From the Aug 3 – Aug 9, 2000 issue

Columns

Last Days

by David Schmader

MONDAY, JULY 24 The week gets off to a smashing start with a series of updates from the front lines of Last Days' war on public grooming. Dispatch #1 comes from Hot Tipper Tyler, whose recent dinner at Coastal Kitchen was disgustingly interrupted by a man clipping his nails while waiting for his food to arrive! "A clipping landed on the floor near me," reports the rightfully repulsed Tyler. "I wanted to behead the guy." Illicit nail-clipping also makes an appearance in Dispatch #2, but where our previous perpetrator got off scot-free, our current villain--a middle-aged woman clipping her nails during the quieter parts of A Perfect Storm (dear God!)--received a firm dressing-down from brave Hot Tipper Jason. "Excuse me," said Jason as he accosted the tasteless woman outside the cinema. "Were you clipping your nails during the movie?" Thankfully, the clip-happy woman was properly abashed by Jason's full-frontal attack, apologizing profusely--"I didn't think anyone could hear me!"--before slithering away. Keep fighting the good fight, Jason! Dispatch #3 isn't really a dispatch at all, just a comment from appreciative reader (and award-winning publicist) Gary, commending us for fearlessly shedding light on the universal phenomenon and irresistible appeal of in-car nosepicking. "You should do a study on this!" suggested Gary. A fine idea, but until we've written our novel, discovered a cure for lupus, and mastered every language ever spoken on Earth, Last Days will not have time to conduct such an endeavor.

TUESDAY, JULY 25 If there's one thing Last Days likes more than bad things happening to bad people, it's good things happening to good people--and today on Vashon Island, a very good thing happened to what appears to be a very good person. Sixty-three-year-old Vashon retiree Robert Capps (along with his 58-year-old wife Judy) today visited the Washington State Lottery's Seattle office to claim his $12 million jackpot, walking away with a clean $4.3 million payout after taxes. Big dumb luck could hardly have struck better people. Following six years of deeply annoying troubles (his heart attack, her debilitating wrist injuries, and a flood that destroyed the couple's home in 1996), the Cappses know just what to do with their new booty. After moving out of their mobile home to an undisclosed new location and purchasing new cars to replace her 1981 Omega and his 1982 Oldsmobile, the Cappses will foot the hefty medical bills of Robert's mother, then get busy donating to such charities as the Vashon Island Food Bank, the Bethel Evangelical Free Church, and services for battered women. Asked by the Seattle P-I to share the secret of his lottery success, Robert Capps said he'd played the same six numbers he's played for seven years: 12 for the 12 Apostles, a randomly chosen 5 and 49, along with 7, 17, and 27--"three numbers with sevens," said Mr. Moneybags Capps, "because I love sevens."

··In other, worse millionaire news: Today an Air France Concorde jet packed with a variety of very wealthy people crashed shortly after takeoff, smashing into a hotel just outside of Paris and killing all 100 passengers, the nine-member flight crew, and five people on the ground.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 Tonight marked the occasion of the 50th Greenwood Seafair Parade, and readers hungry for the full lowdown on this singularly impressive event should turn to Culture Wars, pg 35. But for the skinny on post-parade happenings, we turn to Hot Tipper Nancy, who had the pleasure of attending the Greenwood bar the Baranof, whose usual clientele of Greenwood drunks was spiced up this evening by the presence of a whole bunch of clowns and a whole bunch of pirates, fresh from the parade and eager to get smashed. The clowns (described as "middle-aged and bawdy") and the pirates ("sloshed and chanting") had carefully placed themselves on opposite ends of the bar, and while Nancy and friends were tempted to instigate a fiery clown-pirate brawl ("Those clowns just said all pirates are pussies!"), they refrained, as "there was too much good cheer in the air."

THURSDAY, JULY 27 Speaking of good cheer and narrowly averted brawls, tonight nearly 300 people crowded into city council chambers for a passionate public hearing on the monorail. Called for and hosted by handsome Peter Steinbrueck, the meeting featured nearly four hours' worth of two-minute speeches from hundreds of intelligent, eloquent monorail supporters, as well as two not-so-intelligent, not-so-eloquent monorail detractors. Highlights included Dan Savage's proposal of a new initiative that would forbid the city to break ground on the new city hall until ground is broken on a citywide rapid-transit system; and Grant Cogswell's sassy face-off with Heidi Wills, who insisted on chatting with an aide during Cogswell's address until he stopped her in her tracks: "It would be nice if when citizens spoke, our elected officials listened." All in all, a smashing meeting, with Judy Nicastro reasserting herself as a natural-born celebrity politician, and the aforementioned Heidi Wills offering new and startling evidence that she may very well be the first city council member to have a nervous breakdown before our very eyes.

FRIDAY, JULY 28 Two weeks ago, The Stranger ran the contest Mix 'N' Match, to determine who would win the gaggle of social-service videos featured in that week's Last Days column. Today, Last Days is pleased to announce the winner: Craig Meros, a sharp-thinkin', fast-mailin' man from Cashmere, WA, who was the first to correctly pair our handful of celebrities with the social-service videos best suited to their lives--The Savage Cycle: A Video about Domestic Abuse (Ike Turner); Childhood Lost: A Video about Child Abuse (Michael Jackson); Keisha's Choice: A Video about Pregnancy and Drug Abuse (Madonna); and Speaking for Ourselves: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Youth (Urkel). Congratulations, Craig! (Everybody else can stop sending in contest forms.)

SATURDAY, JULY 29 Today: Still more updates on the war on public grooming. Both of today's reported crimes come from the questionable war zone of personal automobile space. Crime #1--reported by Hot Tipper Ulysses--occurred in a newish blue Volvo with Oregon plates, in which a young woman was spotted using both hands to pop a raging scalp zit. Crime #2--reported by Hot Tipper Heather--occurred in an unspecified vehicle cruising down Denny, in which a man was seen cramming his hand down the back of his pants, then removing his hand to smell his finger. There are times that we regret ever having anything to do with this column.

SUNDAY, JULY 30 Speaking of regret and repulsion: While watching tonight's broadcast of the USA Women's Gymnastics Championships on NBC, Last Days was confronted by a commercial for a new drain-cleaning product: Liquid-Plumr Foaming Pipe Snake. While we are certain that Liquid-Plumr Foaming Pipe Snake is a perfectly fine drain-cleaning product, its name is by far the most disgusting collection of words we've ever heard on national prime-time television.

Send your Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com or phone the 24-hour Hot Tip Hotline at 323-7101 ext. 3113.