"Oft-abused statue of McKinley" alert.
Posted on 05/20/2002 8:01:58 AM PDT by Temple Owl
The Eye has it
Editor makes Arcata police blotter pure poetry -- and parody
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Arcata, Humboldt County -- To Kevin Hoover, even a nondescript telephone pole on a normally quiet street in amiable little Arcata has a story behind it.
And the wry 48-year-old editor, publisher and police-blotter poet for the weekly Arcata Eye never lets a good yarn go untold.
In this instance, the tale involved a curmudgeon who made a habit of tearing flyers off utility poles. His diligence was punished with a sort of purgatory -- he was forced to perpetually rip down photographs of himself in the act of removing flyers, courtesy of those whose flyers he had removed.
"If the eyes are a mirror to one's soul, can one's face be a foil for a pole?" Hoover wrote in the Eye, waxing mock philosophical about what he termed the "epoxied collage of mockery."
"The versatile flyer-ripper," he continued, "found himself crowbar in hand, scraping and eyeing his own puss from the pole in a futile frenzy, swearing and spitting until the sidewalk glittered with stripped shrapnel. Can it get any sillier?"
Known by some as the "master of rhymes and misdemeanors," Hoover has transformed the small-time antics of the drunks, bums and bumblers of Arcata into the talk of the town -- and the toast of Arcataeye.com readers across the country.
Mirthful, sarcastic and charmingly witty, the Eye's police blotter has become so popular that Hoover is now compiling a collection of his best log entries for a book. All of which is surprising in a town where serious crime is an anomaly. There were no murders in Arcata and only one attempted homicide last year.
"We have the world championship kinetic sculpture race here every May, and we'll have 10,000 people on the plaza from all over the world," said Arcata police Sgt. Dave Brown. "All that, and it's not uncommon for us to hear folks say, 'Boy, I really like that police log.' "
INSPIRED BY NATIONAL LAMPOON
A graduate of Canyon High School in Castro Valley, Hoover was inspired to quit his job at a Radio Shack in Fremont and move to this old logging town 16 years ago after reading an item in National Lampoon. The item was about the statue of President William McKinley that dominates the town's main square, and how somebody had stuffed cheese up its nose.
Intrigued by the existence of a town with such a statue and by the characters who cheesed it, Hoover came to Arcata and fell in love with its quirkiness.
He worked for a time doing pasteup at the Arcata Union newspaper. When the Union folded in 1995, he started his own publication, the Eye.
Hoover's niche was carved through a unique literary style that is giving journalism professors conniptions and alternately evoking jags of fury and jocularity throughout the community.
Instead of just copying the stern, clipped language of the Arcata police log, Hoover transforms it into a kind of Dashiell Hammett-style prose. Sometimes he uses limericks and haiku to tell the story.
"It wasn't necessarily remarkable that a man relieved bladder pressure in the pre-dawn darkness of Heindon Road, only a little puzzling," begins one entry, describing how it was unnecessary because a bathroom was available a short distance away. Alas, according to the log, "someone saw the leaky chap greeting the dawn with his streaming salutation and called police."
A sordid story about a dog fight that led to a scuffle between owners and accusations of wayward pooping concludes with the pets gazing "at the antics of the respective god-like masters with unquestioning love and devotion."
The oft-abused statue of McKinley frequently appears in the pages of the Eye, most recently with a stolen paper bowling pin attached to his hand, cementing, as the caption read, "his rep as Arcata's one true kingpin."
"People don't like him," said Hoover of McKinley, "but I think he's this wonderful non sequitur."
ESCAPIST APPEAL
In a world gripped by terrorism and child-molesting priests, Hoover's police log is an escape for a growing number of readers into the consciousness of this cozy town of 16,000 in the coastal redwoods of Northern California.
Bearded, bespectacled and always sporting a dark cap, Hoover is as renowned in this Green Party enclave as poor McKinley. With a press run of only 3,500, the Eye has its largest following among out-of-towners via its Web site, which has recently been averaging about 4,000 hits a day.
Hoover's popularity has steadily grown since his first mention by the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1995. A recent Associated Press article gave his police blotter nationwide attention, and Web hits have soared -- up to 11, 000 one day -- along with the number of letters and e-mails received from around the world.
"Writing a funny crime log is such an unexpected thing to become well-known for," said Hoover, who once played in a band called Space Monkey. "I always thought I'd get famous for playing the drums."
