Author: Jeff

Justin writes about grout puns written between the tiles of the men’s restrooms at PSU. By chance I was dumbfounded by a similiar piece of work in the men’s room at the Elysian a while back. Every piece of grout graffiti in sight was some kind of post-modern comment on grout or grout graphiti.

I did a quick search and it seems that this phenomenon is more widespread than one might expect.

Who is responsible for this? As far as I know this only occurs behind urinals, so the culprits would be male. Since the only convenient time to create this graffiti is when one is standing there with the tile one foot in front of one’s face, it would be fair to assume that the culprits are also near-sighted. And so . . . all signs point back to .

He‘s wall-eyed, has a weathered face, stocking cap, & a thin goatee. He came up to me one day and asked if I had any baseball cards that I could give him. I don’t know where that came from, maybe he saw me reading a comic and assumed I was a collector.

So over the last couple of years he’s been coming up to me and asking if I have any cards, pictures, slides, or anything for him. I always tell him no and then we’ll walk a little and he’ll tell me a convoluted story about finding a box of slides in a dumpster or about someone giving him their expired passport.

His stories are kind of difficult to explain, because they kind of have there own logic and he sometimes leaves out key parts of the story.

One time I was having lunch with a friend at Noodle Studio, he walked by and waved. A couple of weeks later he said, “Last time you were with your wife.”

He’s starting to grow on me. He’s some kind of anthropologist/artist. That’s what I’ve decided.

A rusty old Dodge pickup and its driver are stranded at the corner of Olive and Melrose. Somehow the truck has been maneuvered onto the sidewalk and is backed up against a tree. The hood is propped open with a golf club and the driver is leaning against it, waiting. I walk past and nod hello. The stranded man asks, “Can you drive a stick?”

So we work out what we’re going to do: We’ll push the truck into the interchange. I’ll steer the car left onto Melrose. The truck will pick up momentum on Melrose. I’ll hop into the driver’s seat, push down on the clutch, turn the ignition, and the car will start.

I can see his confidence in me wane as we review what steps involved in starting the car. “Just as if I were starting the car like usual.” “That’s right.” He closes the hood and hands me the golf club. I move into position and drop my backpack and the golf club into the passenger seat.

We put in an effort through a couple of stop light cycles, but we’re not getting very far before we roll back toward the tree. So my new friend recruits a few more pedestrians for our venture. I offer up my place in the driver’s seat, but there are no takers. We wait for the green light and the traffic to go by and get moving. As we start taking the corner, I hop in and the car starts rolling on the slight downgrade.

The car won’t start. I try again, no good. A couple more tries, I’m losing momentum, the truck stops. I sit and wait for the driver. I can’t locate the parking break, so I sit there with my foot on the break pedal.

The driver follows me, allows traffic to maneuver around me, and comes up to the door. “You didn’t get it started?” “No. It wouldn’t start. It didn’t even make engine sounds.”

He’s growing more and more frustrated with me, he doesn’t trust me, maybe I did something wrong. I don’t know. I don’t think the car is going to start this way, but we give it another try. This time I push and he sits in the driver’s seat. (The other pedestrians have continued on their way.) We’re working toward different ends now: I want him to get the thing parked, but I think he’s sure he can make it go.

A huge pickup with a grid of bumpers on the front pulls up and the driver signals that he can help. I negotiate vague terms between the two drivers.

I stand on the sidewalk and watch the big truck push up against the little truck’s tailgate. Other things happen. At some point the driver of the big truck gets out to ask the driver of the little truck a question. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I hesitate, wave at the driver (he doesn’t see, busy with other things), and leave.

I set out late today with a slow & dull brain, crackly joints, baggy eyes, and furrowed brow. I was ready to apologize if I offended anyone’s sensibilities, tripped over any dogs, or walked in front of any cars – I would surely be in the wrong. But something else happened.

While I was staring blankly at my feet, the guy in front of me in the line for the cash machine talked to me as if I weren’t one of the walking dead. I shuffled my feet, pointed at a building or a bird, & grumbled. He commented on how nice the weather was (windy, cloudy, occasional sunbreaks – he has clearly been in this city too long . . . or for just long enough).

