. I wonder how she otherwise gets up north. I hear her asks if it stops at a certain street, the one where I get out. I think this driver is ahead of schedule. At a couple of bus stops, he waits for a couple of minutes before moving along. I hear the tired woman ask, "Why the fuck does he keep waiting?" I'm out at the corner where I change buses. I run into the Sinclair station for a snack. I ask where the girl from Ethiopia is. I'm told that she went back to school and is very smart. On my connecting bus to work, we come upon a homeless-looking guy pulling something small on wheels. Though the avenue has a tree-lined sidewalk, he is strolling on a street lane dedicated to bus traffic. The driver does a quick jog around him. I'm off the bus and down the street to grab breakfast. After I eat, I am inspired to scout out a trail to work I discovered on the map. It winds through a forest scene out of The Hobbit. I can feel the twists and turns becoming programmed into my brain. This trail passes through both neighborhoods and borders of economic class. The following evening, it's after work as I roll up on the stop for my first bus home. As I am unpacking the rack on my bike, I see tonight's random rotating character. He is crossing the middle of the parkway. He's middle-aged and in a skinny-brimmed hat, blue tank top, grey shorts, and a khaki backpack with a band across the chest, connecting the shoulder straps. With a grey beard, he strikes me as some kind of stylin' rebel retiree. The bus comes along to collect us all. Along the way, we pick up a couple perhaps In their sixties. The Mrs. appears to be in charge, quizzing the driver about the direction of their destination. Satisfied that directions are adequate, she then instructs the guy to enter the bus. They both hobble to seats, where the guy repeatedly opens his eyes and mouth in a kind of bewildered amazement, looking up above the windows. His eyes appear bloodshot.
...watching a TED talk... "This guy had an LED drone... ...the lights dim to...dramatic lighting. I thought it looked like a sermon. Like a...candle in his hand..." When the drone left the speaker's hands [, the crowd] "looked completely blown away... It looked like...when people would be very wide-eyed looking at this very mystical thing happening in front of them." - Boulder Weekly, 5/3/2018
BEARDED DREADY GUY ...committed to selling river rocks and necklace beads made of quartz. He makes his own clothes and will dance exactly the same - the smiling hippie sway - no matter the...music... He responds to "Jah." CARGO SHORTS GUY He may pair his...shorts with a braided leather belt... He may be wearing one of those giant, techy sun hats the size of a satellite dish. THE HEY, I KNOW YOU GUY He doesn't know you, but the 37 beers and whatever else he's downed make him think otherwise. ...he pushes past your personal space bubble to close-talk you. He will...try to convince you that you know each other. Many stories will be told, many stories. Still, this guy does not know you. INFLATABLE HAMMOCK GUY ...he runs about in attempt to inflate one of those giant blow-up hammocks that look like the subject of a Georgia O'Keefe painting... RED AND BLACK FLANNEL GUY ...has super duper skinny jeans on and his Red Wing boots have never seen dirt. He is Instagrammably adorable. His manicured shadow beard may have glitter within it...or smells of cinnamon and nutmeg. BACKPACK GUY Find him...at a packed post-fest bar or waddling and bumping through the hordes of a late night concert. SSSHH GUY ...ponytail is tied a little too tight. He never dances. His arms are almost always crossed. "Ssshh," he says. - Elevation Outdoors, 5/2018
Friday morning. I step onto my crosstown bus to work. An elderly guy in front looks at me with his mouth open. The lenses of his prescription glasses make his eyes appear too large. I disembark at my stop, run into the supermarket for a bottle of soda, and then I am off on the newly discovered trail to see if I can find an indoor waterpark on the way to work. Find it I do. And I discover that, with my "Tier Two" level municipal gymnasium membership, it will be only $2 each time I use the gym...as well as the waterpark. I never thought I would be able to swim before work again. I get back out on the trail to head to work. The trail is beautiful, in the middle of open space. The following day, I'm at the stop out front of where I live. It's misting rain. I watch as a couple of tiny Vietnamese women cross the intersection. The pair comes over to the stop and the bus arrived. When they get onboard, one of them attempts to hand her fare to the driver. He motions for her to put her bills and coins into the fare box. He then points to the transfer just printed by the computer. I get out and head over to my weekend breakfast place. Out of the door comes a weathered guy. He notices my umbrella and says, "Good thing to have today." His bike is parked near the door. A cigarette butt lays on the rack on the back.