Hoover's office is in the back of a renovated frontier-style office building adjacent to the plaza, where McKinley's statue looms menacingly over a row of nearby bars, one named the Alibi.
His office is festooned with an odd assortment of campaign posters, knickknacks and lots of toy eyeballs, some squishy, others with wings. On the wall is a lineup of six clocks for each local district, all showing exactly the same time, "so you can tell what time it is anywhere in Arcata."
FONDNESS FOR THE DOWN AND OUT
Having at times felt the cruel pangs of near beggary, Hoover -- like his favorite author, John Steinbeck -- has a soft spot for those who are stuck playing life's card game with a bad hand.
The personalities of these often hapless characters are an integral part of the Eye.
They include Pete the Ragman, the blanket-clad wanderer whose stench sometimes obscures a loving heart, and "Guitar Dan" Stephens, whose ever- present all-weather guitar is "somewhat intonation challenged." There is the Fun Bunch, a gentle group of hoboes who smoke and drink breakfast, lunch and dinner on the railroad tracks.
The transients in town are "travelers," the panhandlers "sidewalk socialites." Most have spent time in the "Pink House," the Eureka County jail, which happens to be painted pink.
An incident at 1:14 p.m. on Sunday, March 30, prompted Hoover to write:
Although Arcata may be lacking in serious crime, Hoover says, the town is loaded with journalistic fodder. Home to Humboldt State University, it is a nuclear-free zone that not long ago had a Green Party majority on the City Council. Environmentalists regularly take on the logging companies over the fate of the area's redwood forests.
"People here try to save the world from the plaza," Hoover said. "They want to unpave the roads, start a vegan revolution. To me it's a raucous little island of fun."
IRREVERENCE DRAWS CRITICISM
And that's the problem, according to Shunka Wakan, an activist for Earth First. He said Hoover's police log trivializes the plight of the lower classes.
"He makes up little poems and little sarcastic remarks about the common folks, street people and traveling kids who are the most common targets of the Arcata police state," Wakan said. "Hoover . . . encourages the people of Arcata to laugh off oppression as they go about their middle- to upper-class day."
Hoover's irreverence has so infuriated some people that they even started a Web site called Arcatalie.com, dedicated to exposing the "dirty bile" written by "the unscrupulous editor of Arcata's travesty, The Arcata Eye."
The journalism department at Humboldt State isn't particularly thrilled, either.
"It's not the journalism that we teach at the academy," said Craig Klein, a professor of journalism and mass communications. "His (writing) is full of editorial commentary. A traditional journalism program teaches people to just put the facts out there."
But Klein said Hoover puts out an entertaining product that, if inadequate in other areas, at least does not play favorites.
The vast majority of people in town seem to like Hoover's take on things, including the hard-to-please cops.
"Sometimes when you're the point of the joke you are a little chagrined, but we all realize it's done good-naturedly," Sgt. Brown said. "The way I take it, he is trying . . . to break down some of the barriers. On the whole, I think it presents our involvement in the community in a good way. We don't look like your average jack-booted thugs."
"He's done a lot for little Arcata with his paper," said Valerie Graham, the bartender at Toby and Jacks. "He covers everything in town and he makes it enjoyable to read."
PLENTY OF MATERIAL
Out on the tracks one recent morning, Hoover, keeping a sharp eye out for news, sidled up to Guitar Dan, who was sipping a beer and reading a dog-eared copy of Ian Fleming's "Live and Let Die."
"I like your little poems," said the shaggy blond-haired musician, smiling at Hoover and revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth. He then pulled out his guitar and sang a folksy little ditty that made little, if any, sense.
"I wrote that when I was on drugs," explained Guitar Dan, whose inspiration for the song was "a guy who just got out of a mental institution."
Hoover's eyes widened and, as he turned, a sly grin moved across his face. Deadline, according to all six clocks at the Eye, was still many hours hence.
Intrigued by the existence of a town with such a statue and by the characters who cheesed it, Hoover came to Arcata and fell in love with its quirkiness.
But President William McKinley was not a member of the Bull Moose party! He was a Republican.
This and the weighty opinions of the professors of the science of journalism are the best parts of the story. (Feeding the cat's sadistic mood on Monday mornings!)
Did you know that a Republican president is four times as likely to shot in office as a Democrat?
BTW MckKinleyville is the town north Arcata and every once in a while they will start a movement to move the stature next to the "Worlds Tallest Tottem Pole" in beautiful down town McKinleyville. They usually start this drive when some lefty does a rant about President McKinley.
