New dance move: The Swerve
A Crum-Skull.
“Life is a bad neighborhood.”
–Tom B. Taker
Oh, out on a lonely stretch of road
Beware o’ that unwritten code
Make an illegal pass again
He’ll leave you a fucking road stain
‘Cause the asshole is a person in your neighborhood
In your neighborhood
He’s in your highwayhood
An asshole is an asshole in your neighborhood
A person that you street each day
Life is hard. We all get that. Some of us, though, are a bit more proactive. We take that knowledge then go out there and do what little we can to make it even harder.
There are people who walk among us who do shitty things. Unimaginable assholes. In the old days they’d get away with it. But now, because lots of us cover ourselves with video cameras when we step out of the house, every once in a while one of them gets nabbed with their dirty mitts in the cookie jar.
Meet William Crum, age 68. Angry. White. Elderly. Texan. While out driving a two-lane blacktop with a double-yellow line he was illegally passed by a motorcyclist. We know what happened next because another motorcycle rider who was following behind got the entire thing on video.
As the motorcycle attempted to pass, Crum’s vehicle sharply and “violently” swerved and sideswiped the motorcycle, sending the two people on the bike to the ground. The motorcyclist suffered cuts and road burns. His girlfriend passenger, however, was airlifted to the hospital with more serious injuries. After spending time in intensive care she was moved to a regular room and is now in stable condition.
Confronted at the scene, Crum was recorded on video making this statement: “I don’t care. Double yellow stripes. I got stung by a wasp.”
Crum refused to apologize to the motorcyclist, saying, “To her [he would] … but to him, no, because he was doing something illegal.”
I now break out my Asshole Decoder Ring and offer the following analysis:
- Crum. Probably the best-named human of all time.
- “I don’t care.” Hmm. This statement reads on the meter as sincere. We’ll take him at his word.
- “Double yellow stripes.” This goes to state of mind. What’s the most important notion stuck in his craw after wreaking violence on other human beings? Apparently he was fixated on the criminality of illegal passing. This is a solid piece of evidence that his swerve was intentional.
- “I got stung by a wasp.” Now this is an interesting non sequitur. I can find no news coverage confirming if this has been medically confirmed. My guess? It’s a little self-defense tip he picked up from the book Always Blame Road Rage on Our Friends the Bees.
- “He was doing something illegal.” There you have it. Judge. Jury. Swervecutioner.
- Irony: While swerving to take out his victims, Crum crossed the double-yellow line himself, thus literally crossing the line from brooding hero vigilante to rabid criminal scum.
What do you think? Was it intentional? The police seem to think so. Crum has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury.
Sorry, Mr. Crum. I don’t dance.
Stuck on #PDX
Portland motorists confused by a power outage.
I live in Portland, Oregon, which mostly receives electrical power from Portland General Electric. Founded in 1888 the company was eventually owned by Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 until Enron went bankrupt.
See? I just used a writing technique known as foreshadowing.
Foreshadowing is a literary device by which an author hints what is to come.
–Wikipedia
By dropping the name Enron, you are now on notice that this story does not bode well. The portends are decidedly not in our favor. It’s time to omen up.
Yes, I’m being mysterious. I’m trying to leave you in the dark. Just like Portland General. Bazinga!
Being a major metropolitan area, the City of Portland is designed with security and reliability in mind. Power outages simply do not happen unless:
- The wind blows up to one (1) mph
- A squirrel gets hungry
- Water magically falls from the sky
- A drunk person, in a trillion-to-one event, rams their car into a pole
Such simple criteria means the city loses power about every 42 minutes. Who knew that cramming 625,000 people in the same area would make stuff happen? Yes, I live in a city where squirrels are frequently blamed for power outages.
