Good Dog, Creck

Lars axed me to put up my police ride story, so here it is. I'm not counting this as published. I'm going to hold firm to the idea of traditional journalism in the form of newspapers, print and the dinosaurs that deliver them to your front door. Blogs. Don't. Count.

It was a slow Saturday night on the swing shift. Officer Creck only left the patrol car twice, once just to chase his rope ball.

Creck is one of four K-9 officers in the Springfield Police Department. He is a German shepherd from the Czech Republic (by way of Bakersfield, Calif.) and has been patrolling the streets of Springfield for more than four years with his partner, Officer Tony Del Castillo. Creck’s trained to search buildings and inspect cars, but his favorite pastime is the vehicle pursuit. That’s where Creck gets to show off.

Only two patrol cars are allowed on a vehicle pursuit and one of those will always be a K-9 unit, Del Castillo said. This is in case the suspect leaves the vehicle and runs. Police dogs like Creck can track a suspect quickly. Human officers can take much longer and are not always effective, Del Castillo said.

According to the Springfield Police Department website, the K-9 program started after it took five officers over 90 minutes to find a theft suspect in a Bi-Mart store. When caught, the suspect admitted that he had been hiding in a box, close enough to touch one of the officers. A similar situation happened shortly afterward at a K-Mart store on 21st Street. Police officers made two inspections of the building and found no one. The K-9 was called in and found the suspect within minutes.

Like his fellow police dogs on the force, Creck is trained from a puppy specifically to assist police officers. Police dogs and their human partners spend four months living and training together before hitting the patrol on a work schedule. The first month is just for bonding, Del Castillo said. He fed Creck and played with him but issued no commands apart from disciplinary ones. Once they build a trust with their human partners, police dogs begin two to three months of command training.

All of Creck’s commands are in Czech because that’s the language he was raised with, and it’s easier than retraining in a new language, Del Castillo said.

When Del Castillo throws the rope ball Creck’s instinct is to run for it, but one command will stop Creck in his tracks. He will not move, no matter what distractions surround him, until Del Castillo gives the “go” command in Czech.

Last Saturday Creck had little to do, and that’s okay, too. There are only a couple of pursuits a month. The rest of the time is spent on patrol with Del Castillo. Sometimes that means riding in the car and waiting, never getting the chance to track “the bad guys.”

According to the 2007 “City of Springfield Police Department Annual Statistical Report” reported crime dropped 14.5 percent from 2006 and arrests were down 17.3 percent.

“We deal with 10 percent of people 90 percent of the time,” Del Casillo said. That can make for a slow Saturday, but Del Castillo doesn’t mind. Slow days means people aren’t breaking laws.

“Someone walking down the street is just someone walking down the street,” Del Castillo said.

Creck is just as easygoing as his partner when he’s not on alert, willing to come up to a stranger for a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears. But when he hears Del Castillo issue a command, Creck is all business and ready for any situation that comes his way, even if it’s just chasing down a rope ball.

Thanks, I'm Giving This to You

I'm thankful that this year is almost over. The cat, the blood thing, the mystery illness, moving again, economics ... dude ... I'm so done with it.

I'm thankful that in one week I'll be able to read a book and finally finish watching Chak De! India ... maybe even sleep a little.

I'm thankful that I live in a house with heat, a neighborhood with neighbors, a city with a conscience, a county that includes city and country people, a state that includes Powell's City of Books, a country that is moving forward and may one day actually be what it imagines itself to be, and a world where a deadbeat can be in internet star: Where The Hell is Matt (and thankful that Wuh sent me the video today).

In the Meantime...

I'm working on 2 media papers and a website, so for your reading pleasure I'll be using someone else's literature. This is probably ... almost definitely ... the best review I've ever read on Amazon. It's for Sixteen Tambourines by The Three O'Clock (found at random while looking for the lyrics to "Jet Fighter Man"):

What Time Is It?
April 21, 2003
By A Customer

Jesus died at three o'clock. The previous band name (The Salvation Army) had to be deep-sixed, for copyright reasons. But you can't keep a good band down, and the boys were going to have their last laugh, at the expense of the petty Christians and their humanity-serving organizations. Take that you Bible thumpers!

