"You're here."

 

CRANKY OLD FART #298
leftovers & links
Friday, April 7, 2023

There's a genuine working phone booth at the bus stop on the island, and waiting for my bus back to the city a few days ago, a scruffy-looking teenager came by and checked the coin return. Just like the old days. 

I remember that. You'd almost never find a quarter, but... once in a while you would, and it might be this time, so you'd always check.

It's something I never thought I'd see — a scruffy-looking teenager on Millionaires' Island.

At a bus stop, I complimented a young woman on her 'Defy' baseball cap. "You see 'Obey' everywhere, but too many people obey already. 'Defy' is much better."

She earnestly explained the backstory of 'Obey', which I probably already knew but might have forgotten. "It's from a Rowdy Roddy Piper movie — oh, what was it called?"

"They Live," I said, and she was amazed that this old man at the bus stop knew about a cool old movie.

"So 'Defy' is a response to 'Obey' and They Live?" I asked.

"No, it's a wrestling thing," she said, and I googled it later and it is.

At a stop light, out the window of my bus was a young dad on the sidewalk, holding his cell phone in one hand and his infant son in both arms. The kid was crying so loud I could hear it through the bus's closed windows. Couldn't hear what his father said to the screaming kid, but from body language it was something soothing. What he was thinking, though, was Shut the fuck up.

For no apparent reason the kid suddenly stopped crying and instead bit his father's cell phone, very hard. I like to imagine he broke the screen, but the traffic light turned green and the bus rolled into traffic so who knows.

Here's something small, but it's been annoying me for a year: Where the walls meet the roof on the buses, there are ads, and ever since I came back to Seattle last year, I've noticed an ad that's recruiting for the Richmond Police Department. No experience necessary. Apply now at this website, and you could be making $53K to start.

That's Richmond, Virginia. How desperate are they, to find cops in Virginia? They're recruiting new hires from bus riders in Seattle, 3,000 miles away.

In addition to slowly self-destructing itself, baseball is also interfering with my commute. It's a curveball I hadn't expected.

On days when there's a ball game, a lot of people get to Mariners Stadium on the bus. My #550 from work to downtown is extra crowded with people who know nothing of bus etiquette, traffic moves slower on the long bridge across the lake, downtown is crammed with suburbanites trying not to see the bums and drunks, and the bus from downtown to home is jammed up and jelly tight near the stadium.

Even though I'm riding two hours before game time, I get home 15-20 minutes later on game nights, so kindly take your baseball and shove it up your ass.

When the bus pulls over to let me on, the driver almost always 'kneels' the front door, so it's less of a step for me. I've never asked.

Once I'm aboard and have flashed my fare card, the driver usually waits while I walk back and find a seat. For young passengers, they don't wait, they accelerate, but for fear of toppling an old-timer, meaning me, the driver waits. Sometimes I even say, "You don't have to wait, I'm OK here," but almost every time, the bus doesn't move until the fat codger sits down.

Guess I look old now, perhaps almost as old as I am.

Getting on the bus one morning, I noticed a blush of red on the gray vinyl seat, so I ran my thumb over it. None of the red came off, so I sat. 

I noticed, and then forgot about it.

Nobody said anything at work, but stripping down at home, yup, you guessed it, there's an unmissable red smooch on the left cheek of my pants. Which were gonna be my pants all week, but instead they've been tossed into the to-be-washed pile, and last week's pants will be re-enlisted to active duty.

On my ride home, I tapped a sleeping woman on the shoulder and said, "You're here." We were at the corner where she usually gets off, and the bus was stopping because I'd rung the bell half a block earlier. She said thanks and hopped off.

Not the first time I've done that, and other have done it for me, too, when I've napped on the bus. Tapping a shoulder is paying it forward.

An old guy was reading a newspaper on the bus this morning. Haven't seen that in ages. 

Newspapers are like seeing movies in a theater to me — I used to go to the movies at least once or twice weekly, and now I never do, and I used to subscribe to both local papers and sometimes buy the New York Times, but now, simply never.

