TUESDAY, MARCH 8 In much happier lady news, today is International Women's Day, the annual day of female commemoration first declared by the Socialist Party of America (as "National Woman's Day") in 1909. To celebrate, Last Days took a quiet moment to give thanks for all the chicks who enrich our world, including but not limited to: Jane Austen, Joan Didion, Nancy Mairs, Nicole Holofcener, Sleater-Kinney, Amy Sedaris, Leslie Grossman, Missy Elliott, Maureen Tucker, Mindy Eades, Northern State, Janice Dickinson, and the kick-ass women of Court TV.
•• Meanwhile in the world of men: This morning in Lynnwood, WA, 36-year-old Bradley Schwan allegedly told an employee of mental health provider that he hit his father in the head with an ax. Upon their arrival at the ax-whacked dad's address, cops found a bloody ax and a long knife in the driveway and 62-year-old Everett Schwan dead in his bedroom. Bradley Schwan now faces charges of first-degree murder.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 Speaking of man's impatience: Today on West Seattle's Spokane Street Bridge, 39-year-old Kurt Struebing sped his Jetta through a pair of barriers and plunged 50 feet to the pavement below, bringing a shockingly sudden end to an extraordinarily rich life. At age 20, Struebing pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of his adoptive mother, whom he fatally stabbed with a hatchet and scissors during his mentally unstable drug-user phase; after eight years in prison, Struebing reentered society and devoted his life to heavy metal, re-forming his black-metal band NME and earning a reputation as a beneficent figurehead of Tacoma's music scene. "At the drop of a hat, he'd help anyone out," said Kriss Blazina, bassist in the metal band End Theory, to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Everybody respected the hell out of him."
•• Speaking of bridge tragedies: Today Dave Matthews' bus driver finally confessed to dumping 800 pounds of raw sewage out of his vehicle's septic tank through the grates of a Chicago River bridge, causing a horrific amount of human poo to rain down upon Chicago's popular Little Lady sightseeing boat, whose deck held over 100 unlucky citizens who soon knew more than they ever wanted to about the Dave Matthews Band. For his aesthetic felony, driver Stefan Wohl was sentenced to 18 months probation and 150 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Still, until Mr. Wohl is required to survive a retaliatory splash--with extra corn--the scales of justice remain skewed.
THURSDAY, MARCH 10 After a week and a half of relative calm, today the Michael Jackson trial exploded with freakiness, as a bedraggled Jackson arrived for court over an hour late and dressed in his pajamas. Jackson insiders blamed an early morning of horrible back pain, but FOX News sets the inception hours earlier--the midnight walkout reportedly staged by the staff at Neverland Ranch, where employees are allegedly entering their second week without paychecks. After a night of increasingly frantic phone solicitations failed to produce the $150,000 needed to keep Neverland running, Jackson met the dawn with such horrible back pain he couldn't even put on pants, and the image of a paler-than-ever Jackson hobbling up the courthouse walkway in his jammies will forever quiver in the public imagination. Still, when Michael Jackson--who once paid $20 million to an underage accuser without a whimper--has difficulty producing $150,000, things can't be good. With an empty bank account and an outstanding $350 million in loans from Bank of America, Jackson is reportedly out of both cash and credit--which means the publishing rights to that Beatles catalog should be hitting the auction block any second. (Dear Michael: We'll give you $20K for "I'm So Tired" alone.)
FRIDAY, MARCH 11 In much seedier news: Today we turn to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where a 17-year-old boy has agreed to plead guilty to three counts of disturbing the peace after serving brownies glazed with his semen to three of his high-school classmates. According to the Associated Press, the teen told cops he drew inspiration for his recipe from the film National Lampoon's Van Wilder, in which characters send pastries filled with dog semen to a rival fraternity. But the motive behind today's treat was purely retaliatory, with the brownie maker telling authorities the soiled goods were meant to avenge a previous stunt, in which the three students put peanut butter in his cheese sandwich. As the teen told his arresting officer: "He hated peanut butter and it made him more mad than he could explain."
•• Meanwhile in the Philippines: At least 27 elementary schoolchildren died after eating an improperly prepared snack. The tragedy unfolded during Wednesday morning recess at a school in the southern town of San Jose, after a classmate began sharing the deep-fried caramelized cassava root bought from a vendor outside. While the roots of the cassava plant are rich in protein, minerals, and vitamins A, B, and C, without proper preparation they are poisonous--a fact made horrifying clear by the two-dozen-plus youngsters killed by a root.
SATURDAY, MARCH 12 Nothing happened today, unless you count Hot Tipper Laszlo's sighting of a guy driving a car with Arizona plates down Yesler Way while taking hits off a good-sized bong, which we do, as the car in question was a stick shift. Bravo!
SUNDAY, MARCH 13 Nothing happened today.
Next week: fewer hatchets. Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.
