Click here for both interviews. The short version (6 minutes) is at the top of the page, and printed; Scroll down for the long version (19 minutes), which goes into further detail and covers issues like fare, shields, and back-door boarding. Further context:

• A breakdown of exactly what happened (Spokesman Review/Seattle Times). I think these heartbreaking details are important in helping shape our understanding of exactly what went down. A tragedy becomes more tragic when it is avoidable.
• How the assailant was apprehended (Seattle Times); bravo to Timm, among others, whom I've enjoyed driving nights with;
• "King County Metro Bus Driver Shawn Yim’s Death Is a Tragedy: Two Notable Stabbings in the Past Two Months May Point to Failures in Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Policies" (The Stranger). Some further context and food for thought.
  

I post new material at the start of every month. Check back soon!

I always called him by his full name because it made him laugh. Shawn and I crossed paths in the lunchroom, on the road, at our lockers, the bullpen, the layovers, and everywhere else. We moved in similar circles. He and I both had the seniority to pick away from Atlantic Base, home of the hardest and most challenging routes; and we both had the seniority to pick away from night work, but for different reasons we wanted to be there, working our night shifts together downtown. I do it because I like the people and the pace; Shawn did it because he needed the money, and overtime is best found on the routes, times, and places that are least desirable.

But the 70 is such a cush route.

It doesn't even go to 12th and Jackson. It's too short for sleepers. It's just the 70. Shawn wasn't downtown, either. This happened in the U District. And, reading this at home, you might think 3 AM is a uniquely dangerous time, but it isn't. In post-COVID Seattle there's no difference in safety between 3 PM and 3 AM. Both are equally fraught. Remember the new full-timer who, perhaps because he was African, was [REDACTED to protect operator privacy]. That happened during afternoon rush hour, broad daylight with tons of people around. 

Our city allows this sort of thing. 

Let the terrible sentence live now as it did then, in that poor operator's horrific experience. He will never forget those minutes. The same is true for the ten people recently stabbed near 12th and Jackson within a 36-hour period, by one deranged individual who attacked all of his victims unprovoked and mostly from behind. There are good folks up there at that notorious intersection, from the small business owners to the seniors in affordable housing to yes, the youngsters outside struggling with drugs. I happen to really like some of those people. They don't deserve to be stabbed.

Neither did Shawn. I consider his final moments with the paralysis of intimate sorrow, intimate because I’ve probably driven the very same vehicle was sitting in, and because I know exactly the terrain and timbre of his final time and place. Shawn Yim as he stumbled away from the bus, making it only a short distance before collapsing on the concrete, over there in the alley behind Wells Fargo, a young and healthy 59 year-old dying alone, collapsing not just in loss of blood but also in belief. How could it possibly end this way, so badly and so soon? All the things I'd planned for, hoped for, wanted to do, fix, see, live….

You remember that I was in the Paris terror attacks in 2015. My next book dives deep into that. But you also remember how decisively Paris, as a system of governance, took action in responding to something even as nebulous as terrorists, taking preventative measures while pursuing the appropriate action behind the scenes, swiftly and with the use of considerable resources. They ensured safety when the enemy was unknown and few. 

Our situation is different. Seattle’s problems and dangers are not hidden but obvious. They repeat in predictable and terrifying ways. Violent behavior happens here without intervention. Life-destroying drugs can be used in broad daylight without consequence. Unstable souls with desperate needs, dangers to themselves and others, are dumped on the street and left to rot amongst the crowd. Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of lip service are expended in the name of solving these crises, while 3rd Avenue remains exactly as unsafe as it was four years ago.

The fact that it was Shawn Yim crushes me.

A robust and friendly man, one of the few Korean-Americans at Atlantic Base besides myself. I rarely brought up our shared heritage but it was always there between us, an unspoken bond the others couldn't share. We would joke about the miserable state of things, the jesting laughs of our brief interactions emboldening us to carry onward. “I don't know how you do it, Nate," he'd smile, watching my enthusiasm as I prepped for another night on my 7.

It happened five minutes into his last trip of his shift. 

Home stretch, almost done. He probably took the piece (we call shifts pieces) thinking this'll be easy, route 70 at night no big deal, nice easy route during the hours when there's no traffic, even better. What was he saving up for, working all those hours?

