Mayor Beaver, R.I.P.

Oh goddamn it. I promised myself I wouldn't do this. But I never thought the Beaver administration (fraught with scandal as it was) would end this way.
I mean, just look at him up there. He's just so damn proud of his...Big golden key and sash. The Portland Mercury has kicked him to the curb, to make room for more ad space or some such damn thing, on its blog feature. It used to give me so much goddamn joy to look at him, every time I went there. He/she will be missed.

But hey? While I was over there (listed under 'Our Enemies'), I found MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com. This is strange, because I was just talking about Kenny last evening.
Or rather, about Kenny Roger's Roasters (tm), and how Kenny himself was asked to leave the board of directors, in a company that boasts his name, as well as a logo that includes his face. I forget what their problem with him was, but that's not what's important.
One night while driving cab, I pulled up to a Kenny's in Lacey, Washington (on Sleater-Kinney road. I wonder if it's still there). My fare turned out to be a Kenny Rogers lookalike.
Trying not to be overcome with the serious rift in reality itself I'd clearly stumbled into, I looked at this...This Kenny and smiled enthusiastically.

He was onto me in a hot second. "I'm not him." he sorta barked. "You've probably never heard of me. I'm Johnny Tillotson."
OH MAN! JOHNNY TILLOTSON IN MY CAB!, I did not scream, but it pleased him that I'd actually heard of him. He's a minor rock star from the Fifties, and the only reason I knew his name was that I'm sort of a music trivia nerd, and have long held a secret, perverse love for the name 'Tillotson'.

But what was he doing there? Performing as himself? Shaking hands and pretending toward Kenny-ness? Eating some wings? I never found out. I sort of tried to stay out of my customer's lives, though that didn't always work, due to the nature of who generally rides in cabs.

Went over to EO this weekend, as I threatened to do. Since they don't answer the phone so much out at the farmhouse, I was unclear on where the She Bear was. After one phone call though, a chain-reaction was set off, all along the phone tree, and before long I was talking to her.
It was the week of her prom, and this meant that she was going to be embroiled in furious activity all weekend long. So we took her out to dinner, then she and I had some brief alone-time at the one good coffee shop in Pendleton.
The rest of the weekend was spent up in the Blue Mountains, or in Walla Walla. You know, it's always a mind-fuck going home, and this time my observation was that it seems even more of the populace over there is stupid, perhaps from birth.
Eastern Oregon is a remarkably unhealthy place to grow up, what with acid rain from the coal fired power plant, nuclear waste in the groundwater from Hanford, and nerve gas being incinerated on a daily basis at the Umatilla Army Depot. You drink the poison in your milk, eat it in your steak and vegetables.

And am I dreaming, just being sentimental when I say that once upon a time there was actually culture of some sort there? Probably. I do know a lot of things that went on that never got reported in the papers, and left me with the overwhelming impression that small town life is quietly evil, at all times.
Our social worker friend with the kepi from the last post seemed to say that the preponderance of child abuse comes from so much of our society being comprised of neighbors who don't talk to other neighbors, and that's why places like my hometown are actually ideal. I don't know why I didn't say; Are you so naive that you think that those rednecks fucks don't molest their children? I mean, everybody knows everybody elses' business, and yet somehow that makes keeping the secrets easier, paradoxically. There is no solution, until somebody talks, anyway.

No clear thoughts this eve. Still too busted up about the beaver. I'll be back, though.