At some point this week, a truck with California plates showed up in my parking lot. It has a rowboat over the bed and on the hitch is a mirror-silver camper. Around the camper is a black frame speckled with green paint. A couple of times, an elderly Hispanic guy came out to polish the camper. He had a purple bandanna around his head. On Tuesday, I am home from work and listening to local TV news. There is a report of a woman in a metro area municipality, arrested for damage she did along a sidewalk in front of multiple businesses. In her mug shot, she appears to be in her sixties. She is accused of pulling flowers out of twenty big planters ans throwing them on the concrete at 2 AM. She made the statement that she wishes the city spent as much on ending homelessness as it did on planting flowers. I watch the reporter laugh as he reads her statement. Wednesday is a beautiful morning with sunshine in place of rain clouds. I board my crosstown bus to work. Sitting up front is a guy who is perhaps my age, talking to a friend, telling a story about something coming into contact with his mouth. Whatever this thing is was, he claims, "150 degrees," and he had to go to the hospital. He is wearing overalls rolled up at the cuffs. In the pockets of his bib are an assortment of pens, including neon highlighters.
Thursday. Either today or yesterday, I notice that the silver camper and truck are gone. I step out of my door shortly before 8:30 AM. I see a guy who appears homeless. He is barely able to say "good morning." He is placing some kind of advertisements on each doorknob of my townhome complex. An hour and a half later I am rolling down my newly discovered trail to work. I approach a bridge behind a guy running. He comes to a halt as a golden colored lab aggressively approaches him. The dog's owner is a blonde woman in a neck brace. She has trouble corralling the dog. Eleven and a half hours later, I am rolling up to the stop for my last bus home. I watch as a yelling drunk is stumbling toward the stop, carrying a can. As loud as he is I can't make out what he is saying. He reaches the bench and, with a big swipe, knocks off whatever debris wan there. I decide to roll up to the stop before this one. I get to that stop just in time to catch the bus. Last night I rode this bus with a screaming young woman, presumably with mental challenges. She was displaying photos on her phone of her family. This evening, we roll past the drunk at the stop in front of the Muslim doughnut shop. he is passed out on the bench, the can in his hands on his lap.
Onboard, I have a seat behind a guy with grey hair down his back. He has a cap with the word ENEMY sewn on the front and a T-shirt with an image of Jesus in sunglasses. Seated behind me is a derelict woman in her sixties. She is matchstick thin, in a black tank top and a camouflaged hat. Behind her is a derelict guy. She is talking to another younger woman seated directly across from her. The younger woman appears odd, her skin pale and waxy. Her face has a couple of scratches on it. She mentions to the older one that she has a roommate who is headed to rehab. Then, I hear the young woman tell the other, "I'm dying." She mentions it in passing, as if the older one already knows. Perhaps those are sores on her face, not scratches. The young one tells the older one that she is getting out, and asks her if she wants anything to eat. She asks her several times, and each time the older one declines. The young one, having pulled the cord to signal the next stop, tells the driver, "I'm not getting out, she's not hungry." When she does disembark, someone outside asks her, "How you doin'?" She replies, "Fuckin' terrible." The guy in the Jesus shirt and ENEMY hat also gets out. I then notice that he carries a bright orange walking stick. If the power of the blind Jesus fails him and his hat fails to menace, the traffic will surely spot the stick. Another guy gets on. He's drunk and complaining all the way to my own stop about how the police have all the rights and citizens have none. "Charges that are just bullshit. Tresspass, open container..." he complains. After him, a guy gets on with his shirt off. He puts it on as we roll on and he gets out at the very next stop. I get out at the very next stop and head over to the Chinese place. I watch out of the window as the usual panhandler slowly, slowly makes his way across the parking lot with a confederate. He has a seat in his usual spot. His pal disappears. As I head home across the street, I watch him approach a minivan pulling into a spot. The driver hands him some money.
Friday. I'm on my way to a doctor's appointment before work. I ride up the street to my old bus stop, around 7:30 AM. I arrive just in time to catch it. Down the avenue we come upon a stop with a couple. The guy waves the driver on but he stops anyway. The woman asks if this bus goes to the train. If the transit system is not a primary mode of transit for them, then why are they catching the bus? Therefore, if it is a primary mode of theirs, they don't know where this one goes? The only other route on this street also goes to the same train station, but that bus is far less frequent. Would the guy be familiar with the less frequent route and not with this one, and this I why he waved the driver past? The residents of these streets can lead a bystander into an H. Mobius loop. Perhaps this street should be renamed H. Mobius. They enter and take a seat. The guy has a pair of construction helmets. The woman had purple hair held back with a clip and a black hoodie covered in skulls. And they're headed for the train. I catch the train at the station, which takes me to the opposite end of town. I have a couple of hours before my appointment. I head up the street to an IHOP for breakfast. I enter behind a family, and just before I pass through the door, a guy on a bench outside turns toward me. He asks if I have any spare change. And yes, he refers to me as "Bro." The hostess asks the father how many in his family to be seated. He jokes, "Nineteen."
