Back To Sunny Weather

We’re back to sunny weather again. I don’t know what’s up with that but its enjoyable while its here. People say things like, “this isn’t normal for Seattle.” But if I’ve learned anything in the 35 years I’ve been here its that there is no “normal” weather. I remember in the old days if it started raining hard I would just stand under a doorway overhang and wait for it to pass. It always did. And I recall the Satsop Rock Festival way back in 71 or 72 when I was on stage for over an hour because one of the sound companies was on strike – nobody could plug in any instruments but the microphones worked. Anyway, it was raining and people were all wet and covered with mud. And from the stage I could see that the clouds were broken and that the break was coming our way. It was way off behind the audience. So I got everybody singing “stop the rain, stop the rain,” and we all kept it up until that break came overhead and the rain stopped. For years I was remembered as the guy with the magical powers who made the sun come out. I think that’s how religions are started.

Jim Hinde’s son Nate got clobbered down in Pioneer Square last Friday night. After the bars closed, making it actually Saturday morning. He was there with his buddies just doing what young buddies do. Tons of people milling around, drink, smoke, whatever. One of them winds up on the pavement stones being pummeled by a stranger and Nate jumps in to break it up. Somebody comes in from the side with an iron bar or a pipe or a set of brass knuckles and Nate winds up in the hospital with a caved in face. Brain surgery to take the bone fragments out, reconstructive surgery to give him his shape back. He’s out now. Stitches on his head like Karloff in that big monster suit.

What’s going on anyway?

I guess I’m one of those people who don’t allow for the random theory of human events. Things happen for a reason and I don’t mean like god or karma or any of that. I mean that with all the ugly muscle posturing that my country is doing these days it only makes sense that there would be more of this down on the ground. Ever see a Hummer go by? Arrogant, aren’t they? Militaristic. Costs a fortune of stolen money to own one. I walked up to a guy driving one last summer – it was bright yellow and he was going through the Market where the traffic is real slow. I caught his eye. “Kinda like driving your wallet, isn’t it?” He didn’t respond.

It seems to me that if you engineer a system to tempt everybody with the glitter and flash of the fast cars and the fast money and the fast sex, and then only let a few of us actually get it, you’re going to have trouble. Mean, angry chips on disillusioned shoulders. Nothing more dangerous than a dead ender with nothing to look forward to and a feeling that he’s been lied to. And that the liar is laughing at him. It’s enough to make you just want to go out and break a few heads. That’s what the Army does.

Or you could get smart, put some thinking into that rage. And that’s a whole other paradigm that I think we’ll get to before too long. We have to, there’s no other way.

I’m reading Danny Morrison’s book “Then the Walls Came Down.” It’s his prison letters from inside Long Kesh. Its wonderful, they’re so human and full of life. Danny’s Northern Irish, Belfast, and I know him from the old days. He was publicity director for Sinn Fein and spent five years at her majesty’s pleasure for republican activities, from 1990 to 1995. He’s an author now with several titles to his credit. We recently reconnected via the internet. I sent him a few CDs and he sent me some books. I like knowing people who have accomplished things in their lives. In some ways I think the world is like a workshop, its just that we don’t all have access to all the tools. That has to be addressed.