The pain of losing Shawn is the fact that I always hoped to know him better. We were both of us continuously in motion, rushing through our lives, aware that we'd get more out of knowing each other but, you know, duty calls. Our friendship was a lifetime of unfinished conversations. Who was he, deep down?

The two of us standing by the microwave, Shawn with his polished wire-frame glasses and trademark light blue oxford–only senior operators wear those, because the uniform store no longer makes them–with a reflective vest on top. His bald head and thoughtful eyes plus the professionalism of the glasses, contrasted with that safety vest, cast him as a sort of urban intellectual, the kind of person you can’t quite pin down, because they don’t fit into any one box.

I always wanted to ask another question, share a little more. He knew my partner, and would joke about how good her Korean is. “That’s so creepy, you sound like my sister!” he'd tell her, laughing with that handsome, tired smile of his. Other times he'd be driving the bus I was riding, and we’d wax reflectively about human nature and the state of the city. Of course I wish I could remember our exact conversations. But how can I, sitting as I am in the shell-shocked immensity that is violent death? At least I can still recall the feeling, the easy sensation of another day with one of your favorite coworkers, joking the trip away while watching the road together. He was so good at letting me be myself, even when he had different views. I did the same for him. We never tried to change each other. Talking with him brought me joy.

Why do we delay the things that matter most?

It is the City’s responsibility–our leaders and ourselves–to make Seattle safe. To foster environments where people don't have to risk damage and death by merely using transit. After all that has happened and continues to happen, who among our leaders would dare to say meaningful progress has been made? My friends on the street and I know differently. We watch and wait as ever we have, waiting for legislation that could so easily reverse a lot of the things Seattleites have to suffer, waiting for someone with the agency and power and courage to come forward and make some real moves. That person will be named a hero.
​
But whoever they end up being, they will be too late for Shawn Yim.

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CLICK HERE for my NPR interview on this subject (scroll down for the full 19-minute interview).

In reviewing the recent electoral catastrophe, I find myself seeking answers. Am I wrong about my own views? Is it me or them? How did this train wreck happen, and why? It's similar to how I feel when confronted with cruelty and apathy on the street. I'll witness a moment of extreme selfishness and wonder, where is their best self, their considerate self? Why this instead? Selfishness happens most naturally when one's survival is at stake… or when one thinks one's survival is at stake. 

Rural white poverty has always been, numerically, the largest type of poverty in the US, and as ever, it remains the least studied. Sociological studies of the poor tend to stem from major cities and the diverse demographics within them. Many of us have relatives who live out there, with baffling perspectives we cannot share. And don't forget– they find us equally baffling. 

Perspectives come from education, whether in school or from lived experience. What sort of education do we imagine exists out in the red states? To what degree are our rural and working-class neighbors equipped to decode the clever messaging politicians send their way?

1. Breaking it Down

Literacy comes to mind as an effective unit of measure. And literacy is more than being able to read and write. Let's briefly review the PIAAC’s (Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies) six levels of literacy (more here).

-Below Level 1: basic vocabulary only; can understand info on a familiar topic.
-Level 1: can fill out basic forms; can't make inferences from written material (unable to understand correct dosage on a medicine label).
-Level 2: able to make comparisons and simple inferences; unable to evaluate reliability. (can understand product reviews. Able to write a paragraph about your day).
-Level 3: able to read multiple pages of text. Can evaluate sources and infer complex ideas; can identify inappropriate or irrelevant info (can compare two bus schedules and plan a trip).
-Level 4: can understand non-central ideas from multiple texts to evaluate subtle claims and persuasive discourse (able to detect subtle bias and form one's own conclusion).
-Level 5: can synthesize contrasting points of view; select key info to evaluate conceptual models of ideas; aware of rhetorical cues and high-level inferences requiring specialized background knowledge (can write a PhD dissertation).

These are not measures of worth. I write the above without condescension. There are numerous types of knowledge, including all those the PIAAC system can't even begin to measure. Many of my favorite people, from the street or otherwise, are exactly those whom the above criteria would deem limited in their ability to decode written or spoken messages. I happen to like some of these people, and I respect and learn from them. I find something to admire in a certain freedom they sometimes exhibit, a freedom from the homogenizing intellect-based worldliness that becomes so tiresome after a while.