After work, I'm off the first bus and on the last bus home. There is an obvious Caucasian, a twentysomething who enters and takes a seat. He is on his phone and speaking in that groovy, know-it-all voice of a future leader here today. In shorts and tennis shoes, he looks like he wants to be recognized as from the street. He's on his phone, however, talking about having a business meeting. What he's been doing on the street is tracking down leads, having lunch with a potential lead at a university, He meets a "woman who's ready to buy. Okay, catch you later," he tells someone on the phone. "Sweeet!" he exclaims after he hangs up. Another guy gets onboard. He's carrying two speakers, each in a plastic bag from a dollar store. In his pocket is an open can inside a paper bag. I think it's Tecate. A third guy gets on, who the second knows. The third has just arrived from Texas. Both Caucasian guy and the guy with speakers get out at the train.
The grand opening of Denver's Four Seasons Hotel had...the $325 admission fee... OneRepublic played...while aerial performers fluttered above and stilt-walkers stooped to serve hors d'oeuvres. Guests took turns riding a mechanical bull, sampled...the Willy Wonka dessert room... ...the...rooms...would command...even $1,000 a night, and speculated about the multimillion-dollar private residences not ye completed. ...the year being 2010 - back when the Denver Post could still afford the luxury of a society columnist...who left the newspaper sixteen months later and died in 2016. ...the Mile HIgh City had finally landed..one of the most esteemed brands in the world of luxury hotels. ...ready to take its place among the truly cosmopolitan cities of the globe. ...had emerged from the Great Recession of 2007-09 stronger than ever, with a...cultural scene appealing to...trust-funders and tech kings - the kind of folks who stayed at the Four Seasons... "From 1979 until 1982"...most developers still scoffed at the notion that people might actually want to live downtown. "Denver was on fire in the early 1980s...until the savings-and-loan crisis." By 1985, Colorado led the nation in business failures. [It was] 1988. Downtown Denver became known for its procession of empty office buildings...and super-cheap rents. - Westword, 5/17-23/2018
[With] Police...warnings...some...say it's pointless to comply. "They gave me several warnings. I needed a place to sleep." ...to avoid police and parks rangers, [homeless are] fleeing...to a vacant patch of woods beyond the county line. "We were able to camp right outside the Denver border...for two or three month." Others are going to Federal heights, Englewood and other suburbs... {Homeless] people are moving into less safe places. "They got pushed off of well lit, well trafficked, policed areas..." - Denver Herald, 5/17/2018
Approximately 5,000 of Denver's 700,000 [county] residents are homeless..
Denver experienced a boom in recent years that was fueled by tech as companies...began looking outside...Silicon valley and Boston... ...with fast-paced growth in high-wage industries come...new concerns about visible poverty. In the same month that ChooseColorado.com touted Denver's ascension, Denver Out Loud documented a 500 percent increase in...homeless sweeps..
Denver came to a place...of Billions in economic growth... ...in an urban setting, the poor...are stepped on so people can make a buck. It's the tory of 21st Century cities... ...Denver...acted like an invading army. [The homeless were told] 'if you leave, this will stop.' After all the buildings have been built, and everyone's stocks go up, they try to put a different face on it. You got a guy walking around, typically a veteran, with a couple of pictures of his mom and maybe a cellphone - his last connection to his support system. The police will come and take his phone, property, and trash it. [Denver Homeless Out Loud] hit the streets at 5 a.m. to find witnesses. They take declarations in back alleys. America has a really weird relationship with private property. - Denver Voice, 5/2018
Sunday. After yesterday's goose chase to track down an address from the internet, which hasn't actually existed for six years. I am on my way to a library which I am confident still exists. My computer is on the blink. What I will discover at the library is that, though other computers will allow me to access this blog, the computers at the library will not. And my camera is exhibiting behavior which I have never seen before. So I am first off to the only camera store I know of in town. I find a way there which I believe is the quickest from the train. It takes me through streets which I rode on my way to and from work a decade ago, when I lived in this neighborhood. I cruise past the John Paul II Center for Evangelization, which I assume is closed on Sunday. The clerk at the camera store assures me that my camera is not misbehaving, and before I know it, I am having lunch at Denver's famously hyped Union Station. I sit in front of an open fountain which smells like chlorine. The only thing on the menu which is in my diet is an appetizer.
