Savoriness As Dubious As The Antics Are Pointless – May 17, 2011
• Thursday, April 14 8:41 p.m. A celebrity journalist was arrested on Janes Road after a report of bizarre behavior.
10:03 p.m.
The Carport of Destiny clamored
With drums being noisily hammered
By one guy, whose stylings
Drew more passerbylings
But neighbors were less than enamored
• Friday, April 15 1:04 a.m. After a car crash on upper H Street, police tracked down a suspect wearing a checkered shirt and a Mohawk. The busted-up Buick was towed.
1:31 a.m.
On G Street, just up from the Plaza
Arose a percussive miasma
But drummers suspected
Could not be detected
Perhaps they were just protoplasma
4:34 a.m. A patient ran off from the ER shoeless, in a bra and hospital gown, screaming, “Help me, help me! They are trying to kill me!” An officer found the troubled person and took her to a mental health facility.
10:05 a.m. Respect for one’s elders isn’t exactly Job One for a Valley West apartment dweller, who yells, “Go away, old bitch,” at a senior woman there until she goes inside her apartment.
10:47 a.m. Sooner or later word will somehow penetrate the THC fog of the wandering scruffmuffins of the world that if you have arrest warrants out on ya and you then build camps and campfires in the Community Forest, well, a friendly park ranger will come and quench your embers, so to speak, in more ways than one.
4:46 p.m. When one man allegedly stole another’s drum at a downtown brewery, harsh words of a percussive nature ensued.
10:10–11:16 p.m.
Loud drumming cropped up all around
From Alliance, Calif. Ave. to downtown
With drummers slap-tappy
Hotel guests weren’t happy
Eventually things simmered down
• Saturday, April 16 8:22 a.m. A Villa Way resident was concerned about an erratic-acting opossum which was out in the open during the daytime, walking around with babies on its tail. A park ranger figured the critter had been disturbed and was moving the posso-pups to a safe place.
2:39 p.m. A woman said that when she bought gas at a Valley West station the previous night, the real clerk wasn’t there but rather, some flinky slacker stand-in dude who wasn’t paying attention. She said he “let her pump more gas than she intended/paid for,” and now she was supposed to pay back the difference. She suspected a scam.
3:36 p.m. When two black pit bulls started fighting in the donut shop’s back alley, their human overlords joined in the fray, barking at each other. When all the arfing and running and yipping and nipping had subsided, one pooch was either lost or missing for a short time until reunited with an ancillary female player in the fray.
4:50 p.m. Some sort of teen drama seemed like it was something scarier and less routine for a minute there. A woman’s daughter heard a window break and someone enter the home through it. Then two strangers said, “Oh, shit,” and left in an unknown direction. But after fact-checking this tale, it turned out that the damage had occurred from the inside of the house.
5:11 p.m. An unresponsive person in a red plaid shirt was reported at 11th and G streets. Police found the near-moribund man wrapped in a blanket, at his side a comforting pitcher of bubbly elixir likely snatched from one of the bars.
11:14 p.m. A 911 call included sounds of yelling in the background, with someone yelling “Get out of my house!” There were sketchy reports of a kicked-in bedroom door, a Raiders cap, possible drinking and a baseball cap. The arg turned out to be over a teen lad using the phone too much.
11:17 p.m. After a report of a loud party on upper H Street, an officer went and found the entire area suffused with loudness.
11:43 p.m. Back at the apartment with the kicked-in door, a troubled teen wouldn’t go to bed. A bunk at Juvenile Hall was prepared for him.
• Sunday, April 17 12:56 a.m. Another fragmentary datum was phoned in from a strife-racked Samoa Boulevard apartment complex to the effect that “Crazy bitch has a gun!” Police swarmed the zone, locating neither crazed bitch nor firearm.
3:19 a.m. A party with requisite shouting and arguing rollicked lower Pneumonia Gulch. “Party at Bev/Bev,” read the dispatcher log, possibly establishing a new nickname for the neighborhood.
11:27 a.m. A blue-shirted character of dubious savoriness entertained an eight- and 15-year-old in the 500 block of Fifth Street with a variety of pointless antics. First, the 40-something man punched an apartment building, then he offered them pizza and tried to give them money. Police found him at Fifth and H streets and sent him on what might charitably be described as his “way.”
10:40 p.m. After an argument over money at an Alliance Road apartment, a male subject of unknown age went to get a soda from the fridge. A woman tried to block the soft drink retrieval, but he pushed her out of the way and tried to leave. As she blocked the door, he elbowed her several times until fleeing to an unknown destination.
• Monday, April 18 7:22 a.m. A slumbering man was awakened in the kindergarten area of a Baldwin Avenue elementary school. He was accompanied by a child, and CWS was notified.
3:09 p.m. For not the first, second or fifth time, cig stench wafted upstairs to a woman’s office at an I Street building.
5:15 p.m. “Be scared – I’ll kill everyone in this complex!” shouted a man outside an apartment building.
7:26 p.m. A “weird thing” with a cylinder was reported taped to a Plaza building. When police arrived, a man retrieved his backpack from the sidewalk.
8:16 p.m.