But when an election is going on with this much at stake, you need to be able to understand what you're looking at.

And as it turns out, 54 percent of the US is below a Level 3. This means they can't identify bias, evaluate reliability, or make inferences about what's irrelevant. They can read headlines, but not multiple pages of text. This map has breakdowns of literacy levels for every county in the US. You might be surprised to discover how many counties are mostly illiterate at levels 3 thru 5. You'll also notice a certain vast, recurring and undeniable correspondence between… you guessed it, counties with limited literacy levels and a high Trump voter response.

2. Feelings & Distractions

All of us humans nurse a loneliness we pretend we don't have. We yearn to belong, to be seen and heard and wanted. What vast pocket of Americans has been continuously ignored, ridiculed and overlooked, by the wider culture, by media, news, politicians and governments? You know the answer. They have spoken now. 

They don't care about your needs, because survival is a selfish act and they imagine their survival is at stake. They believe the lies they've been told, the reassuring pronouncements that their needs will finally be addressed. They've fallen for the urgency capitalism wants us to think is true: that only some can survive. 

A person who feels ignored, especially in the sense of being able to sustain their livelihood, as rural and working-class folks today do, is going to respond enthusiastically to a politician who claims to see them, not condescendingly but equally, who claims to be one of them, who will save them from the rest of the world that ignores them and their needs. Who wants to burn down the whole broken system that's sidelined them for so long. Fear and frustration: these are the ways to manipulate the masses, especially if they're not looking too closely. 

Which is where the literacy part comes in.

Trump is not “one of them,” and never was. You know this. He's an unstable billionaire with dementia seeking to make life easier for himself and other billionaires. He’s a convicted serial rapist and 34-count felon who absolutely does not care about poor white people, as his previous administration makes numbingly clear. Those folks are doing just as badly as they always were. No, he cares about rich white people. He distracts the poor with hot-button social issues that shouldn't even be political, taking advantage of people's shortsightedness on class, while making economic decisions that disadvantage everyone besides his own tax bracket. Only in a country that turns such a blind eye to class could voters fail to comprehend this massive and thoroughly obvious oversight. I'll refrain from discussing the many other oversights. 

Literacy. That's what this election was about. The ability to decode rhetoric. To read through advertising, to perceive the culture's political tricks for what they are. They fell for it, millions of them, to the point that they voted against their own self-interests.

3. In Summation

This great, young country of ours strikes me now as an adolescent, a fiery, brilliant, impassioned creature who seems fully formed but isn't, who has difficulty understanding basic truths, who responds not intellectually but emotionally. Puberty. It's when you make your worst decisions, when you think only of yourself and ignore the needs of others.

Sometimes there's nothing harder than having to share the room with a teenager. Especially when they get to make all the decisions.

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What lies ahead? As a society, we have no choice. It's a cancer diagnosis. 

As individuals though, we do have choice: to help the person next to us. To foster community locally. To remember we do better when those around us (different as they may be) do better. Helping others takes patience and effort. Let us breathe. We don't get to choose the times we live in, but we do get to choose how we live in them. 

I'll see you out there.

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Sources and Further reading:

Trump

• If you're curious, here's what I wrote after election day in 2016– "The Day the Music Died."
• Cosmopolitan. "Trump's victory reveals just how mainstream misogyny has become."  Didn't think I'd see the day when I'd be linking multiple Cosmo articles as further reading on my blog, but this intelligent piece puts things into perspective, including pointing out a gender divide in response to the election that I, amusingly, fall right into in my piece above. A useful balance!
• Cosmopolitan. "A timeline of Donald Trump’s many (alleged) crimes and convictions." This comprehensive list goes all the way back to Trump's 1973 actions against black renters.

Literacy

• Intelexual Media. "America's #1 Problem (RANT!!!)" (video). Fun, passionate breakdown of the above literacy data with historical context from a Black & feminist perspective.
• Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies. Literacy Levels explained. Definitions and methodology.
• PIAAC. Skills Map. Breakdowns by literacy level and county for all 50 states, with background info and FAQs.

