Monthly Archives: June 2007

Story of stories and not a fib,

On Monday, I’m standing outside this plant/factory, ten minutes from wrap on the day’s shoot. Life is good: there’s a slight breeze at 3pm around Tacoma, WA. With it being nothing akin to the Southern summers I grew up with, I lean against this metal pole thing, exhaling in one of those satisfied-with-the-day’s-work moments.

I hear birds above, chirping or whatever, more like screeching and then I see its seagulls. “Hi, seagulls” I think. Beautiful creatures, eating seafood all day. If they could talk, I’m sure they’d come down and ask me if I wanted to go out for a latte or something. I look down, my baseball hat covering my newly exposed scalp from my head shaving.

I see bird poop all around the area I’m standing, and I think, “Darn, that’s a lot of bird poop on the ground.” I’m mesmerized for a split second, getting lost in each permutation. I’m considering each one as its own Jackson Pollock painting. Then it dawns on me, ‘Should I move, maybe I should moooov. . .’

Instantly, I hear a scattered machine gun like sound and feel a showering down of what I think to be water droplets from a nearby steam stack. It’s not. It kind of stings, like a BB on two pumps from a BB gun at 20 yards. Looking down, there are new patterns to consider. These glisten and disturb the already resting beautifully Jackson Bird Pollock paintings I was just taking in.

I was hit. Hit by Seagull Poop. In about five different places, my wardrobe was a battlefield. Luckily, I had this safety orange vest on and it took care of the three direct hits on my person, but there was still some splatter on the bottoms of my pants; one good dollop on the bill of my cap. . .

Anywho, I’m listening to the Believer’s Music issue, putting away the organic hot dogs and salmon burgers I picked up at the Central Market and posting this pic of Mt. Rainier.
From the Northwest,
Michael, the Viking