I was reading the Times’ comics over a piece of pizza at Pagliacci’s, when a girl who worked there came up and asked if she could read her horoscope over my shoulder. She compared our horoscopes, I attempted to not sound stupid, & our chat even continued slightly beyone the point where I couldn’t provide her with my rising sign.

I stumbled up Broadway and read the white board outside of Bailey-Coy Books, the opening sentance of a book is written there every day & if someone can tell them what book it’s from, they receive a 20% discount. “The idea was that he would keep driving until the money ran out.” I went in and declared, “The Music of Chance!” The bookstore employees were bemused by my enthusiasm.

People in general were just friendly to me today, as if I had the charm turned on and didn’t have a dark cloud hanging over my head.

The first couple of times that I sat down to compose the cover letter, I got all blocked up & depressed & didn’t want to do it. So every day when I wake up, I plan on getting to it, but haven’t even opened the file. It’s been a week now. (Okay, it’s probably been more than a week. But let’s just say that there’s been only one full Sunday-Saturday week involved in this procrastination.)

So my fair weather jacket is tan & I have a pair of jeans that are tan as well. If I wear both at the same time I look pretty silly. I bought the jacket in Edinburgh after I lost the one I’d brought with me. Things were fine when I was traveling, because I was self-conscious & so would catch myself if I tried to wear both at once. I’m not really paying attention here in Seattle, on my home turf. So I occasionally catch myself strutting around wearing what looks like a tan pants suit. I take off the jacket, hide it in my backpack, & try to remember whom I’ve encountered since going out, wondering how my comical appearance colored the conversations.

Anyway, it happened again today.

At the big bookstore chain, I look for Running After Antelope by Scott Carrier in the Essays section and then in the New Releases area. It’s not there, so I go to the information desk. The only person at the information desk is another customer waiting anxiously for someone to stop by and help him. I walk over to the checkout desk and find an idle cashier. The other customer follows me and waits timidly for the other cashier to become available.

“Can I help you?” the cashier asks me.

“I’m looking for a book called Running After Antelope. Can you tell me if it’s out yet?”

My cashier passes behind the other cashier, to a different computer. “Running After Antelope, I like the sound of that title.” He types in the query and says, “We have four copies.” His coworker finishes her transaction. He turns to her and asks, “It says, ‘Biography C’. What does that mean?”

She responds: “It must be ‘C’ as in ‘center’ – between the escalators.”

He turns to me and says, “Alright, let’s go find it.”

He leads me to the biography section and starts skimming the titles. I wait for a few moments. His confident posture degrades into a confused stare, and it becomes apparent that his efforts have bourn no fruit. I get my bearings, and notice that we’re looking at books on Rimbaud, Rockefeller, and Roosevelt. I start walking beside the shelf, backward through the alphabet. My cashier follows, eyeing the books suspiciously. When I get to the beginning of the shelves, but not the beginning of the alphabet, I turn the corner and pace up the other side of the shelves. I slow down as I find Camus, Carter, and (between them) Carrier. I reach up and touch the spine, “Here it is.”

The cashier’s confused expression perks up. “Good eye,” he says.

“Thanks,” I answer. He returns to the checkout counter, having satisfied another customer.

Ingredients for Rebecca and Matt’s Special Glue:
Water, Soap, Spit

Disclaimer: Rebecca and Matt’s Special Glue only works with paper (& it tends to make it wet too).

The other day I went to see Pleasures of Urban Decay, a film about Ben Katchor, at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival. The shots of New York were really nice – rainy & kind of grayed-out, like the shots of New York in Katchor’s strip.

Anyway, since then I’ve been going through the Julius Knipl books & they’re so good. The stories are all mood & environment.

Seeing him draw was pretty amazing. He draws & fills in the washes really quickly, like someone writing.

The cardboard sign that the man on the corner outside Pacific Place is holding repeats the key points of the manifesto written on the back of his jacket in magic marker: “Frye Art Museum and Seattle Police are commies! You are a liar!”

[Correction 5/19/01: The man’s jacket and sign actually refer to “Fry Apt” not “Fry Art Museum”.]