A drummer-man without portfolio
Launched a furious bongo-type solio
At the donut shop’s fringe
The bad bongo binge
Turned the alley into a hell-holio
9:19 p.m. A woman asked to speak with an officer, but wouldn’t give her name or say what it was about. She said she had a pain in her side due to “increased air traffic.” She declined medical assistance but was advised to see a physician. She ended the conversation with a caution to police to be aware of the “extra air” in Arcata.
9:53 p.m. Opossums skittering around on Palomino Lane set off a security alarm.
11:01 p.m.
Those holey, besprinkled confections
Witnessed a sax resurrection
A guitarist joined in
Compounding the din
Till police came to make an inspection
• Tuesday, April 19 1:30 a.m. A bunch of faux potted plants of unknown origin and made of Styrofoam descended to earth at Fifth and H streets.
9:50 a.m. When a Child Welfare Services representative went to a Union Street apartment, the mother of the child refused entry and slammed the door in the CWS case worker’s face. Police came and detained the disturbed mom, committing her to a mental health facility. The child was taken to daycare, where grandma was to pick him up later.
10:45 a.m. A woman found a wallet containing cocaine and a razor outside the store where everything’s worth a dollar.
1:11 p.m. The video security system at an Arcata Heights shop recorded two young girls allegedly and systematically filling their backpacks with toiletries valued at something under $950.
2:16 p.m. A man who had loaned his car to a “friend” 10 days previous got it back with $3,000 damage to the passenger-side door after a telephone pole encounter.
2:19 p.m. A woman complained that the cigarette smoke stench at an Alliance Road apartment building was affecting her health.
2:47 p.m. A woman said that she accidentally dropped her purse at a downtown shop, and when she went back to get it, it was gone along with $800 to $1,000 in cash, credit cards and her driver’s license.
7:18 p.m. A Davis Way roommate clash reportedly included threats of a baseball bat assault. The supposed victim had been running a computer cam at the time, and an officer reviewed the video. It depicted the antagonist yelling through the door at the roommate, telling him to eject his guest. After more yelling, the person burst through the door and reviled the guest with harsh, high-volume rhetoric. No threats were recorded.
7:42 p.m. A man with a pierced lip and dirty jacket wrote “F YOU” on the side of a downtown shop. Asked to leave, his reaction was more or less commensurate with his literary oeuvre.
11:53 p.m. On lower H Street, one human described another as a “no-good piece of shit,” as distinguished from the good, just, true and worthy scraps of excrement with which one might wish to commiserate.
• Wednesday, April 20 12:41 a.m.
The saxman who shows up at night
Must be satisfied playing soundbites
’Cause cops always show
As he’s starting to blow
And he quits without much of a fight
1:21 a.m. A vehicle parked amid trees at 13th and F streets was vacant save for two dogs and a litter of puppies.
7:13 a.m. The high school’s lawn was vandalized overnight.
9:12 a.m. The lawn was destroyed and a fence broken at an Eighth Street business.
11:09 a.m. One 4/20 celebrant got off to an exuberant start on Community Forest trail 3, where he was found sodden drunk before noon, and was arrested.
11:48 a.m. ’Nother drunk, 11th and Bayview streets.
3:33 p.m. A skateboarder in a purple tie-dyed shirt acted as a traffic calming device on Buttermilk Lane, pulling out in front of a car and skating down the narrow street in front of the vehicle all the way down to the apartment complex at the foot of the hill.
4:48–4:52 p.m. More drunks and scofflaw car parkers in and around Redwood Park.
7:37 p.m. THC tourists huddled in vans parked around town, emerging only to pee upon the landscape, then return to the stinky succor of their cubicle to further huff upon the magically stupefying utensil.
• Thursday, April 21 7:15 a.m. Three collarless dogs chased cars at Alliance and Spear.
9:35 a.m. Two husky pups a-wanderin’ on 27th Street wound up in someone’s yard. They were returned to the owner, who got a ticket for letting dogs run at large.
10:45 a.m. A skate-lunk was reported sitting on his board, oblivious to his surroundings, in the middle of Fickle Hill Road about a mile up. Police found the lad walking down the road, and OK.
11:14 a.m. Another dopemobile with three folks chuggin’ de hoib couldn’t find any better place to toke up than in front of a 10th Street daycare center.
2:04 p.m. A large. friendly iteration of husky/lab DNA roamed Crescent Way.
2:41 p.m. Two large dogs roamed the grounds of a Baldwin Avenue elementary school. They were friendly, but did scare the little kids until the owner came and got them.
4:16 p.m. Someone removed two picket fence tops and threw them in a 13th Street yard.
5:27 p.m. Someone with a red pickup truck allowed a black lab to run off leash at the Marsh, enjoying spiritual communion with nature by terrorizing the migratory waterfowl in what is supposed to be their habitat and sanctuary.
6:39 p.m. A leather-clad blonde woman at a Sunny Brae supermarket led a man wearing all-black around on a leash as he smoked an unknown substance.
8:40 p.m. A dad reported his wife and child lost in the Community Forest for the past hour-and-a-half. A ranger tracked ’em down and gave them a ride down to 14th and Union streets, where everyone was reunited.
