foxfire

Heard of those Nigerian con artists who send out e-mails promising great financial rewards in exchange for monetary investments by the marks? Well, it seems that a group of them, operating a phony car sales Website, hired an Australian woman by the name of Sarah Jane Cochrane-Ramsey to open a bank account in her moniker into which the Nigerians could funnel their ill-gotten gains. She was promised 8% of the proceeds for her efforts, but—in an act that would've made my very talented grifter of a mother proud—she managed to siphon off two entire payments totaling $33,350 for herself, thereby denying the Nigerians their filthy lucre.

However, sadly—from my perspective—the authorities in Brisbane charged, and ultimately convicted her, of aggravated fraud. She's going to be sentenced sometime this month. I truly and dearly hope that they treat her generously, and give her maybe nothing more than probation. It was the Nigerians who defrauded innocent rubes who—all things being equal—probably deserved to be deprived of their money on the basis of sheer stupidity. All Sarah Jane did was defraud the con artists, and I'd like to personally give her a pat on the back for that. If my mom, Coco Saavedra, was still alive, she'd undoubtedly want to do the same.

Mom was a con artist throughout most of her teenage years, while I was but a mere tad often acting as her shill, until she put together enough money to start opening up nightclubs. She was damned good at what she did, only cheated rich and/or stupid people out of their money, and was never so much as arrested for anything. Once she developed enough sophistication in her technique, she frequently grifted other con artists (always outside our home city of New Orleans) who were easily taken in by her singular whisper-thin Spanish/French-Canadian charm and beauty. Had these greasy Nigerian fraudsters been active during mom's heyday, she would've taken them to the cleaners.

So, I hope that dear little Sarah Jane fares well down in Oz. I'd hate to see her pull any prison time for robbing a bunch of thieves.

Seattle is, of course, a city of whores and con men, sleazy millionaires with the morals of rabid badgers, greedhead developers wrecking everyone’s view of Elliott Bay, and pot-addled hippies alongside more junkies per square mile than any other municipality in North America. It’s also a port town in the grand traditions of Jack London and John Steinbeck: horndog merchant marines cruising the makeup-heavy working girls of Pacific Highway; sailors from the Sixth Fleet duking it out with soldiers from Fort Lewis; white trash Puget Sound Debs angling for the man of their dreams at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

We are graced with loons and dangerous drunks, hustlers and pedophiles and crackwhores, shoplifting immigrants with handguns tucked under their armpits, and shimmering half-wits who molest large dogs. Our roach-ridden residential dumps are top heavy with Level III sex offenders, the largest per capita such population in the world. Any licit or illicit drug ever synthesized can be bought at Third and Yesler, and the acrid scent of rock cocaine dominates the atmosphere of Belltown. In my own building, our county medical examiner pays a visit three or four times a week—mostly to distinguish the murders from the suicides.

Speaking of suicide, Seattle once more leads the nation—17.6 per 100,000 residents. In hard numbers, this represents 216 successful suicides a year, and 870 hospitalizations for attempted suicides. Some chalk it up to seasonal affective disorder, citing our nine months of rain and dark, sunless skies. Others suggest that it has to do with our lopsided population of manic-depressives, schizophrenics, and bankrupt millionaires. Self-euthanasia takes many forms here: leaps from the Space Needle, the Pike Street overpass, and the Aurora Avenue Bridge*; hanging, wrist-cutting, and gassing; blowing one’s head off with .410 bores and suicide-by-cop amid countless other ways—some ineffably creative.

Yet, nothing compares with the devastating beauty of our Puget Sound region, and some of the world’s mightiest mountains brood over this city. Seattle has its share of hipsters—some you simply want to strangle; but it also has a delightful coterie of eccentrics, liquor-crazed artists, and disreputable punks like me. Jack London once declared that Seattle is the city men go to for the purpose of rewriting their lives. They’ve been pushed to the northwestern edge of the continent by communities that can no longer stand their various brands of craziness. Seattle is a community of rejects and escapees, madly running from the Boulevards of Broken Dreams. And she welcomes the world’s rejects and refuse with loving, open arms.

C’est toi, ma ville—Seattle!

*The city, in its well-intentioned but sadly misguided concern, has recently installed very high barriers on both sides of the Aurora Avenue Bridge in an effort to reduce suicides. But, it won't work. I have no doubt that, one day, some extremely determined suicidal is going to defeat the barrier and fall an even greater distance to his or her death. And anyway, even if the bridge is no longer practical, there remain countless ways to do yourself in hereabouts. That silly damned barrier isn't going to make one whit of difference.

So far, Australia's best export to the United States has been Strictly Ballroom.

Vivir con miedo es como vivir a medias.