Rural white poverty

• Boston Review. "Who’s to Blame for White Poverty? Dismantling it requires getting the story right." Pleasingly in-depth reviews of three new books on the subject.
• US Census Bureau. "Poverty in the United States: 2022." An overview; the real meat and potatoes is in this 67-page PDF. Boring, dense, and factual, like all the best statistics are. Page 5 for race breakdown.

Although I feel compelled to share the above, this won't become a political blog, I promise! As Paul Currington said, politics and opinions push people apart... whereas stories bring people together. Right now we need the latter. 

I post at the start (or before) of every month. Check back when bills are due!

Celia just called me, a spur-of-the-minute decision as she sped down Rainier late tonight. “This is Celia,” she says in the voicemail. She adds her last name, as though I might have forgotten after all these years.

Not a chance.

“I saw you driving the 7 just now, and I thought I would call. You were northbound on Rainier at Rose. You had your light on, as usual. I was reminded of all the good times we had together, all those rides and conversations.”

I am suffused with a kind of bewilderment, the melancholy joy that comes when we are reminded of the size of existence.
Her voice brought back a flood of– not so much memories but the sensation, the bodied recall of an effortless peace, when the clutter was benign, those sections of our lives that did not feature pain or stress as their principal ingredient. You remember.

She worked at Italian Family Pizza and brought me slices regularly. Those were the days when I got so many meals gifted from passengers I didn't know what to do. Her and I, laughing at the terminal. Or the two of us quietly absorbed in the world moving by, me driving and her up front watching, one or the other of us periodically punctuating things with a comment. The genial silence of relaxed friendship, easy, uncluttered by romance or goals or futures. Or later, speaking softly in her family’s kitchen, the two of us building ideas after the rest of the house had gone to bed. Was she the sister I never got to have?

Celia sitting on top of the wheelwell because why not, she's light enough. And me so happy she made it running all the way down First Hill from work to downtown to catch me, just in time, a long jog in the dark hoping for this moment, her flustered smile still scented with cardboard and dough. She was carrying leftover slices in a box under her arm. Why do I remember this moment better than all the others?

Memories. They overwhelm me now, the surprise that once upon a time this was the biggest thing that ever was, the present, a Tuesday night bus ride home. Catching up over rain-slicked neon pavement. We echo into the deeper past, unknowingly, a gift for our future selves.

If the only intelligent response to the incredible gift of life is gratitude, then the only meaningful interpretation of the past is through forgiveness. We must forgive, others for their hurtful actions and ourselves for our faults. Why dwell on ignorance, laziness, selfishness?

There is no time. The time that was is gone. Let the gauze of selective memory paper over the pain, work its magic, that we might more fully recall the rest of the picture: all of the joy, the lightness and normality, the neutral afternoons and the textures that become real when we forget to rush.

Tonight she continues in the voicemail, telling me she tried to make my recent art show, plus an update: she has a newborn now. It was going to be a surprise at the gallery, but here we are. Her voice is at peace with itself.

The times we shared could only have happened then. That was our season. She makes no mention of “we should get together.” We humans drift closer and then apart, pulled by the tides of ourselves, new projects and people. It is the way of things. Friends once, now acquaintances. They're living their life now and so are you, and you're busy.

But you find yourself pausing, now. You tarry tonight in a still room, alone with your memories even if someone else is sleeping nearby. You go to the kitchen for water and remain a bit after turning out the light, appreciating the darkness and the liberating fullness of time. How the faint light catches the rim of the water glass.

You say to yourself, “She was a good friend of mine.”

I've got two interviews for you this month, both centering around the creative process. These were conducted in relation to my Gallery 110 solo show from last year, which you can learn more about here (including video of a very fun art talk!).

• UW Magazine. Ordinary to Extraordinary: Nathan Vass slows down time with his photography and writing, by Aleenah Ansari. This one's an overview of my photographic process and how it relates to bus driving.
  
• International Examiner. Q&A: Engaging ephemera with imagemaker Nathan Vass’ “Present Perfect,” by Kevin Phan. This piece dives deeper into process and philosophy behind artmaking, discussing specific approaches and things I try to achieve in photo.
  

I post once a month, at the beginning of the month– check back soon for an epic piece about the very last 7/49, which by super special request I was lucky enough to drive!