MONDAY, JUNE 2 This week of deserted children, imbalanced trannies,
and history-
making American politics kicks off with
nothing, unless you count the pornographically garish
saga of “the Colacurcio organization,” the alleged
Northwest crime syndicate subjected today to a massive federal
raid. At the center of the saga: Frank Colacurcio
Sr., the Seattle strip-club magnate who’s old enough to have
been convicted of “carnal knowledge” with a 16-year-old girl in 1943
and classy enough to be convicted of assaulting a strip-club waitress
in 2005. (In between came numerous convictions for tax evasion.) As for
today’s raid, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer specifies it involved FBI
and IRS agents searching four of the Colacurcio family’s Seattle-area
strip clubs (Rick’s on Lake City Way, Sugar’s in Shoreline, Honey’s in
Everett, and Fox’s in Tacoma) as well as Frank Colacurcio Sr.’s home in
Lake Forest Park. The cause of the searches: allegations that the
Colacurcios’ clubs are nothing but whorehouses staffed by
indentured servants. As U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said in a
statement, “The Colacurcios have designed the clubs, the payment
methods, and the policies to encourage prostitution and to ensure
they’re the ones getting rich off of these illegal sex acts.” The
Colacurcios’ alleged racket in a nutshell: For the honor of stripping
at a Colacurcio club, a woman must “rent” the stage on which she is to
strip; at Rick’s, the P-I reports, dancers must pay $130 per
shift. If a dancer fails to take in enough tips to “pay their rent,”
they owe back rent—with the accumulating debt reportedly driving
dancers to supplement their income by performing sex acts for money in
the clubs’ dimly lit “VIP” sections. “Undercover officers have
documented scores of prostitution violations,” states the lengthy
search-warrant affidavit, which names as suspects Frank Colacurcio Sr.,
Frank Colacurcio Jr., and various family associates. Stay tuned.
TUESDAY, JUNE 3 The week continues with a big hunk of American
history, as primaries in South Dakota and Montana sealed
Senator Barack Obama‘s bid to become the first
not-entirely-white candidate for the U.S. presidency. Congratulations
to Obama and to America. (For part two of today’s story, see
Saturday.)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4 Today brings the first of the week’s two
stupid child-desertion stories, from the nearby wilds
of Pierce County, where a 32-year-old woman in Summit,
Washington, was arrested after leaving her two children—ages 1
and 3—alone in a half-filled bathtub while she
made a beer run. Details on the cartoonishly awful
saga come from KIRO 7, which IDs the busted mother as Nicole
Erdman, who, according to court documents, placed her 1- and
3-year-old kids in a bathtub holding five inches of water then drove to
a Circle K convenience store to buy the aforementioned beer. Back at
home, Mrs. Erdman was met by Mr. Erdman, who’d returned from an errand
to find the kids alone in the tub and called police. Despite his wife’s
arrest on two counts of second-degree child abandonment, Mr. Erdman
described his wife to KIRO as “a loving, caring mother with some
emotional and psychological problems and drug and alcohol
issues—and she’s seeking help for those issues.”
THURSDAY, JUNE 5 We continue with the second of the week’s two
stupid child-desertion stories, this one out of
faraway Clay County, Iowa, where a man was arrested last night after
leaving his 2-year-old son and 5-year-old niece in a car by the side of
a busy highway. According to the Associated Press, the ditched kids
were reported by a passerby, who found the 5-year-old crying outside
the car and the 2-year-old asleep in the back seat. Deputies found the
kids’ missing dad/uncle in a ditch a half mile away, where he’d been
“pick[ing] wild asparagus.” Police found no evidence of asparagus, but
a search of the car reportedly turned up marijuana and drug
paraphernalia, leading police to augment the man’s charges of child
endangerment with charges for drug possession.
FRIDAY, JUNE 6 “Dear Last Days,” writes Hot Tipper
Bradford, placidly commencing the creepiest report of
violent Metro-based bigotry since that psycho clocked that
blind lady a couple weeks ago on the #18. “This afternoon I was waiting
for the #8 Metro on Capitol Hill. Waiting with me was the
homeless Native American transsexual I’ve seen around
the neighborhood. I call her Two Spirits. She was
engaged in her usual self-contained commotion when she spotted a midget
and another
gentleman waiting for the bus. ‘I hate midgets!’ she
started yelling. ‘FUCKING MIDGET! I’LL SLIT YOUR FUCKING THROAT! I’M
TRIBAL POLICE!’ The gentleman replied, ‘That’s fine, but it’d be great
if you could make the bus come on time.’ Both man and midget entered
the bus unscathed.” Dear Hot Tipper Bradford: Thank you for noticing
and sharing. Also, I don’t mean to look a gift Hot Tip in the mouth,
but “midget” isn’t really a word but a slur that’s gained currency due
to pervasive use. Go with “little people,” which may sound odd and
comparably insulting, but is the preferred term, no matter what
Trapped in the Closet says.
SATURDAY, JUNE 7 The week continues with the bittersweet
inevitability of Hillary Clinton‘s dropped bid for the
U.S. presidency. “As we gather here today, the 50th woman to leave this
earth is orbiting overhead,” said Clinton to a crowd of supporters at
Washington, D.C.’s National Building Museum. “If we can blast 50 women
into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.
Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling
this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,
filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will
be a little easier next time.” As for what happens now, Clinton gave
the crowd explicit directions: “We must do all we can to help elect
Barack Obama the next president of the United States.” RIP, Hillary
’08; you remain a world-class badass.
SUNDAY, JUNE 8 “So last night at about 2:00 a.m. I went for a walk
around Capitol Hill,” reports Hot Tipper AT. “A few blocks from my
apartment I heard a woman screaming, ‘Help! Somebody call the police!’
I started running up the block while two other guys ran around the
corner, and we saw the screaming woman jump out of her car and run
across the street with her shirt ripped almost completely off. Then a
young gangster-wannabe-looking guy got out of the passenger seat and
said, ‘Shit, and it’s MY fucking birthday….’ I asked, ‘So she has to
give it up, whether she wants to or not?’ He didn’t respond, just
walked across the street into an apartment complex. The woman came back
and one of the other two guys gave her a long hug and said, ‘Girl, you
got to lose that bitch’s number.’ Some people in a window above us
asked if they should call the police, but the freaked-out woman just
thanked us all, got in her car, and drove away.”
Girl, you got to lose that bitch’s number. Send Hot Tips to
lastdays@thestranger.com.
