No Internet!

We’ve been without internet for 8 days. Wow! My blog will probably be pretty sporadic this summer anyway. I’ve been pretty obsessed with assembling the Wax Theatricks film.

A lot has happened in 8 days.

First, Tracy and Marion are in the middle of the Colorado forest fires. They’ve had to stay with friends and won’t know until Tuesday if they lost their home. They had to give their cat to the local Humane Society. We’re all thinking about them.

Our friend Jon who drafted us into the Banana Bike Brigade was hit in front of his home by the TKOs.

The Technical Knock Outs are a group of young boys whose mission is to literally knock someone out in a single blow. Jon says they know what they’re doing. They hit him in his jugular vein and he went right out. They got his wallet and 3 beers. This was 3 blocks from our apartment.

Jon has had run ins with them 4 times. One time he was riding his bike. They threw half a brick at him, but his back pack stopped it. They often use half a brick because they’re easy to throw.

Last year there was a girl who could positively identify 7 of them. She didn’t show up in court and they had to let the jerks go. She had obviously been threatened.

They killed a Vietnamese man on Grand. Francis Slay, our mayor, found a victim by our library on Grand. He was one of Joanie Thomas’ employees. He suffers permanent damage.

Needles to say, Valerie and I are very concerned. She pointed out that all the victims seemed to be men over 50.

How can anyone be so removed from empathy? We see it all around us. Our current politics are a symptom.

On a lighter note---

Valerie, Dylan and I went to McGurk’s Wednesday for a book signing by our buddy William Stage. We got our autographed copies of Not Waving Drowning. He’s funny as ever! His wife Mary is pregnant with their 9^th kid. All but the first are girls. I think baby girls were the majority of the audience.

We met Bill McClelland and partied with Rommie Martinez.

Valerie, Chloe, Dylan and I were in a parade with the Banana Bike Brigade in Marissa, Illinois last Saturday. The largest float was the Marissa chapter of the Tea Party. There was also a giant blue float with a portrait of Jesus that read, “Jesus walked on water!”

I think I scared some of the other bikers when I said very loudly, “I wonder what they think of us homosexual communists!”

One of the girls asked, “Are you homosexual?” Another blurted out, “I must be communist!” She was dressed in a red tutu that matched her cardinal bike.

Dylan and I are looking forward to a parade in Red Bud, Illinois this afternoon. It will be 100 degrees.

Valerie escaped it with a family reunion and Chloe’s in Florida with a friend.

The pics are all with camera phones, so they're not very good. Jon with bikes after a Cinco de Mayo parade we were in a couple of years ago. William reading at McGurk’s. The kids and me last weekend. No one got a good pic of Valerie.