Tuesday morning. The crosstown bus to work is headed for the transfer hub. On a bench along the way is a cardboard sign which has been left behind. It reads, "2 honest 2 steal 2 ugly 2 strip." Tuesday evening. On the crosstown bus home, we pick up a passenger who the driver appears to know. She asks him about his daughter and tells him to hang in there. He appears to be a quiet guy. I arrive at the stop for my last bus home, where three passengers wait. After a glance through a window at a clock, I conclude that I have missed the last bus and have a half hour until the next. I make for a deathburger and some food before returning to find that all three have gone. Picked up by a late bus? I can't say. A young woman comes along who is altogether different than the usual parade of wandering ghouls. She is Caucasian, in cute denim shorts with shoulder length combed hair. It isn't dyed a neon color. She strikes me as a college student. Instead of asking for money, or a cigarette, she need me to break a ten for the bus. When the bus arrives, she and I get onboard. Not far down the road, the passenger from the other bus comes inside, the one who was chatting with the previous driver. He has a seat and gets on his phone, and is much more forthcoming with whoever is on the other end of the phone. He mentions being a former gangbanger who is currently studying to be a doctor. He's in a custody battle with his ex over the daughter and claims his ex abused both of them. He mentions that she lives with her parents and that she doesn't have a job. He complains that she has custody because "she's white and I'm black. I'll try the courts," he says, "If that don't work, there's gonna be a lot of dead judges."
The following morning I am on a bus up the street. This driver's lack of expression makes it seem as if he has seen it all. He picks up a passenger who I see in the morning all the time. I suddenly realize that he may be a guy I've seen riding this route one recent and rainy evening, when he acted verbally menacing to a driver he accused of driving recklessly with his kid onboard. He's a young guy with a couple of kids along. The driver tells him to fold his stroller, which he does and puts on the flat surface above the right front wheel well. The driver looks at him in the rearview mirror and shakes his head. "Why you shaking your head bro? What you shaking your head for? You just told me to break it down bro." In a quiet voice, the driver tells him that he as a driver is responsible if he brakes hard, and the folded stroller goes flying off and impacts another passenger. The guy takes it down. "Happy now?" he asks. His oldest child, perhaps four, sits quietly on the seat directly in front of me. His hands are folded and he wears a Superman shirt. Before we get to the train station, a woman gets out at a stop. before she does, she tells the young guy that he could have stowed his stroller where a woman is seated, next to an open space. She says that the woman should have moved for him. This woman is speaking Spanish on her phone, does not appear to notice the other woman, and perhaps would not have understood her anyway. When we do arrive at the train, passengers get out, along with the guy and his kids, and more come onboard. The door closes and the driver pulls up to a red light. A young, tall, bald Caucasian guy with tattoos on his neck knocks on the door. The driver ignores him. He flips off the driver.
After work, I'm at the stop for my last bus home. There are four people all perhaps in their thirties here who appear related. There are a couple of men who are both bald and a pair of women. One of the women is wearing a blouse with Hussey Queen on the front in pink letters. The other asks me if I have a phone she can use. The group has a toddler with them. They walk off. An older guy comes along. He asks me if I have a cigarette I "want to sell?"
...my...car heading south, the neat little American towns looked like they were on a Hollywood set. The soft green countryside and the clapboard houses sailed past. How neat those little gardens were with their flowers and children's swings. Was I only 6,000 miles away from Lebanon - or on a different planet? There were Episcopalian churches and smart Georgian courthouses and towns called Cornelia and Magnolia Acres flicking past, and a gun store... And so many flagstaffs... And so many...American flags snapping... There had not been a war in these parts, I thought, for 150 years. ...for almost thirty years... I have sat on my balcony over the Mediterranean... I came...when I was just twenty-nine years old...doing the same job ever since, chronicling the betrayals...of Middle East history... I am still twenty-nine. - Fisk
...the term "visionary" art feels a little pretentious... More bluntly, [compared to visionary art] is psychedelic art, often [created] while on hallucinatory drugs...to bring that vibrant parallel world back to the rest of us. "I was a closet psychedelic artist. It wasn't something that was thought of highly by my peers. I went to this show and saw...guys do psychedelics, make art, and...celebrated for that, where I had been kind of demonized for that. So I decided to switch teams then and there. This group of people was more in line with my values and the things I believe in." ...a search for collective meaning... ...LSD's role...is to filter out the noise...that keeps us from hearing our inner voices and each other. "Art is...the most accurate technology you can use to try to communicate [psychedelic experiences]." - Boulder Weekly, 5/24 2018
This year's Memorial Day weekend is all about having a cold and no sleep. This week, my shifter cables have been doing a funky dance, never coming out of gear. I stop into a drug store up the street. Though it isn't 8 AM yet, which is when I thought they opened, they are open. It turns out that they now are open at 7 AM. On a Sunday. Swee-hee-heet. There are two people in this store, myself and a grey-haired guy in a powder blue Polo shirt with the store logo on the breast. He moves as if, rather than through air, through invisible molasses. I'm here to fill out an envelope for a roll of film and the only pen in the entire store is behind an unknown counter, or perhaps locked in a safe. I approach the guy behind the counter. "Can...I...help...you...sir?" he eventually finishes asking me. I ask for a pen. "A what?" Outside it's a beautiful morning. My options to a train are a bus east or a bus north. The first is forty minutes away. The second is less than fifteen, but I will have to switch trans. I decide that I can make it to a train fastest on the bike. Along the way, I stop into a 24-hour breakfast place. One waitress takes my order. I pull out a pen to write these words, and a second waitress asks me if I have her pen. I originally decide to ride to the bike shop instead of on a train and then all the way through downtown. It's 9:30 AM on a Sunday. I'm never out this early on my bike but I hope to hit the shop when it opens, which ain't 'till eleven.
