what, colton worry?
Add comment December 14th, 2009 09:05am skeeter
colton harris moore, the movie
Add comment December 12th, 2009 01:17pm skeeter
We South Enders are probably the exact perfect demographic for gauging the pulse of America. We got hippie artists living back in chicken coops down here in the nettle forests and we got dot.com millionaires gating their mansions right next door. We got survivalists building houses in the ravines no building inspector’s ever seen and we got a kid living on the run back there too. The South End: home to artists and con-artists both.
Lately the rest of the nation and the world too for that matter have been tromping down to get a feel for the lay of the land here in the new Heartland of America. I took a Time reporter through the nettle hollows last week and yesterday a reporter from Wired. These were men hardened by reporting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, steeled in the forge of interviews with Warren Buffet and the poor folks whose stocks tumbled. Matt from Wired had just left Colton Harris-Moore’s mom where he’d obtained an interview for the going price of a 12 pack of ice beer and a carton of Marlboros. Nothing had really prepared him for an assignment this grim. I led him in his shell-shocked state through the haunts of our zit faced fugitive, now an international star clamoring for attention with Tiger Woods and his lady trophies, the Wilt Chamberlain of Tennis.
Colton, no doubt, lives the ascetic life of a hunted dog with rabies. His mother, understandably prideful of what her loins have wrought and her upbringing has mangled, dreams of movie rights in the six figure range. She will probably realize those murky dreams. And Tyee Store will probably make daily deliveries of ice beer and smokes to what will become a Shrine to adolescent angst on yet another of the many dead end roads that transect the South End.
Meanwhile, send the journalists, the commentators, the news crews: we are the pulse of a tabloid nation. Bring ice beer. We will all be charging soon for interviews.
the ballad of colton moore
Add comment December 12th, 2009 12:58pm skeeter
You all probably heard about the Wild Child we had on the South End, some 15 year old kid who broke into our houses, stole our laptops and credit cards and sense of security, who made himself right to home. For about half a year he evaded SWAT teams and sheriff’s posses and vigilante watchdogs, sort of a Jesse James of the nettle forests.
For awhile it got to be Big News. TV crews rolled in, mobile units broadcast from the South Grange and the Visitor Center. You’d’ve thought Bonnie and Clyde had drove in from the 30’s, holed up at the Tyee Alamo and were holdin off Eliot Ness and 100 G-men. The South End was suddenly famous.
The Band was gonna write the Ballad of Colton Moore, teenage desperado, outfoxin the sheriff’s department and terrorizing the citizens of O-Zi-Ya and Mabana. Al Capone with zits, Pretty Boy Floyd barefootin in the ravines, Machine Gun Kelly with bear strength pepper spray.
Like I say, we thought about helping make this kid a Legend. Probably end up with a hit single, sell a million copies, create a role model for the entire Stanwood High School, you know, supplant rock and roll stars and basketball millionaires with fellow adolescent malcontents.
We’d have a woods full of angst ridden wannabees, breedin like rabbits back up the hollers, helping themselves to vacant homes and wine cellars, orderin upscale supplies off the internet with stolen identities, barkin at the moon at night in wild Baccahanlias, refusing to surrender, refusing to go back to Normal existence, refusing the American Dream reality….. And that’s when the Band realized, we got too many artists and musicians ALREADY livin like that down here, we don’t need an overpopulation competin with us. So instead, we wrote this next song: The Ballad of Colton Moore, Attorney at Law, rehabbed and ready to make an honest livin. Goes like this rightchere.
