Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Adventures at Nickelsville

Back in the 60s I was a rally chaser. Missing a rally or a march would be like missing an episode of Star Trek. An enormous sense of grief would come over me, made worse by the knowledge that there would be no summer reruns in the case of the rallies and marches.


[Above: May 5, 1970. I was there. The Yellow Indicatrix tells you where. I am NOT between the other protesters and the Tac Squad. I am on the northbound on-ramp. No friend of head trauma, I.]

Now, though, I just want to sit in my little corner in my tiny room and watch the world go by on CNN and the internet. When a public gathering presents an opportunity to be arrested it only strengthens my resolve to hide out in my room, owing to desmoteriophobia (fear of dungeons).

Not all of us have such fear. Saturday I opened up the Seattle P-I to find none other than my beloved Anitra "Smiling Buddha" Freeman gazing blissfully up at a policeman about to haul her radical-hippy ass off to jail. The possibility that this time they could just leave her there and forget to tell anyone either did not occur to her, or it goosed her, or she'd gone batspit crazy and thought the policeman was Wilford Brimley come to take her to Antarea, where she'd be young forever, and learn break-dancing from Don Ameche.

Anitra was getting arrested for refusing to leave alleged city land upon which Nickelsville had been set up. You may recall that two weeks ago Nickelsville was a homeless peoples' shantytown only in potentia. On Friday of last week it was very much concrete, and as Mayor Nickels wanted it to return to being an abstract idea, he sent the police to try to make it so.

Before Anitra got arrested there was a scene, broadcast on KING TV, of her telling residents of Nickelsville ("Nickelodeons") three options the police had laid out. I've watched the video over and over, trying to figure out the logic of the three options. It sounds like what she said the police were saying was the Nickelodeons' options were EITHER 1) stay and be arrested OR 2) go away and not be arrested, OR 3) go away with shipoopy, and no kiss.

I was actually there to witness that episode and the subsequent 22 arrests, in spite of my aforementioned phobia, because I'd spent the night before boiling peanuts for my sweetheart not considering that, what with her spending the night in a fuchsia tent at Nickelsville and then surely wanting to stick around to be jailed, and me without a teleportation device, I would have to go there to deliver her the peanuts. So I went, and it was just coincidence that the police vans were arriving from the donut shop just the same time I arrived by bus.

It's the story of my life. I boil some peanuts for someone, then I think, oops, got to deliver the peanuts. I get there just as the cops do. Oh, look, doggies!

It all worked out half well though. I did not get arrested. Anitra got caught and released. Governor Gregoire granted a reprieve to Nickelsville itself, letting the Nickelodeons cram as many tents onto a state owned parking lot as could fit, out of reach of the mayor. I got to talk to the people the mayor sent from Human Services to refer Nickelodeons to "proper" shelter in the system, and I tried to find out how they could do that with a straight face knowing that the shelters are full every night. Answer: they don't think about that. They just pass out referral cards to whoever takes them and call it a job done.

Here's your irony adventure: Some people took the cards and went to be referred to the shelter that the mayor keeps saying is there for them, and the referral agency gave them bus tickets and sent them back to Nickelsville!

Greg Nickels is like the owner of a row boat trying to bail it out with a Dixie cup after it's already sunk in 10 feet of water. Greg Nickels is a fool.

2 comments:

forrest said...

Hi Wes,
I see that nothing has changed since Anne & I were active (except your Governor sounds like an improvement!)

But you're still writing wonderful pieces! We intend to resurrect 'Street Light' on our return to San Diego... and I want to snatch your bailout column; I've read a bushel of serious heretic economists who made a lot of sense (~'Market instabilities did it, just like Minsky predicted in 1987!') but didn't achieve anything near your succinct, bottom line explanation (~This is about houses, and I'd like one, please!)

Anyway, we're enjoying a miraculous vacation (soft bed in castle, even nights; floor of hippypad full of antique instruments on odd nights; way too many nummy deserts and expensively uglified churches for our health) here in Austria where the govt houses homeless people (unless they're furiners from the other side of some nearby border) until we return to our no-livingroom housing overlooking San Diego's Hooker Hiring Boulevard (& thump-thump muzak appreciation driving area) It's been a change.

Methane trickles up.... but maybe we can still have Fun With Gooddeeds before the oceans turn entirely to sodypop and the world's fauna is downsized to gerbils & cockroaches?

BAJ said...

Well, don't expect to much of any politician or other power freaks who have money flying out their backside. They are fragile beings for whom it is not easy to understand other peoples. Furthermore how can anybody expect them to understand a world they are not even living in. They need help more than anybody. Imagine you were that inconsiderate and out of touch with reality, wouldn't you like people to help you back on track? It is sad that today, with all our knowledge and wisdom, we still consider being a politician a job and not a mental disease.