I approach downtown from the south, rolling past old Victorian homes owned by Caucasians. One guy is out in his front yard, with what appears to be a small cement mixer. It makes noise like a car which won't start. He appears to be bent over looking at it. I roll past the bike shop, which won't be open for another hour. The weather has turned warm and I head for the homeless central deathburger, past old apartment buildings to the north of the state capitol. There are twenty-something women, possibly single, walking their dogs. I imagine this same tree-lined street a century before Taylor Swift, the same women walking their dogs. At the deathburger I grab a soda and have a seat. Through the window I watch a young guy hobble along the pedestrian mall with a black spirit stick. I head back to the bike shop, where a clerk cranks the wheels and measures my chain with a caliper. The shifter cables are shot. It's time for a new bike. This one's been with me for the past two and a half years, over many miles. The day is quite the adventure. I'm trying to get out to the opening weekend of the water park where I had last summer's adventure. I grab a bus to the train station, where i spot the bus I used to take to work before 6 AM several years ago. It will take me to the water park, and i can find someplace to grab lunch along the way. We crawl down the street, through one train station, and back down the street. I spot a place called the Full House Bar & Grill. It's more bar than grill. I'm locking my bike up next to the patio when a bald Caucasian guy with a red bandanna around his head says, "Hey man, no one's gonna touch your bike." Inside it's mostly loud grey-haired guys at the bar and pool table. The decor is circa Pizza Hut and Applegate's Landing from four decades past. The cook introduces herself. She a skinny woman in her sixties. She's in U.S. flag socks, a U.S. flag socks, and on her head are a couple of stars on springs. She introduces me to the bartender, a woman perhaps in her thirties in short denim shorts. Both are very nice
I have my swim and am on a train north back home. We pass over a highway where I see a black SUV upside down in the westbound lane. Glass from the front windshield is all over the road. There are three police cars blocking oncoming traffic. From the train to a bus, I am coming down a "residential" street in my neighborhood. I pass a home with a street racing car parked on the street. A bald guy dressed in a black tank top and black pants stands next to it. Two other bald guys, dressed all in black are in the front yard. The front of the home is tagged with graffiti and Mexican music pours from the open front door. The following evening I am even closer to home. At dusk, I have just stepped off the last bus home from work. A guy who I have never seen before rides up to me to tell me that I have "a nice bike." The bike I have been lumbering upon today, with a head cold and not enough sleep since last Friday, is a $99 bike from Walmart. He has mucus running down his face from his nose. Nice face. Then he says, "Here's my story..." I ride off, to which h replies, "There he goes." The following morning, I am on a bus up the street to work. I got some sleep last night, for the first evening in almost a week. I take a seat behind a guy in a sleeveless shirt, on the front of which is "Do me a favor and stop talking." A woman gets on wearing a winter coat on a warm morning. It has a couple of patches. One is a black and white American flag. The other is a gun sight, around which are the words, "This is my peace sign." A guy gets on and stops in front of an amusement park employee. Her name tag apparently reads Essence. "Is your name really Essence?" he asks her. Unless her tag is stolen, I imagine so. "My dog's name is Mystery," he mentions. That's a good name for him as well. The bus heads over a bridge over the interstate. On a pole is one of those radar signs which reads, "This is your speed." This particular sign is seriously fucked up. It starts at 19 mph, then immediately goes to 35 MPH, then back down to 20. I wonder if it's getting interference from the traffic below the bridge. A middle aged guy gets on board. He's in a Star Wars T-shirt and has a cross around his neck. It is with these visions that another month comes to an end.