But is this a good band, and are they boys? Yes to the first part, no to the second part. These are chipmunks with bad haircuts and oxford shirts. But unfortunately, the name "The Chipmunks" was also copyrighted...

But again, you can't keep a good band down. And even a chipmunk can dream...of being a Jet Fighter. Jet Fighter Man/That's What I Am/Cuz Tanks Go Too Slow.

When I was in grammar school, the word "gay" was tossed around among the kids as a perjorative. Immature young punks we were, but the word "gay" wasn't a sexually loaded insult. Just a derisive term for things that weren't cool, or tended towards the "sissy" part of the coolness spectrum. If I may return to my grade school days, let's just go ahead and call this the "gay"-est music you'll ever hear. If Isaac Hayes is matter, Michael Quercio is anti-matter. If you're driving through the "tough" section of town, you do not want your windows rolled down with The Three O'Clock blaring on your stereo.

But I sincerely love this band, and have taken much abuse for listening to them. Funny looks, shaking heads, snide remarks. I have received much disdain for my appreciation and affinity of this band. And Sixteen Tambourines is their finest album. Even with the Bee Gees cover.

Jet Fighter is quite simply the perfect pop song, and who'd a thunk it, with the less-than-promising intro to the song. Weird electronic twang into a cheesy high keyboard with a stupidly-simple drum rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Then the most absurd guitar progression ever, a chromatic run of notes that goes absolutely nowhere. Verse one is shouty and stupid. But then...the chorus kicks in. And the song takes off. Like a Jet Fighter. And then you're tapping your foot, having a good time. The Stone Roses would imitate this in the closing song to their classic debut. I Am the Resurrection starts out with a simple drumbeat, a repetitive bassline, and a chant-chanty verse. And you don't appreciate it until you hear the song again and again and again.

Compare the guitar line in Stupid Einstein to Sally Cinnamon. This is a formidable band we're dealing with here. You can forgive the reference to the "master race" in this song. It's bubble gum pop sui generis. Tomorrow is driven by a pulsing keyboard riff and a heavenly vocal melody, and the middle eight is the highlight of the song, not just a trite instrumental but more vocals telling us to "Stay Young/When Life/Goes Wrong/I'll Help You." Have more soothing words ever been sung? It took me...over three years...to appreciate On My Own, but now I think it's possibly the class song of the album.

It seems that most Three O'Clock aficionados consider Arrive Without Traveling to be there magnus opus. I think they are tragically misguided. The songs of AWT are more complex, the band is tighter, and the opening track is ferocious (for chipmunks that is). And then Hand in Hand...oh I SWOON just thinking about that song. But on Sixteen Tambourines you have this onslaught of pop diamonds, one after the other, and they turn your brain into that sickeningly sweet red jelly inside of those powdered donuts. This is one of the top 5 albums from the 1980s, in my estimation. And the places this album will take you. A Day in Erotica...hear what chipmunks sound like when they are in heat! When Lightning Starts...funky chipmunks with saxophones! And don't forget that Bee Gees cover!

Oh yeah. Ignore tracks 11-16.

I'm busy, really

You'd think now that I'm portable I'd be more regular about putting stuff up, but it looks like I'm slipping even further behind. I guess I can put it down to the problem of using the laptop to run episode of "House" instead of blogging -- but I'm writing a 20-page analysis of gender, race and disability stereotypes, so I need to research. Right?

Academics come first.

Almost typed "Academics come fist" ... and that amuses me.

It's been a boring week anyway, or at least one that I didn't really keep up with as it went by. I'm still a little thrown off by today being Friday. Wasn't yesterday Monday? I'm sure it was. I remember ... doing something ... Monday-ish, although I'm not entirely sure what it was.

Class is starting up and we're discussing White Heat (which I compared musically to King Kong -- honestly, listen to the score and show me where I'm wrong. That nutty Max Steiner, man. He knew exactly what he was doing).

The Changeling

No, not the new Jolie picture -- not to knock the Jolie and Squint, but that movie looks kind of bloated and Oscar-panderish. I think JCVD is going to be the movie of the year.