At least Portland is safe. No one, not even a terrorist, could ever fuck with this city unless:
- A tweaked out kid needs to take a whiz in a city resevoir
- The wind blows and a branch falls and an entire power grid goes haywire
- Water magically falls from the sky
Portland has many names. The City of Roses. Bridgetown. Stumpdown. Rip City. Little Beirut. PDX. Cloud City. But, during autumn at least, it could also be known as The City of Leaves. (Leaves are the unpredictable byproduct of shitloads of trees.) And the city has a great strategy for dealing with them. “Clean ’em up your own damn self. You want your storm drains to work? Better get on it. By the way, we’re adding a street fee. You need to pay more taxes for this.”
So it rained on Sunday. We were out running errands. We had to retrace our steps. We drove through St. Johns. Then it started to rain. An hour later we went through the same area. It had already flooded the size of Lake Erie. It wasn’t even a heavy rain.
There had been a few brief gusts of wind. So, yeah, the power was already out. We pulled into a bar just as thunderous lightning spooked everyone in the place. They were amazed. Lightning? Wowwee. Perhaps Portland has exactly the power company it deserves?
We continued on our way and that’s when I noticed it. The traffic signals were are dark. None of them were red. None were yellow. None were green.
You know what that means, right? The entire city went Starman on steroids. Perhaps we can add “Starport City USA” to our lengthy list of nicknames?
[Starman is driving the car, and speeds across a recently turned red light, causing crashes for the other motorists]
Starman: Okay?
Jenny Hayden: Okay? Are you crazy? You almost got us killed! You said you watched me, you said you knew the rules!
Starman: I do know the rules.
Jenny Hayden: Oh, for your information pal, that was a *yellow* light back there!
Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.
Apparently the collective wisdom of the hipster lumbersexuals in PDX is this: No street light, go very fast.
That’s weird because the law says an unpowered traffic signal is to be treated as a four-way stop. It’s so weird that no one in Portland knew that. Keep Portland weird.
So we sat at an intersection watching an endless stream of cars whiz by at top speed and we never got a turn. To pass the time we celebrated several birthdays. And I plotted revenge. Now I understand where Joker, Riddler and Penguin are coming from.
This may be my last blog post for a while. I’ve decided to keep my computer turned off when I think Portland General will be unable to keep the grid powered. By my calculations that means I’ll have a 42-minute window of electricity per day.
Baby You Can Drive My Truck
The batter is warmed up, in the on deck circle. I love spring. He even has his Nike batting glove on.
Everyone has a right to my opinion and I carry a toilet plunger to make sure it’s forced as deep as possible down your throat.
I’m talking about, of course, everyone on the internet. That’s pretty much what it has come down to, right?
Take, for example, a video posted two days ago on YouTube of a road rage incident described as “Redneck Road Rage” and “Instant Karma.” The video quickly went viral. As I write this post it already has over 5 million views. Wow.
Click here to be transported to a dream world of YouTube magic: Redneck Road Rage / Instant Karma
According to the description on the video, the woman was forced to disable comments after she was issued “umpteenth” death threats and called “a b!#$h/c$%t/whore/slut” a “billion” times.
Bridges and Icebergs
This right here is payback from way back I don’t play that
This right here is payback from way back I don’t play that
This right here is payback from way back I don’t play that
This right here is payback from way back I don’t play that
Recognize a real dime
When you see mine
And don’t try to be one
You fuckin peon
I been like Deion for eons
You ain’t nuttin but a biotch
Messed around and let me read up
I come back through and tear the street up
What did Chris Christie know and when did he know it? Did he order the code red? Can we handle the truth?
This post will explore none of those questions.
A recent poll found that 42 percent of Americans believe Christie has been telling the truth about “Bridgegate” and 44 percent believe he is not. The poll had a margin of error of about 3.5 percent. In other words, we’re not sure.
That makes sense because only those who know really know. For the rest of us, it’s just conjecture and opinion.
But, perhaps, will can still draw some conclusions. Let’s try.
For instance, let’s say we lift up a rock and see a potato bug. A single, solitary wiggly potato bug on freshly exposed earth who suddenly feels very unsure of his status in the universe. What can we make of this?
Is he the only one? Might there be more, perhaps if we lift more rocks? Which is the simplest explanation?
I submit that the simplest explanation is that where there is one it is likely there are more. The alternative is that what you see is a one-time-only occurrence which, although possible, may not be the most probable possibility.
