John (a different John, not the fellow from the 358 posts) seems to come from another age. Multicolored crumbs pepper his dry lips and beard. His eyes are glassy, sometimes present, sometimes far away. A gentle cloud of paraphernalia seems to drift ever around him- garbage bags on their last legs, the red handles stretched from overuse; backpacks and shoulder packs, hanging off this shoulder, or that one. Here is a man who needs three arms.

The better part of his wardrobe lays heavy on his back. Dark jacket over dark jacket weighing down his drifting figure, halftone layers of brown and gray, with a coating of grime unifying it all. He would sit at Rainier and Bayview in the summer evenings, barely able to talk, but always ready to smile.

You would wonder if he was lucid enough to be aware of your existence, and then he'd look you in the eye, responding graciously to your greeting. Today I'm at the 358 layover, my door open, leaning on the farebox with my book (Dumas), when John comes ambling by. He stops when he sees me.

"Heeeeey," I exclaim, recognizing him.
"Hey, man! I need a taste o' 'caine!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, I'm just hunting' for a little bit o' 'caine. Hey, congratulations on supervisor!"
"What, me? Naw man, I'm still just a regular old bus driver!"
"Aw what? They told me some young Chinese guy went supe."
"Huh."
"I didn't mean to imply..."
"Oh, no, I like bus..." What was I about to say? Where am I going with this? I like buses? I'm not Chinese? Best to tack outward a little- "I'm glad you said hey! I see you got shoes now, that's some good stuff!"

This is the first time I've seen him walking in something other than scuffed, oversize white socks. The bones in his feet seem fused awkwardly. They are large, and he's unable to "walk," in the traditional sense, but he gets by doing the shuffle.

"Yeah, I remember you from that 7 route!"
"Glad you're still hangin' around!"
"You moved up in the world, I see," he announces, looking for the route number. "What's this?"
"358s!"
"Oh." Silence.
"I love it. It's like the 7, long and straight!"
"Yeah, they's some good ones. I like that one out by the arsenal."
"Magnolia, yeah! 24, 33..."
"Mostly older folks."
"Real quiet out there."
"Yeah. Nice to get away for a second," he remarks wistfully.
"Oh, the park's beautiful."
"Except them drills though."
"Drills. What kinda drills?"
"The army guys, they run these drills, all kinds a hours..." Discovery Park is built on the historic grounds of Fort Lawton, and still contains adjacent military properties and housing. He continued, "I was out there real early one morning, and they surrounded me with quiet subterfuge!"
"Those army guys really like to play around out there, huh?"

Right when he said the word "subterfuge," I felt the budding sensation of learning something new. Nobody on the street says subterfuge- except when they do. Who was I, to assume he didn't know the word? There are facets and details in the lives of others we can't pretend to fathom.

A blind senior passenger recently told me he was a chauffeur for celebrities back in his day ("Ah was that mista Daisy," he explained), and although I was skeptical, I had to admit there was a very small chance that yes, it was in fact possible. Subterfuge. In that moment the word took on a new meaning- there are multitudes within me, despite my appearance. I, John, am not a homeless drug addict; I am a person who happens to be homeless and addicted, and there is more that defines me. 

To have my belief in depth, regardless of appearance, confirmed, was profoundly electrifying, if such a reaction is possible. It's the freeing feeling of an open door, and the welcome wave of understanding that no, you don't know everything about this universe, and there is still space for pleasant surprises. I grinned out at John, unable to explain just why.

I'm told this was the biggest turnout at SAM for any tour of its type. The thanks for that goes entirely to you, the audience- you, who took the time to transport yourself out there, who chose this over so many other ways to spend a Thursday evening, who came all the way downtown for an event that lasted only thirty minutes, trusting in the possibility. You, who figured out the parking and the ticket line and what else, who wanted to take part in something, to blow on that flickering flame you believe in and maybe make it bigger. Any words of thanks I can summon up now, in the face of such a gesture, would be horrendously inadequate. I'm humbled into a state beyond words, and am hardly able to comprehend such an outpouring of goodwill.

People often ask me what it's like to give speeches like this, or how I feel afterwards. I immediately eject a bunch of superlatives, attempting to give shape to the thrill I feel. "It was awesome," I'll exclaim with ebullient vehemence, using the relevant hand gestures. Such sentiments barely scratch the surface. I offer below some further reflections on the evening from my perspective.

There were so many faces I wanted to talk to, listen to. So many memories fluttering in my mind, being confronted with those smiles and grins of anticipation, gestures of present excitement. I wanted to reach out and touch all that, to feel the anthemic high of togetherness. That's how it feels at the outset; then the sensations begin to parse themselves out.

I see my best friends, familiar, anchors letting me know it's okay to be there, standing there, braying to the high heavens. They let me summon the drive to plunge ahead, to wriggle further into myself. Additionally, there were people I recognized and wanted to catch up with, faces I was thrilled to see in life, right in front of me, faces I hadn't seen in months or even years.

Then there were people whose smiles triggered faint memories, jogging loose the ephemera of passing time. I remember smiling at a woman in a beanie before it all started. Where had I seen her face before? Questions, stilling my mind with contemplation amidst all the noise, reminding me how small I am, how lucky I am to be alive, here, today. Two young boys with curious eyes. The tall man in the back, thoughtful, hand on his chin just like you do, a stranger you already know. Others gathering around, new to me. What deep reservoirs of stories and perceptions are they coming from? 