I bought a local paper in Montana one morning a year ago, to read at a diner while I was doing the long drive from Wisc to Wash. Before that, I can't remember the last time I'd bought a newspaper, and after that I haven't.

Supporting good newspapers is a wise investment, so I subscribe online to the only semi-decent newspaper within hundreds of miles, the Seattle Times. But I read news the newfangled way, by surfing everywhere that interests me, not just one newspaper. Today I'll read articles from two dozen newspapers and half a dozen magazines, and I can't pay for all that.

Again I'll say: There ought to be an all-day and monthly pass available, where readers pay a lump sum for access to lots of papers, and their money gets divvied up based on which articles are read. I'd pay.

Instead, we're given expensive paywalls everywhere, which I easily circumvent but feel bad about it.

As Vonnegut said, "and so it goes."

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• More Catholic priests diddling more children 

• NPR pushes back after Twitter designates it as "state-affiliated media" 

• We'll see, but Chicago seems to have elected a mayor who's not owned by the cops 

• Database Shows ICE is bypassing courts and sending subpoenas to schools, charitable organizations, and abortion clinics 

• Thousands of Catholic nuns unite to "wholeheartedly" declare trans people are beloved by God 

• Manchester book swap vending machine a hit with readers 

• La Jolla's Salk Institute gets $50 million gift to seek better ways to slow climate change 

This is tragic news, masquerading as good news. Let's slice it apart:

A company you've never heard of, that "finds and processes crude oil and natural gas for global markets," has $50-million lying around, and uses it to buy favorable publicity.

I laughed because it's funny, but it's gallows humor.

So long as such companies are allowed to exist, and allowed to have $50-million lying around, slowing climate change is not even under consideration.

• Ice sheets can collapse at 600 meters a day, far faster than feared, study finds 

• Greenhouse gas emissions rose at "alarming" rate last year, US data shows 

• Climate change could threaten Philadelphia's drinking water 

• Climate change pushing an "alarming" spread of dengue, chikungunya and zika 

• "Tornado alley" is shifting farther into the US east, climate scientists warn 

• Ice sheets can collapse at 600 meters a day, far faster than feared, study finds 

• Droughts trimmed cattle herds, now consumers will be paying the price

• Appeals court reverses murder conviction of cop who killed suicidal man 11 seconds after entering his house 

• Family of 18-year-old woman fatally shot by a school safety officer announces $13 million settlement reached with school district 

• Federal civil rights investigation opened in the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old in Washington, DC 

• Former Beavercreek D.A.R.E. officer sentenced to federal prison for child porn case 

• Questions swirl after Maryland police officer convicted of assault gets new job, with same city 

• Feds invade hotel room, imprison pilot in shower 

• Conservative sheriff federally indicted in scheme to illegally purchase machine guns and let political supporter rent them out 

• Idaho becomes first state to restrict interstate travel for abortions 

• Trump Junior's attempt at legal strategy is to target judge's daughter 

• Report reveals Justice Clarence Thomas may have been on the take for years 

• Tennessee GOP expels 2 Black Democratic lawmakers for anti-gun violence protests. A white legislator survived her vote. 

• Heartland Institute publishes bullshit-laden textbook 

• Rightwing legal activist accused of misusing $73m from non-profit groups 

• Record number of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this year 

• Idaho to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth 

• Dark money groups push election denialism on US state officials 

• Trump calls for defunding federal law enforcement after facing charges 

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

• Click 

• Click 

• Click 

• Click 

• Click 

My browser history
without the porn

• Life expectancy in America 

• Is it really OK to punch Nazis? 

♫♬  It don't mean a thing  ♫
if it don't have that swing

• By the Beautiful Blue Danube — Johann Strauss Jr 

• Everybody Knows — Leonard Cohen 

• I, Robot — Alan Parsons Project 

• Ms 45 — Joe Delia 

• Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? — Frank Zappa 

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Bill Butler 

• Mel King 

• Bob Lee 

• Julie Anne Peters 

• Norman Reynolds 

• Duane Poole 

• Ann Wilson

 

4/7/2023   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  

Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration. 

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

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