I beleive they have 3 seats on the council. The Greens have a large following up here. Check the vote results for R. Nader in Humboldt County. A interesting thing could happen to the first district assembly race for the North Coast. The Dem Patty Berg should win unless The Green party candidate pulls too many votes away from her. That is how Frank Riggs won the congressional seat a few years ago. The Repub candidate is Robert Brown from Mendicino County.
The tallest building is the county jail...my proof reader was picking her nose.
*******
"Those who make inappropriate comments toward waitresses will one day be bred out of existence as humanity gradually makes it more difficult for their DNA to remain in circulation. A case in point: the clever lad who said stuff to a Plaza restaurant employee. She passed the word along to four or five somewhat more gallant men, who, eager to defend fair maiden’s honor, said they would find Prince Charmless and 'beat him up.' He was last seen near a Plaza taxidermy display, perhaps gazing into the glass eyes of a hollowed-out elk for some clue as to how to navigate the Hobson’s Choice before him: A. Continue to prowl the Plaza and survive any encounter with the Chivalrous Avengers, then carry on random courtships, possibly bleeding, or, B. Get the hell outta Dodge and settle for another night of e-porn and Cheetos. That the ex-elk’s chances of hooking up were about the same as his augured strongly for the second plan."
*******
"Five dog owners had subtleties of the 'No Dogs' sign on the Plaza explained to them in more understandable terms."
*******
"Apparently nothing would deter that infernal streetlight on the corner from its offenses against whatever it was offending, which included one bushy-haired man in a green jacket. His top-volume stream of profanity halted the utility pole in its track, turning its evil designs into so many dessicated moth wings, fluttering groundward."
*******
"If you’re going to beat someone up, or just wish to scare them, be sure to call the victim in advance threatening to 'kick your ass.' That way, she’ll have plenty of time to notify police, who will call you and advise against it."
*******
"A classic theme - man vs. man - was enlivened with the addition of garbage and the taking of a dumpster's innocence. First, security officials at an F Street shopping center warned a trash can-toting man against disgorging its contents there. But this renegade, this iconoclast, this green-panted freedom fighter refusing to buckle under the yoke of monolithic garbage hegemony flouted the prohibitive dictums of the all-controlling $7/hour security detachment and emptied his wretched refuse into the dumpster. Police located the wretched refuse-nik striding from the scene, incriminatingly empty trash can in hand. As fickle fate would have it, that same hand was soon busied plucking the waste from the dumpster, putting it back into the little can under the watchful eye of the garbage marm, then ignominiously trudging from the scene with his unsolved problem, dismaying over how the perfect crime had gone so very wrong."
*******
"Remarkably, the terms 'trailer park' and “restraining order” occupied the same space-time vector."
*******
"One man sported a backpack, the other an abbreviated stub of hair which, barring catastrophe, may someday become a ponytail. Together, they sauntered into an 11th Street man's home like they owned the place. But, darn the luck - they didn't actually live there, so police came with to affirm this abstruse codicil in the social contract: you don't go walking into other peoples' homes."
2:47 p.m. Simple physics helped further sour neighborly relations on Stewart Avenue when a youth hurled a can of WD40 at a wall for unclear purpose. The versatile lubricant took a bad bounce and hit someone in the foot.
You know you've lived too long when you know the origin of both "WD" and "40".
Thanks for the ping!
I was told in basic training that the same folks who made WD-40 also make the WD-1 wire used for military telephones.
Typical humorless liberals.
11:46 p.m. How to make a diamond ring vanish: set it down on a bar.This stuff is *classic*. Thanks to all for bringing it to my attention.******
9:54 p.m. Old Arcata Road neighbors aren't against skateboards just because they're implements of oddly attired youth. And skaters don't zoom and clatter only to annoy people at night. The wheeled ones said they'd work out an arrangement with neighbors specifying agreeable hours. Reasonable behavior like this is what averts prolonged City Council meetings, chest-thumping demagoguery and ultimately, more dipshittian laws.
*****
9:39 p.m. Reality either forked into two incompatible yet co-existing space-time planes, or someone's lyin'! One 18th Street resident said they heard a woman crying and begging a man to "stop," and it sounded like they were in a bathroom. But when an officer found the two, they denied anything was bathroom-awry.
****
10:56 p.m. Some people get mean when they drink.
"Oft-abused statue of McKinley" alert.
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