the world has turned and left me here

mystery in a blue car

Who knows what weird tragedy is taking place in a car outside this forlorn apartment complex. It started about a week ago, I think, when a man pulled up in a blue car and a woman walked out with her dog to meet him. She talked to him through the passenger window for about 15 minutes. Then she walked back inside, and he drove off.

Now a blue car--I believe it to be the same blue car--has been parked out there for the last several days. I first became consciously aware of the blue car as I was pulling the blinds a few nights ago, at about 1:45 am, when I glimpsed two human figures down on the curb. I put in my contacts and sure enough there was a woman wrapped in a blanket and a man sitting next to her.

When I awoke the next morning and peered through blinds, the blue car was still there, and the two people were sleeping inside it under blankets. By itself this isn't so odd. But the setting is a busy street with nothing on it except this apartment complex. Whatever they're doing down there, 30 or so odd apartments are looking down on it, not to mention all the morning commuter traffic that often backs up to a standstill right beside them. In short this is not the sort of place anyone in their right mind would hole up for a few days. There are parks and campgrounds and quiet little suburban backstreets all around here. Why, then, right here in this most unwelcoming of places?

Last night I brought all this to the attention of Jonas. Together we observed the woman rock spasmodically forwards and backwards in the front seat, in a schizoid fugue state that went on unabated for at least an hour. Either she's nuts or in a state of extreme distress. The man reclined in the back seat throughout this display. Jonas and I went to buy binoculars (it's all too Rear Window, I know) but by the time we got back they had laid down to sleep.

Now it's the following night and, again, they're sleeping in their car. What could possibly be going on here? Are you as curious as me now? Any PBS "Mystery!" watchers or PI hopefuls reading this?

Here's my proposal: ask me any questions you like, and as long as the blue car is still out there, I'll do my best to find you an answer. Caveats: I'm not going to walk up to them and point-blank ask them what they're doing, and I won't do anything that would require too much time or buying a bunch of stuff. But pretty much anything else goes.

Or, if you think you've already solved it--and don't need to buy any vowels--shout it out.

ezee tiger

A guy in a squirrel suit smoking a cigarette and drinking a Bud. That's Ezee Tiger for you, and I missed him here Sunday night in Seattle. From a review in the stranger, I give you the funniest song description ever:

"...Petrovic's stuff definitely comes closer to the tumultuous dirge of the Load/Bulb Records rosters than the Creation catalog. Would My Bloody Valentine ever write a song like 'How to Rock... For Red Bennies?' The spastic 1:42 sprint hyperventilates down the fuse from typical instructional track to some freak having a weed smoking, puking explosion. 'I don't like to take stuff too seriously,' Petrovic explains. 'I just thought, wouldn't it be funny if this sounded like a guitar lesson, but then the guy gets really wasted and shits his pants.'"

drunken rich girl loses face

Downtown last night, a group of drunken beautiful people file out of a bar. Jonas and I watch in disbelief as one of the girls runs into a "No Parking" sign with her face.

"Are you okay?" I ask. Her head lolls backwards to address me and she slurs, "Don't worry, it was just a joke." Right. The sign is still oscillating wildly like a giant metronome anchored to the sidewalk. It's very possible she broke some bones in her face, I'm thinking.

Drunken rich girl, you have no idea how happy you just made me.

crutch-stealing bmx kid

A hipster house party turns ugly when this 19-year-old drunken bmx kid tries to steal a girl's crutch. It's unclear why he did this. She had a broken foot & had gone to sleep hours ago, so there was no imaginable motive. Her hipster guy friends, though, were good enough to chase bmx kid down for her. A lame fistfight ensues in the middle of the street, and bmx kid eventually gets chased off.

Then in a save-face move he undoes his wallet chain--a big heavy wallet chain--and comes running back. Justin & I watch him go inside. There are shouts and glass-smashing sounds, and one of his friends gets on the phone with the cops. I turn to Justin & suggest we split.

Halfway home he realizes he left something back at the party & we turn back. I'm very apprehensive about going back, in cop avoidance mode you know, but Justin refuses to be talked out of it. So I park on a dark sidestreet and wait for him. He comes out a few minutes later though & says all is well again, bmx kid has been arrested, so we end up hanging out with the hipsters until dawn.

Everyone is remarkably cool & I just spectate. It takes me a while to realize these two guys who showed up together are a gay couple...not because one of them is indistiguishable from straight, but because no one makes a deal out of it. When dawn comes they leave with a girl from the house to go sleep in the back of camper-top truck down by the shore.

Occasionally friend-of-bmx-kid receives calls from bmx kid in which he threatens to break into a neighbor's house, steal his guns, and blast us all to bits. No one seems too concerned with these threats.

I must have passed out on the couch for a half hour or so. I'm still groggy when we leave so I let Justin drive. Mistake. White knuckles all the way home...I've underestimated the extent of his altered state. He is moving slow, like a stiff desert lizard coming out of his rock shadows in the morning, but the car is moving incredibly fast down these waterfall hills & around hairpin corners. He's drawling on about this & that & driving with his knees half the time. Seemingly, he's paying attention to everything but the road. It's all miraculous to me...each successive moment that I survive. The car might as well have been driving itself.

I wake up on a crappy couch about the size of my torso. It is almost 2 pm & I am in the University district somewhere. As usual, it's drizzling outside. I stumble out into the rain & find a place to eat a few blocks away. Then try out some basses in the music shop around the corner from Justin's before catching a bus downtown, where I walk into a Steinway dealership & try out grand pianos for a few hours more.

pinback

I am going to see Pinback today at neumos. You may gnash your teeth now. (Unless you're Joe, who saw them in Omaha last week.)

dropping rocks on people

Dream in which the new form of warfare is dropping rocks on people. To demonstrate, a small boulder is dropped on a nearby pickup truck, smashing the cab.

"Wow," I say, impressed.

"That's nothing." I'm directed to look beyond, where a desert scene stretches to the horizon. A giant cube of stone 5 city-blocks on a side falls majestically from the sky. The explosion is of extraordinary magnitude: billowing clouds of dust burst from the ground, in slow motion.

Now we're all sons of bitches.

with resolve

Audible gastrointestinal distress always makes for a tense atmosphere in the men's room. We wash our hands a little quicker, maybe forego soap & the dry-off altogether in our rush to escape. And I always wonder in such moments what poor uncouth shmuck can't control his only bodily sounds a little better than that.

But then today I realize: crapping loudly must be incredibly liberating. You are Jesus driving the money lenders from your temple with a bullwhip. This place is for crapping. Timid, apologetic crappers do not belong here; crap with resolve or leave. And you might as well enjoy it.