MONDAY, JANUARY 15 Today, in an act more reminiscent of William Burroughs
than William Tell, a performer accidentally shot his wife in the face with
an arrow in front of 5,000 spectators at the World Circus Festival in Paris, reports Reuters. The woman, whose skull was pierced, remains in a hospital
awaiting surgery. Gilbert Edelstein, the director of the circus that hosted the
festival, said hopefully, “The audience didn’t really understand what had happened
until an emergency medical squad arrived.” Well, the audience doesn’t really understand
the scary clown car either, but that doesn’t make it any less traumatizing, does
it?

··Also today: The Associated Press reported that the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild raised more than $4,000 at a garage sale on Saturday to compensate those Times employees not immediately called back to work after the strike. Nostalgia hounds snatched up picket signs for 50 cents and copies of the Seattle Union Record for a mere 25 cents! Last Days is just sick that we missed the chance to attend the silent auction, where for only $35, we could have purchased–really!–a life-sized caricature of one of the so-simian-he’s-sexy security guards that the Times hired to patrol during the strike.

··And lastly: Last Days was positively awed by the gorgeous fog that rolled in off the Sound tonight, blanketing everything in thick mystery.
Driving cautiously on Capitol Hill, we couldn’t help but notice that this simple
atmospheric phenomenon made each hardened hipster stumbling home drunk from
the Cha-Cha look like a potential Jack the Ripper or Suki Tawdry prowling the
lonely streets.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16 Today Last Days would like to share this Hot
Tip phoned in by Eric, who was visiting Las Vegas, Nevada on business. “I was on the shuttle bus to the hotel when this little
old lady in a pink sequined sweatsuit turns to me and asks if I think she can
‘get tickets to the big Sigmund and Freud show.'” Though we are sure
the senior citizen in question was referring to those closeted cat tamers and
plastic-surgery disasters Siegfried and Roy, we would be quite pleased
to learn that the father of modern psychoanalysis was performing in Sin City.
Thanks, Eric!

··Also today: The Seattle Times reported that a $1 million warrant had been issued for the arrest of Steven Covyeow, 39, the man shot dead by police in West Seattle late Saturday night. Apparently Covyeow, who had been on the lam for three years for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Southern California, liked picking on those weaker than himself: In addition to abusing and holding his 20-year-old girlfriend in her apartment against her will, Covyeow also shot a police dog in the head while trying to escape the Seattle cops. The four-legged hero had surgery Sunday and was well enough to go home with his K-9 officer that night. Last Days wishes the plucky pooch a speedy recovery.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17 Last Days is simply too rattled by a bewildering
outburst of rudeness and rage directed at our person to think about the
news today. After oh-so-cautiously parking our van in front of The
Stranger office, we glanced in the rearview mirror for pedestrians or approaching
cars. Since we saw only a bicyclist, still a good distance away, we stepped
cheerfully out. However, when the bicyclist passed us moments later, she shrieked
the words that continue to bounce crazily around our skull: “Nice shit move,
you blimp!” Last Days would like to take this opportunity to point out to
said bicyclist that Seattle offers many fine anger management classes, and also
that she has grotesquely overdeveloped calves and lank and lifeless hair.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18 Today Reuters reported that in order to ease the
load on the fragile power grid, regulators imposed unprecedented rolling
blackouts on California cities and towns, leaving them in darkness for about
three hours on Wednesday night. While we are certainly sympathetic, Last Days
would like to point out that we had rolling blackouts all through our 20s and
they never did us any harm.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19 Confirming the worst suspicions of anybody who has
ever scrambled around trying to find a cheap place to live in this landscape
lush with luxury condos, today the Associated Press reported that a survey compiled
by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit found Seattle to be the 44th
most expensive city on the whole damn planet.

··Also today: Entertainment website Mr. Showbiz reported that warbling teen temptress and Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse Britney Spears announced to members of the press in Rio de Janeiro that, “The duet with Madonna is going to happen.” Since a one-way shuttle to Mars was out of the question, Last Days responded to this grim news by beginning frantic construction of a sound-proof concrete bunker in our backyard.


SATURDAY, JANUARY 20 What was Ricky Martin thinking?

SUNDAY, JANUARY 21 Today Reuters announced that Gladiator, the
over-the-top epic starring hulking thespian Russell Crowe (scantily clad
in a fetching breastplate) won a Golden Globe award for Best Drama. Last Days persists with the delusion that it was only our pressing commitments
at The Stranger (and not those tabloid reports about the involvement
of another, much less adorable blonde) that kept us from attending the glitzy
awards ceremony, draped across our Aussie boyfriend’s bulging biceps.

··Also today: Reuters was t-t-t-talking ’bout some evolution! An oil spill in the Galapagos Islands (where Charles Darwin developed his theories of natural selection in 1835) grew much worse today. Earlier this week, the Ecuadorian vessel Jessica ran aground in shallow waters, accidentally dumping 44,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the fragile ecosystem. Strong waves have spread the toxic sludge 390 square miles, threatening some of the world’s rarest animals and birds. It is Last Days’ fervent belief that one giant tortoise is worth a dozen disoriented ship captains moronically navigating without a map.

··Also today: The Seattle Times reported that Victor Davis, who cared for his elderly uncle, Joe Allen, in Allen’s cottage on Beacon Hill, freaked out when the octogenarian died this past November. After leaving his uncle’s body in bed until the smell became unpleasant (yikes!), Davis then packed the body into a cedar trunk, dumped in a carton of mothballs, and hauled the makeshift coffin (thoughtfully covered with a bedspread and branches) out behind the garage. The hope chest’s hopeless contents were discovered just before Christmas when rookie Seattle police officer April Hillis did a routine check of Allen’s home. Last week, Davis pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor offense of unlawful disposal of human remains, and prosecutors will ask for a three-month sentence for Davis–the maximum time for the crime. In a goose bump-inducing understatement, Officer Hillis said, “Just responding to that call made me feel weird.”

··And lastly: Today Last Days received a Hot Tip from D., who tells us she stumbled upon her boyfriend applying deodorant to the bottoms of his feet… which, dear readers, just makes us feel weird.

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