Editor makes Arcata police blotter pure poetry -- and parody

San Francisco Chronicle | 5-19-02 | Peter Fimrite

[Temple Owl]

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.

But President William McKinley was not a member of the Bull Moose party! He was a Republican.

[the]

Link to Police Blotter

[Temple Owl]

Thank you! It's pretty funny.

[Revolting cat!]

"Hoover . . . encourages the people of Arcata to laugh off oppression as they go about their middle- to upper-class day."

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!)

[Temple Owl]

Ah yes, Revolting Cat, but the good citizens should worry about have a cheese-stuffer in their midst. Pigeons and Daschle crapping on Republicans is enough. The local department police must start taking these crimes seriously. Let's assign Robert Blake to the case.

[Tribune7]

He was a Republican.

Did you know that a Republican president is four times as likely to shot in office as a Democrat?

[Temple Owl]

And the Dems pretend that they want to get rid of guns. LOL

[tubebender]

As a resident of Eureka I want to assure you that the Humboldt County is not pink...it is sort of...well you could describe it as...if you have ever seen... well it is the tallest building in Humboldt County.

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.

[Temple Owl]

Do the Greens still control city council? What is the highest building in town?

[tubebender]

Do the Greens still control city council? What is the highest building in town?

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.

[dighton]

"Three saggily garbed men projected their seediness ray onto customers near an F Street variety store."

*******

"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."

[aculeus]

*****

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".

[csvset]

Lol, those whacky denizens of Humboldt County.

[ErnBatavia]

Ahhhh....glad that "the Eye Blotter" will remain near and dear to some of us; I've had it bookmarked for a couple of years, and tend to go there for hoots on slow days.

Thanks for the ping!

[Larry Lucido]

You know you've lived too long when you know the origin of both "WD" and "40".

I was told in basic training that the same folks who made WD-40 also make the WD-1 wire used for military telephones.

[Larry Lucido]

"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."

Typical humorless liberals.

[Temple Owl]

ping

[Temple Owl]

Thank you. I just barely remembered posting it. Then it became familiar. It's a panic.

[Ichneumon]

11:46 p.m. How to make a diamond ring vanish: set it down on a bar.

******

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.

This stuff is *classic*. Thanks to all for bringing it to my attention.

[dighton]

"Oft-abused statue of McKinley" alert.