From the Sep 19 – Sep 25, 2002 issue

Columns

Last Days

The Week in Review

by David Schmader

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 The week began with a septuagenarian booty kaboom, as "longtime reader, first-time tipper" Brian shared his story of a standard morning bus ride instantly transformed into a surreal master class in the humiliations of gravity. "I was riding the #10 down Pine heading downtown. In front of Bauhaus Coffee, I noticed an old man, 70 or so, at the front of the aisle. He wanted to get off, and he was presumably negotiating this nonofficial stop with the driver when suddenly his pants fell to his knees. This wouldn't have been so bad if he'd been wearing underwear," writes Brian, whose verbatim account is so compelling we're just gonna get out of the way. "The entire bus, about 30 of us, were treated to his flabby, pockmarked butt cheeks before he could yank up his pants a full, painful 10 seconds later." Brian continues: "The bus driver was treated to the extra treat of the front, which no doubt influenced her decision to let the guy off the bus immediately. The old guy ambled off, leaving some 30 people in awed, horrified silence." Brian concludes by recounting his failed attempts to force from his brain the image of that old man's ass. "I have been trying to get the image out of my mind for 24 hours now," Brian says, expressing his hope "that some sort of public airing of this event might help." Last Days sincerely hopes this public airing was helpful, and offers these words of consolation to Brian and his fellow victims, who are all of us: No matter what happens, none of you felt anywhere near as horrible as that old man felt when he was making you feel horrible. So cheer up.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 Speaking of old men: Today the world learned that Buzz Aldrin likes to punch, as the 78-year-old astronaut clocked an independent filmmaker who'd approached him outside a Beverly Hills hotel. According to the testimony of the punched man himself--37-year-old Bart Sibrel of Nashville--Aldrin was exiting the hotel when Sibrel approached him with a Bible. Currently working on a film that "proves that the Apollo 11 astronauts faked the footage of their 1969 trip to the moon," Sibrel dared Aldrin to swear on the Bible that he actually went to the moon. When Aldrin declined, Sibrel attacked, denouncing Aldrin as a thief "for taking money to give interviews about something he didn't do." Aldrin responded by punching Sibrel in the jaw, then running away. Sibrel reported the assault to police and is seeking an assault charge against the elderly astronaut. CNN reports that today's encounter was Buzz Aldrin's third run-in with Bart Sibrel since the filmmaker claimed he discovered footage in NASA's archives showing that the Apollo 11 astronauts had placed a transparency of the Earth in front of their space capsule window and filmed it to simulate a journey to the moon. Sibrel's first film, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon, posited the theory that Apollo 11 never left Earth's orbit and that no one has ever walked on the moon--a theory Sibrel expounded further on his 2001 FOX (who else?) TV show Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Bart Sibrel is hard at work on his second feature-length NASA exposé--for which he crassly (but wisely) taped today's Aldrin-induced ass-whupping. Stay tuned.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 Nothing happened today (thank God).

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 Early last week, they were just another intergenerational gay couple engaging in sadomasochistic sex with a mail-order hobo. This week, they're facing charges of rape, kidnapping, and assault. So goes the beguiling tale of Michael Wilson, 45, and William Fritsch, 22, the Brush Prairie, Washington men charged with the eight-day imprisonment and repeated rape of a 47-year-old transient the pair had met online. Wilson and Fritsch (well-known, we're told, in the Northwest's "kink scene") don't deny meeting the sexy hobo--they've admitted to Clark County prosecutors that they mailed the Seattle transient a bus ticket from Seattle to nearby Vancouver, WA. But what happened after the man arrived at the pair's Brush Prairie home was either a horrific crime or a grave misunderstanding, or both. Lawyers for the hobo contend their client was brutally mistreated, citing his screaming-and-beshackled escape from the couple's home last Thursday. Lawyers for Wilson and Fritsch contend that all activity that occurred during the transient's eight-day stay was consensual, citing Michael Wilson's website for devotees of SM sex, on which Wilson makes no bones about being a specialist in bondage, "intense medical scenes," torture, and prison punishments. (Hubba hubba.) Today the Associated Press revealed that the kinky matter will go before the Clark County Superior Court on October 28. We'll keep you posted.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 Nothing happened today (unless you count the triumphant opening of the glamorous new Consolidated Works).

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 Today Last Days dragged our ass (along with the ass of our beloved Jake) down south to the Puyallup Fair, where we delighted in one terrifying ride (the Extreme Scream), one mildly diverting ride (the wooden roller coaster), and a whole bunch of funky livestock (too much to mention). But as always, the Puyallup's richest pleasures came from Hobby Hall, where an astonishing array of "personal collections"--everything from ceramic spaghetti poodles to Frasier paraphernalia--glistened like diamonds (or at least the beloved totems of the deeply lonely). Most impressive was the collection by 13-year-old Lauren Adler, who paid tribute to "America's Sweetheart" Betty White with a sizable assortment of Betty-phernalia--mostly laminated magazine covers bearing Ms. White's likeness, along with some cutouts of animals, which everyone knows Betty White likes a lot. Best of all was the actual letter written by Betty White to the lucky Ms. Adler; unfortunately, Ms. White's handwriting was so poor we could only make out every fifth word, but it seemed nice enough. Congrats to Lauren Adler, and thanks to all who help make the dream of the Puyallup Fair a reality. (FYI: Last Days did not see deep-fried Twinkies, but we saw enough morbidly obese folks--a number of whom rode Rascals-- to know they had to be a hit.)

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 Exactly 18 years ago today America received its first introduction to the groundbreaking television program that blew the lid off the transvestite taboo and provided an unknown young actor with his first step on the road that could feasibly end at the Oval Office. Happy birthday, Bosom Buddies! (PS: Nothing happened today.)

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