It was dawn. The fog was thick and rolling amongst the dark, beautiful evergreens of the area surrounding the freeway just past Seattle, Washington. It was a Saturday morning, and Steve and I were beginning the final leg of our 24-hour journey–a journey which had begun the previous day in Portland, Oregon:
Earlier that day:
After breaking up a near-fatal argument between Bones and Steve, I herded them into my car to begin the trek to Walla Walla, Washington, nestled in the heart of which is Whitman College, whose literary publication editors had unwittingly contracted us to play our opera for their release party at the expense of 500 bones, or clams. Thus, my need to hurry, even though the “emotional cleansing” between my friends had not yet reached its natural conclusion.
Leaving friend Rebecca to lie to the AAA man, who was coming to get Bones’s keys out of his locked car, we were on our way.
The show was terrible, the people were nice, Kevin is an amazing person and friend, who insisted on loaning us the film “Spy Kids 3-d” along with three pairs of 3-d glasses. At the show, one of the DIs was broken, so mostly you could only hear the music, not the drums or Rob’s backup vocals. It was extremely weird, made more so by the fact that the show was outdoors, under some gloriously tall trees which were whispering and dancing together in the wind, sheltering several pairs of gay ducks, of which the Whitman campus boasts many. “We also have a lot of gay duck rape,” Kevin said regretfully.
Back in the Present:
I was thinking of those gay ducks 10 hours later, after Steve and I had dropped Boner Jams off at the Seattle airport to begin another tour in New York and Florida.
Earlier:
One of the latches on his suitcase broke as he was getting out of the car. He had a bag filled with expensive computer equipment and two loaves of hoagie bread. I had been trying to sleep in the back of the car, freezing nigh-unto death, wearing 3 sweatshirts, a hat, and a hood. Steve and Bones, air conditioning on, were listening to this old bootleg of a Buff Guys show from 1997 which was really blowing my mind.
Back in the Present:
We were alone, now, Uncle Steve and myself, driving through the early dawn fog which made it seem as though we were in some romanticized version of medieval Scotland. Cresting a small hill, going about 80, we came upon a police officer tooling along in the next lane over. Steve immediately “guilty-braked” and began traveling at a more modest 60. We warily eyed the policeman, who appeared not to have noticed us. In fact, he soon put on his blinker and merged into the exit lane. Steve and I breathed a collective sigh of relief, when suddenly the cop put on his lights, zoomed over behind us, and pulled us over.
“What’s happening?” I asked, still vaguely hallucinating from the sleepless night I’d just spent in the backseat of my own car. “I’m being pulled over,” Steve informed me.
I began rummaging in the glove box for the various insurance papers and registrations which they always ask for and which I, for some reason, can almost never locate. I will now tell the rest of this story in play format.
(the officer leans down and raps on Steve’s window. Steve rolls it down. Officer is an angry-looking, well-built black man with a peppering of gray in his nicely-trimmed mustache. As soon as the window is rolled down, the cop leans in close.)
COP
“IS THIS A GAME TO YOU? BECAUSE IT IS NOT A GAME TO ME.”
STEVE
(long pause. very confused. Looking up into the officer’s face.)
COP
(body language indicating that he is FURIOUS, cop delivers all his lines in a barely-restrained voice that at times is almost yelling. Must give off the impression of being constantly on the verge of dragging Steve out of the car and beating him senseless with some sort of “brass monkey” or “nightstick.”)
“I’LL ASK YOU AGAIN. IS THIS A GAME TO YOU? BECAUSE IT IS NOT A GAME TO ME.”
STEVE
(very sincerely) “It’s not a game to me, officer.”
COP
“YOU CAME UP ALL HOT ON ME, AND THEN YOU SLOWED DOWN. I PUT ON MY BLINKER LIKE I WAS GOING TO EXIT, AND THEN YOU SPED UP AGAIN!!”
STEVE
“I don’t think I sped up, officer.”
COP
(very significant pause during which he is staring at Steve like Steve is a bug he would like nothing better than to squash with his bare hands. Literally can not believe Steve just said he didn’t speed up.)
“IS THIS A GAME TO YOU? I WILL GIVE YOU A TICKET BEFORE YOU GET TO NISQUALLY.”
STEVE
(pauses. does not answer. is speechless)
COP
“GIMME YOUR LICENSE AND REGISTRATION! (takes it, does not look at it. Stares at Steve for another long moment.) HERE, TAKE THIS. TAKE IT! (hands Steve’s license back to him.) “I WILL TELL YOU THIS ONE THING. I AM AN HONEST MAN…..AND YOU ARE NOT.”
(turns perfunctorily and walks away, not giving Steve the respect of listening to his reply.)
STEVE
(rolls up the window, calmly puts license back in his wallet)
“Well.”
ME:
“Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Oh my god, he’s going to kill us if we laugh. Don’t look at me.”
STEVE
“I mean, is WHAT a game to me? Not getting a ticket? Yes, that is a game to me. Safety, however, is not a game to me.”
ME:
“He didn’t respect us enough to give us a ticket!!!”
STEVE
“That’s fine with me.”
ME:
“Oh my god, go 60. He’s up ahead somewhere, waiting for us. Look at this fog!”
STEVE
“We’re now on level 9 of his mind-fuck.”
AND….SCENE.
Actually, you could hear Rob’s backup vocals so much louder than your singing, dearest m. Also, we did not have the ac on in the night. In fact, your “hot vents” or whatever were ripping. You, however, do have liquid nitrogen in your veins helping you to be deathly cold at all times.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t hear you at all, I found the opera very enjoyable. thanks for coming.
I think maybe one of the DIs was put only through the monitor mix, and the other came only through the PA?
but that doesn’t explain the weird clipping and compression and occasional distortion.
Ritchey, I am going to have someone mount an effort to change how the sound crew is hired to make sure that people are competent. Could you provide me with a statement verifying that the sound was in fact very bad, and that it negatively impacted your experience? This was one of the worst examples, but it’s been a problem at literally every show this year and enough people are riled up about it to do something about it.
Last night, a cop approached me and my friend, with his hand on his gun, had us sit with are hands on the car, in plain view, and performed a background check on both of us….FOR JAY-WALKING!!!!
Then, he was like: “Ya know, I’d rather be stopping people with drugs, and weapons, instead of Jay-walkers, so don’t do it again.”
It was a stupid experience.
I hate these kinds of stories. They ferret out the little bit of hope that hides in the recesses of my brain and smash it.
On a funnier note, has anyone seen super troopers? It’s really stupid, not really in a good way, but there are a couple of parts that are fucking funny enough to warrant the fucking part.
woah.
total mind fuck. weird he didn’t give you a ticket.
i got a ticket for not carrying proof of insurance a little too recently. then i went to court to explain that yes i did have insurance just not proof. apparently since oregon is so poor the judges aren’t allowed to excuse these tickets anymore. so my ticket was pretty much for the same amount as if i didn’t have insurance at all. also the judge talked to me like he was doing me a favor because i am a complete idiot and he was the wise fair man.
mind fucks are better than tickets.
I could totally see how working as a cop would make you paranoid like that. God. When I got a speeding ticket five years ago, the guy similarly got harshly on my case for not pulling over fast enough. I don’t know maybe young guys get this reaction more? I can see why that would be true.
WHOA! That whole cop story was CRAZY! I’ve seen thoose ducks in Walla Walla they are not to be trusted, not even for a bit. I saw a mother duck and her babies, but the babies were a different color – date duck rape. What a pitty.
I’m glad you got home in one peice with out without the harrasment of a dumb cop. Maybe he was hungry and the donut shop was closed?