There is a focus in public speaking performance that is both heady and precise. For everything to come off as intended, ninety-five percent of my mind has to be on the work; any less and the spell is broken. As you may know, however, the remaining five percent is still very much alive, taking in the manyness of a humming space. The mind still stirs with echoes and reflections, long after it's all over. I wanted so badly to take each person aside and ask after their day, see how they've been. Did I know them? I know I wanted to.

I longed for each millisecond to hold, for some impossible way to wallow in the immediate details, that there might be time enough to reflect on the multitude of facets each moment carried. A listener tossing her hair, breathing further into a new thought. The click of someone's camera. A family coming closer, intrigued. I register faces nodding at an oblique historical reference, and I stifle my surprise and continue on. Eager eyes at Blindfold Gallery, framed by glasses and a burgeoning 'fro. I want to inhale the worth of this goodness. It doesn't come from me; we're all building it together. There was a light in your being, in your excitement, and I imagined we mirrored each other. Thank you.

---
This event took place because and only because of SAM's great Erin Bailey. Without her enterprise, enthusiasm and support the evening wouldn't have existed.

A brand-new batch of recent film work for you all, in the Photography section! These are unedited negative scans of cross-processed Fuji Provia slide film, various color negative brands, and the excellent Croatian black-and-white stock, Fomapan.

"Whuhjjoo pick?" What'd you pick? It's the question we operators all ask each other, right after "Pick-" that thrice-yearly event in which we have an opportunity to choose a different route. It's all terribly exciting, and not unlike a total job change- you might be in a different part of the county, with different coworkers and passengers, shifting your schedule to accomodate new hours or days off.... I was at the 4 terminal at Center Park, and eagerly asked the question of Kevin, the driver of the bus in front of me. We're both from LA, and we like to riff off each other. Warm sunlight held on our faces, glancing through the burgeoning leaves of late Spring.

"I picked 7s," Kevin announced. He sounded disappointed. Oh no, I thought. Was I hearing a little of the old Picker's Remorse? 

With buyer's remorse, hopefully you can go back and return your item. Picker's Remorse is a touch more extreme, in that what you pick for the shake-up cannot be changed. Except in the most unusual of circumstances, it is binding. Sometimes you feel Picker's Remorse moreso precisely because of this permanence, even if you're not actually sure how bad the work will really be. I like Kevin, and I didn't want him feeling the weight of the old P.R. When you feel the Remorse, you see everything through a damp lens. He's at heart a positive guy, and without really thinking about it, I naturally wanted to steer him back to himself.

I said, truthfully, "man, I wish I coulda picked 7s!"
"I always see you smilin' always on that 7."
"I love that thing. Seven in the summertime, that's one o' my favorites. Back and forth on Rainier Avenue, stays light out in the evenings, nice big Breda, takin' the workin' people home, movin' the people around... it gets hot though." I'm referring to the coach type, essentially a bubble of glass with no air conditioning, which gets famously hot in the summer.
"Yeah it does. It be burnin'!"
"It bakes. But it's like, it's one a those things we're gonna tell our grandkids, you know, like 'when Aaahh was young the bus was a hundred degrees!'"

Something awakens in him in that moment. He registers a sea change, the blinders coming off, a new perspective smiling out: "Yeah! yeah, you right!"
"Is' part a the journey, you know, we all goin' through these parts a life,"
"Yeah yeah. I dig it. See man, Nate, you got the attitu'."
"Aw, I don't know. It's just part ' of that journey, you know how you hear the old folks talk about back in the day... and right now today, this is our time!" Today's complaints will be tomorrow's nostalgia. How's that for bizarre human nature? "And we got to enjoy it today, you know?"
"Yeah man, them old folks, they went through some stuff, man, I'm tellin' ya. Some uh these young folks nowadays,"
"Got to look out for the elders."

"Check this out," he continued. "It'd be this old lady ride up with me every time I do the 2, goin' up Queen Anne area. Her name was Miss Bonnie, and we'd get to talkin,' she always be on there, and I got to know her a little bit. And she always take a long time get on the bus, she had her walker, carrying her groceries, everything. And one day she be getting on and her wallet falls out. And out comes a roll of hundred dollar bills."
"What?"
"No joke, came right outta her wallet, fell on the floor. Five, six, seven hundred dollar bills."
"Right there on the floor."
"Yeah. and you know whuh she said? She said excuse me, I think I dropped some bills. And I put my hands in the air said it's okay Miss Bonnie, I'm gonna get that for you, you go 'head get yourself situated. We got you covered in here. And I picked up the bills and she sat down and I gave the bills back to her. She trusted me to do that! You think that would go down between any two a these young folks today?"

He's sliding down again, but I can't give up hope: "the thing is though, there will always be old people tha's rude, old people that's polite, young people that's rude, young people that's polite. For me, I get so excited when the young folks are polite. Sure, it don't happen all the time, but it does happen."
"Oh yeah!"
"And that moves me, man! It does somethin' inside. Cause those kids are the future."
"Man, iss been a pleasure rappin wit' you! I got to go get in this number 4 here."
Shaking hands with enthusiasm: "it's gonna be a beautiful night!"
"Yeah it is! Always!"

If you know what's happening in this picture, it's because you were there! I'll write about that in the book, but not on the blog. Too much silly string involved!

Hope to see you at Seattle Art Museum this Thursday. It's a short, one-night only event, and likely will not be allowed to be photographed or filmed for posterity. If you're in the neighborhood...  Details here!

My thoughts on what films will dominate at today's Oscar ceremony, and why- over at Erik Samdahl's site, filmjabber. As for my thoughts on the actual quality of the films themselves, check out my Top Ten of the Year if you haven't already!