If this line of reasoning holds water, then perhaps our inquisitiveness about things like Bridgegate should explore a totally different direction.
In other words, what if Bridgegate is just the tip of the iceberg?
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Travel Slog: Portland to Hood River
Last weekend my wife and I decided to go exploring from Portland to Hood River, Oregon. Our new hometown of Portland, of course, you probably know well from the documentary series Portlandia. We moved here to do our part to help keep Portland “weird.” I took that as a personal invitation.
The city of Hood River is located about 60 miles east of Portland, 30 miles north of Mount Hood, and up the mighty Columbia River, upriver of the Bonneville Dam. It’s well known for it’s apples and pears.
Most of the journey cuts through the geologic and massively impressive Columbia River Gorge. Multnomah Falls is a well known landmark visible from the highway along the way.
After visiting Hood River, we departed on a 35-mile scene drive north of town named the “Fruit Loop” that wound its way through “orchards, forests, farmlands, delicious fruits, wineries, fields of fragrant lavender, and adorable alpacas.”
Of course my travel slog photography includes practically none of that scenic stuff. Below please enjoy other things that happened to catch my eye instead.
Eye Shant Pee Removed
I’ve got good news for everyone. Gather round. Verily, hear unto me. I shall speaketh the words of The Move.
Oh, and the good news? My memory ain’t what it used to be. So I’ve forgotten about 99.99% of the laments I wished to document in this post. That’s good news for you, the loyal reader.
These are the facts as we know them right now. On or about Thursday, June 13th, a 26′ foot U-Haul truck rolled over my existence. The next four days of my life were consumed by dreams of said truck, with visions of boxes filling my head. Morning, noon and nights whiled away whilst moving boxes in and out of The Great Truck.
That’s about all I remember, really. The Tom B. Taker y’all knew is dead. He’s been replaced by this empty nutshell.
Oh, one other thing. The process of unloading our precious possessions (my precious!) into our new home necessitated the reality that doors remained open for convenience. The doors gaped wide open for two days straight. During this time, the local flora and fauna made use of the opportunity to move in with us. They made themselves right at home. Really, though, it was mainly flies with a few spider mascots thrown in for good measure.
Sunday, after returning the abomination of a U-Haul truck, I dragged my broken body through that portal into the new dimension. As the portal closed behind me, I gravely regarded the gathered throng of flies.
I collapsed into the assembled legions of my follows and they caught me and I was lifted up by millions of furiously beating little wings. “Daddy’s home,” I bellowed. “What the fuck is this? Amityville?” The flies parted and the walls began to gushing blood and they bowed to their new Lord…
Oh, beloved Musca Domestica! At least when humans are forced to turn to insects for survival I’ll already have my very own ready-to-go meal.
Luckily, like I indicated earlier, that’s about all I remember, so the story ends here. Hallelujah!
Highway To Wazzit?
Highway To Heaven starred Michael Landon as an angel on probation, sent to Earth and given assignments by The Boss to help troubled souls.
Shouts From The Abyss stars yours truly as a self-proclaimed guru of negativity, given (purloined) a blog which serves as a metaphorical highway where daily poop bullshit is dispensed to The Reader.
The parallels are uncanny.
Hell, I’m just like Johnny Appleseed only slightly different. And, like Mr. Appleseed, I’ve got places to go and things to do. For that I will, occasionally, use a highway.
Highway to Hell was a rockin’ little ditty by AC/DC.
One thing is for sure: That’s a lot of highways! And the other day I was on one of them.
Verily I say unto you, the highways shall be covered with billboards and they shall be legion but do not be tempted by the advertising messages contained therein lest thou’st risk thy immortal soul for they are abomination.
—The Book of Guru, Transportation Chapter
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. A serendipitous journey dappled with billboards containing messages like “Eat at Joe’s” and “Billboard Space Available.” Hell, who wouldn’t appreciate a journey like that? God forbid that even during the act of driving we might temporarily forget that the world is 24/7 after our wallets.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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