Last Days

MONDAY, JANUARY 5 This week of ricin threats, Chuck E. Cheese’s
brawls, and horrible developments for Seattle and the world at large
kicks off today with a pair of noteworthy arrests, the first of
which comes from Port St. Lucie, Florida, where a man stands
accused of allowing his elderly invalid mother to descend into a
hell of neglect. As southeast Florida’s WPBF-TV reports, the
saga commenced last Saturday, when paramedics found a severely
malnourished 90-year-old woman lying in the hallway of her home,
covered in feces. After being stabilized at the hospital, the woman
told police that she lived with her son, 68-year-old Robert
Rozenti, whom she said often yelled at her and “used the ‘F’ word.”
But perhaps the most damning evidence was found at the end of the
woman’s legs, where her son’s alleged two years of neglect had
reportedly allowed her swollen feet to fuse with her never-removed
shoes. Today brought news of the arrest of Rozenti, who told police
he hadn’t taken his mother to the hospital for two years, and who
stands charged with neglect of an elderly person.

••Meanwhile in South Dakota: Today,
police
were called to Sioux Falls’ Empire Mall, where a 35-year-old
Lincoln, Nebraska, woman was allegedly caught shoplifting a key
chain. When police searched the woman’s purse, they found
prescription drugs without a prescription. While the woman was
being arrested, she told police she was going into labor. But, as the
Associated Press reports, after she was rushed by ambulance to the
hospital, doctors determined that the woman was not only not in labor,
but not pregnant. Props to the world’s most ambitious allegedly
pill-popping shoplifting liar, who in addition to any and all criminal
charges will be required to pay for her ambulance ride and hospital
visit.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6 The week continues with high drama at the U.S.
Senate, where today Roland Burris—the would-be
replacement for Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat—was denied
entry, after the secretary of the Senate declared his credentials
invalid. The problem: The lack of Illinois secretary of state Jesse
White’s signature on Burris’s nomination certificate. As CBS reports,
White refused to certify Burris because his appointment came from
Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is mired in criminal charges related to
his office and who on Friday will be officially impeached by the
Illinois House of Representatives. Impeachment proceedings against
Blagojevich will begin in the state senate on January 26. The saga of
Roland Burris is ongoing.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7 Today brings some good progress in the righting
of a stupid Seattle tragedy, as 18-year-old Carlos Bernardez was
charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of local hiphop
artist Joseph Ryan/29-E on January 4 at Chop Suey. Bernardez also faces
charges of first-degree assault for his alleged wounding of promoter
Avery Turner/1st Black Prez. If convicted, Bernardez could face 32 to
40 years in prison.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8 The week continues with the social plague that’s
threatening to devour the nation, as an ever-increasing number of
citizens are finding themselves powerless against the urge to engage in
Chuck E. Cheese’s–based mayhem. Details on the “disturbing
and bizarre crime trend [of] escalating violence among adults at a
place designed for children’s birthday parties” come from the epicenter
of the epidemic: southeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna
Township, where the Patriot-News reports that police have
been called to the local Chuck E. Cheese’s 12 times in the past
year. These calls resulted in the arrest of 13 people (six of them
women), with charges ranging from theft to disorderly conduct to
domestic assault. “It’s madness, absolute madness,” said Police Chief
Robert Martin, adding that he believes much of the violence stems from
ongoing disputes among people who bump into each other in the
restaurant, as well as separated or divorced parents reencountering
each other at a child’s birthday party. As the Patriot-News reports, the Chuck E. Cheese’s violence trend is not new (in
2007, cops were called to the Susquehanna Township Chuck E. Cheese’s
18 times for similar offenses) nor is it restricted to
southeastern Pennsylvania—the Wall Street Journal recently
reported on the growing number of Chuck E. Cheese’s melees in
Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio, and Michigan. Nevertheless,
Pennsylvania remains the Chuck E. Cheese’s–based violence
capital of the world, where the true visionaries of the
form—such as the Lancaster County man arrested after racing
around his local Chuck E. Cheese’s yelling that he had hepatitis
C and spitting on things—create their masterworks. Meanwhile,
CEC Entertainment, Inc., the corporation that runs Chuck E. Cheese’s,
has assured the Patriot-News that “all the restaurants have
security cameras to help ensure peace of mind for customers and the
restaurants’ workers who dress as the Chuck E. Cheese’s mouse
mascot.”

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 Today brings some tremendously sad news to
Seattle in general and many longtime Seattleites in particular, as the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer confirmed that it’s been
put up for sale. If no buyer is found, the 146-year-old paper
will either attempt to carry on as a greatly downsized web publication
or shut down entirely. Having typed the phrase “details come from
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer“ into this
column more times than we are physically able to count, Last Days is
deeply saddened by today’s news and will attempt to ameliorate this
sadness by spending the next six weeks exploiting the fuck out of
the output of the imperiled P-I staff,
including longtime Last Days’ faves Hector Castro, Scott Gutierrez,
Vanessa Ho, Tracy Johnson, Casey McNerthney, Moises Mendoza, Levi
Pulkkinen, Claudia Rowe, and Brad Wong.

••In much better Seattle news: This evening brought the
Great Ricin Threat Pub Crawl of 2009, wherein a whole bunch of
gays and those who love them patronized the 11 gay bars—the
Elite, the Eagle, the Cuff, the Wildrose, Purr, Neighbours, R Place,
Re-bar, C.C. Attle’s, Madison Pub, and the
Crescent—that were earlier this week sent letters warning
of deadly ricin attacks. Best of all, no one was murdered by ricin or
anything else. For death-defying full coverage by Bethany Jean Clement,
Kelly O, and Dan Savage, see pages 29, 53, and 57. Thanks to all who
participated, except for the shitbag letter-writer.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 The week continues in downtown Seattle, where
today a bunch of people marched against DOMA, a bunch of other
people marched against Israel’s actions against Palestine, and
Hot Tipper Karen overheard a man on the bus boasting about his
intoxicated culinary skills. “I have been a chef for six years,”
said the man, according to Karen. “I come in to work on cocaine, meth,
plus drinking on top of that. I have never had a plate sent
back.”

SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 The week ends with some good news for a
handful of actors (including the late Heath Ledger, the great
Tina Fey, and the battered primate Mickey Rourke, all of
whom won Golden Globes this evening) and some bad news for a
family in Washington’s Clallam County, where today a husband and
wife were arrested on a variety of charges related to the alleged
abuse and exploitation of their 9-year-old daughter, including
incest, molestation, and sending child pornography over the
internet.

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