The changeling in this case is the cousin/roommate, who has yet to come out of his new adult bedroom. I predict he will awaken as a new man. Yesterday he removed himself from the floor and onto a real mattress on a real bed. I know in Japan sleeping on a floor is just fine, but in Eugene ... I guess it's still just fine in most places, but today that trend has ended on Taylor St. As proof of it, he's still snoring in there.

We also have a lovely sectional with a chaise lounge and in about a week we'll have a dining room table. Ad-Dults. We are adults, and it feels right fine.

Other news -- the mini Dell ... you know, if they weren't such bastards I would recommend buying one. If you do decide to get one I have 2 bits of advice: cry into the phone and, if they delay shipment, tell them you want to cancel the order. They shipped it 3 days after I called to cancel it, which got it to me 2 weeks before I was scheduled to receive it. Had I known that would work I would have tried it weeks ago.

It's not a bad little laptop and it will fit into most lunchboxes. It weighs less than my AP Stylebook. For $500, that's pretty sweet. Now, with my cellphone and my iPod and my laptop, I can finally fit in with the kids, right? Time to buy some Hollister jeans ... oh, wait ... am I an woman or a misses, even though I have to buy juniors pants? Being an adult is tough.

Yes we can

Last night I wasn't going to watch it because I didn't want to get my hopes up only to wake up to another Republican morning. So we took time to buy some food, make some food, hanging around the kitchen away from the television, until about 7:30.

When he won Pennsylvania I nearly had a coronary. When he won Ohio I thought maybe this time it'll be okay, maybe this time it'll work, maybe this time -- Then came Florida! Then Virginia -- Virginia was looking totally McCain and then THEN it went blue! Then McCain gave in and wisely didn't allow Palin to speak, but as eloquent and old-school McCain, the McCain I used to like, as he was, it was disturbing to hear the boos in the Biltmore audience.

What the f...?

Tried calling my mom all night to find out that she was on the phone with the little brother the whole time. The little brother and wife voted McCain/Palin. What the F...?! WHAT??? And mom tells me that my one of my aunts claimed to have "proof" that Obama was the Antichrist.

But then, this morning, he was still president and it was all okay.

Some kids in the student union were talking about how they knew Obama would win and so they just went to bed.

I couldn't sleep.

For the record

I've decided I don't want to be a copy editor anymore. I don't want to be a reporter either. Can't I just watch movies and review them? How the hell did Ebert get his job? Do I need to write some crap sequel to an exploitation picture to get noticed?

That is all.

Some Scary Sh...t

Scary: This is one of the many spiders we keep finding in the house. It's similar to the one Veda was wrestling with a couple of weeks ago. Where the hell do they keep coming from and why won't they die die die die die? By the way, for size comparison, think of a small dog.


Scarier: this comment from my mom's friend, "I'm worried that if Obama wins the election the black people will think they can take over." Dude. It's not like she lives in the south. This is coming out of California. Now every time I see someone with a McCain/Palin sign I think "racist motherf----". That ain't right.

Scariest: pictures from this year's Halloween party. We were comics/cartoons, and, yes, Silvia, you can say "I KNEW it!" because when you have glasses and not a lot of time (and already own most of the clothes) Velma is the easy way out.

That's me with my "date" Racer X. Her costume was borrowed from the cousin/roommate who couldn't make the gig, so she wasn't sure about wearing it, but wanted to go to the party. ("I don't even know who it is," she said. He's the most misunderstood racer in Formula 1, I told her. "Oh. Okay. Do I have to wear the mask? I feel like a condom.") Jaysis, I look fat, smug and a-sexual. Costume success. Yeah, that's not my hair, by the way.

Wuh was the great (greatest) Marlys, which is funny because I also checked out Lynda Barry for costume ideas, but couldn't scrape it together fast enough. Wuh even decked out in freckles. She's my hero.

But the winners...

You know, I thought their Gene Rayburn/Julie the Cruise Director were good outfits, and the Wes Anderson combination was masterful (we won't talk about the year he was Yanni), but Cruella and Yukon Cornelius? Come on. The best ever. Haven't we all secretly wished for the marriage of Disney with Rankin-Bass?