MONDAY, MARCH 20 At the close of last week’s column, Last Days issued an impassioned call for Hot Tips. Apparently moved by our plea, today God sent us a living, breathing Hot Tip in the form of a late-middle-aged, significantly overweight woman in a fuzzy purple sweatsuit, who was found writhing helplessly on a gravel embankment outside of the Harvard Market QFC, where she’d landed after falling out of her wheelchair. (Dear God.) Situated nearby was a taxicab, whose driver had been attempting to maneuver the woman into his car when she’d collapsed on the gravel, where she was (rightfully) fuming and cussing up a storm. Sensing an opportunity to make up for a lifetime of heartless deeds, Last Days placated the (also rightfully) freaked-out Indian cabby before the two of them joined forces to move the extremely unlucky woman off the ground and into the cab. After strenuous grunting by all three participants, the cabby resumed his place in the driver’s seat while Last Days wrangled the woman into an upright position, all the while grinning like an idiot and offering spunky asides like, “There ya go!” But the woman was having none of it. “If I would have known my life would ever come to this,” she said before the cab pulled away, “I would’ve died a long time ago. Why can’t I just be dead?” If anyone knows the proper response to this question, please e-mail Last Days immediately.
TUESDAY, MARCH 21 Today in Hollywood, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the gates of Paramount Studios to protest the company’s plans to produce and syndicate a television show hosted by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the former porn star/current “family values” piranha whose perpetual slandering of gays and lesbians — whom she unapologetically deems “biological errors” — has made her the idiot bigot du jour. The backlash against Dr. Laura’s TV syndication has been mounting steadily over the past three weeks: The anti-Schlessinger website www.stopdrlaura.com has received 14 million hits since its launch on March 1, and last week, saintly sexpot Susan Sarandon put a celebrity face on the uproar by denouncing the bad doctor as “a person who is clearly in dire need of compassion, education, and a good shrink herself.” So far Dr. Laura’s TV jamboree (slated to debut in September) has been sold to about 160 stations — including Seattle’s very own KING 5, whose programming director should be pelted immediately with letters, e-mails, and perhaps, big hunks of wet bread. Let us reiterate: The Dr. Laura controversy is not about freedom of speech; it’s about the questionable wisdom of Paramount and KING 5 producing and supporting a program that presents the biases of a lunkheaded bigot as scientific fact, and perpetuates ignorance of and violence against an already marginalized and preyed-upon minority group. Paramount has promised that Dr. Laura’s show will “encompass a wide range of viewpoints,” but come on — giving the nutcase Schlessinger a TV forum is like giving former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke a game show: “I’ll take ‘Stupid Negroes of the 1960s’ for $500, Dave!” Write the Programming Director of KING 5 at 333 Dexter Ave N, Seattle, WA, 98109 or e-mail king5@king5.com.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22 After nearly five months of searching, the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office has finally tracked down the Northwest man accused of knowingly exposing women to HIV. Today’s Seattle P-I reports that 40-year-old Mitchell Anfield, a former La Conner resident, was extradited from Massachusetts last week and is currently being held in the Skagit County Jail. He faces two counts of first-degree assault, which include “intent to inflict great bodily harm by exposing someone to the human immunodeficiency virus.” So far only two women (whose HIV status remains undisclosed) have stepped forward to charge Anfield, but officials believe the potentially lethal loverman (who found most of his partners in bars and casinos) may have infected an unspecified number of Northwest women from Bellingham to Tacoma. The Skagit County Health Department is urging anyone who has had sex with Mr. Anfield to phone them immediately and say, “I had sex with Mr. Anfield.”
THURSDAY, MARCH 23 Finally a little good news: Today in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood, a 12-year-old boy found and rescued a newborn baby who had been abandoned on a sidewalk. The P-I reports that seventh-grader Dustin Chavez was walking home from school when he noticed a small bundle on the ground moving and making a cooing sound. Opening the bundle, Chavez found a naked, pink newborn covered in fluids and wrapped in a black, polar fleece jacket. After checking the baby’s pulse (a skill the boy learned in a CPR class at Blaine Elementary School), Chavez carried the kid home. Currently the as-yet-unidentified baby boy is listed in stable condition at Children’s Hospital, and police are searching for suspects. And while it’s telling that even our bit of “good news” involves a newborn infant being left for dead, Last Days is pleased to report a story about an elementary school kid that involves neither firearms nor the corpse of a long-dead parent.
FRIDAY, MARCH 24 Today a shocking story of lust, incest, and murder at the Woodland Park Zoo. Early this morning (according to The Seattle Times), two jaguars — a six-year-old male and a 13-year-old female — were frolicking in an outside exhibit area when the two of them jumped onto a swinging platform. Once there, the male attempted to mate with the female, who wasn’t in the mood and fought back. The male then bit the female on the back of her head, puncturing her skull and sending both cats tumbling off the platform; by the time they hit the ground, the female was dead. This unfortunate incident becomes even more unfortunate when you realize that jaguars are an endangered species, with about 10,000 believed to be living in the wild. And it becomes even creepier when you realize that the jaguars were mother and son. Eep.
SATURDAY, MARCH 25 Traditionally, Last Days refrains from celebrating drug possession charges against private citizens, but when the citizen in question is Whitney Houston, we’ll happily make an exception. Today the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that prosecutors on the island of Hawaii are continuing their investigation into possible drug charges against the internationally beloved pop star, whose attempts to vocalize high emotion sound like she’s being stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver, and who allegedly left a suitcase packed with marijuana at the Kona Airport earlier this year. Witnesses say they saw Houston ditch a cloth bag (found to contain 15.2 grams of “Kona Gold”) at the airport’s security checkpoint before boarding her plane, and now prosecutors are deciding whether to charge the star with “possession of a detrimental drug” or decline the case for lack of evidence. Last Days would enthusiastically rally for the pressing of charges against the loathsome loudmouth, but as pot possession in humane Hawaii is merely a misdemeanor (carrying a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail), we’ll just pray that Whitney Houston gets hit by a car instead.
SUNDAY, MARCH 26 We close the week with another, much more entertaining Hot Tip, this one arriving today from lovely Hot Tipper Dawn, who yesterday saw on NE 89th Street a postman furtively fussing with his lap and a Ziploc baggie that, closer inspection revealed, contained a liquid that looked exactly like urine. Brilliant work, Dawn.
Send your Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com or phone the Hot Tip Hotline at 323-7101 ext. 3113.
