Arts “Gonna Stop Smoke Today”
posted by on October 1 at 11:54 AM
Well, Frizzelle, I think I’ve found your Alaskan man of letters, a latter-day Robert Service who wrote a couple of poems during a standoff with the police:
Poem number one:
Boy I could use a smoke.
“Scarey” very noise bullets.
Fucking scrary.
My, my maybe
the holy father
would help
wish someone would
pray for me
And the story, from a friend who works as a detective up there:
The guy, who was in his 50s and has no criminal history, just went nuts. The day before he flipped he used a backhoe to tear up his son’s septic system because he was mad at his son. Then the next day he grabbed a bunch of his guns, went to a Texaco, and had a standoff with cops for hours. At one point he yelled “I’m coming out” and came out with two guns on his shoulders and two small vases in his hands with a flower in each vase. He walks out half way to the nearest SWAT team cop and says “these are for you,” puts the vases down, then goes back to his hideout spot.
Eventually the cops tricked him with cigarettes
Poem number two:
Out a cigs
shit o dear
“He expects me to walk down and get some.”
Shit o dear NO WAY
shit o dear
gonna stop smoke today
And more from the cop:
He came out and they tazed him.
At arraignment he told the judge his name wasn’t his name on the charging documents because “that name is all in capitol letters, and all caps is reserved for DEAD PEOPLE.”
And yesterday, from jail, he wrote a very polite and lucid letter to me asking to have his guns returned ASAP because he needs them.
I bet he needs them.
that's really charming!
Tearing up your son's septic system sounds awfully Freudian.
Seriously, he was in a gas station and ran out of cigs? Did he go through the dozens of cartons they usually have?
@3 - Perhaps he was just really peculiar and only smoked the single ones or something, still it seems like it'd take quite a bit of puffing to clean out any gas station I've ever been in.
Interesting news day today, between this and the getaway-raft robber.
Maybe the gas station had them behind a locked barrier. Or maybe the guy didn't want to steal or something; we already know he's kooky.
But "shit oh dear" is a classic Alaskan phrase I've most often from tugboat people from up in Prudhoe Bay. Them's lovely pomes, all rightie.
John Hoover is from Alaska and an amazing artist. The lines and forms he creates are stunning and rooted in Alutiiq tradition. In Alaska the best art, artists, writers, and singers are mostly Native. Nora Marks Dauenhauer is one of my favorite writers. For music check out Pamyua.
"How To Make Good Baked Salmon" by Nora Marks is one of my favorites.
Put this guy in a small, padded room with a nice window and a chair, give him lots of paper and some pencils, and just let him do his thing. I'm sure everyone will be happier this way.
Oh to know the bliss and glow
That good tobacco means
Just live among the everlasting ice
So imagine my amazement
When my stock of magazines
Was chewed into a chowder by the mice!
Jewel is from Alaska. Is she an artist?
"shit o dear"
... ha, this guy is adorable!
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