Update, 6/27: Just spoke to Jeff Farley, the mayor of Ferndale. He said he’d just finished running a meeting of the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) at Eureka City Hall when he got a call on his cell phone from a Eureka resident who’d gotten his number off some papers that the alleged car thief was throwing out the window on his fateful drive.
The alleged thief is a transient with no belongings, Farley said. And he totaled the truck. As for My Badass Neighbor, Paul King, Farley remarked, “Hey, he is [badass]. Anymore you don’t know if the guy’s got a gun.”
Farley’s trying to get a hold of King to thank him personally.
Original post:
So my wife and I are making dinner when, out the kitchen window, we see a cloud of smoke screaming down the street. It’s a white Chevy Z71 pickup careening down Huntoon at breakneck speed on three blown-out tires. So I do what any self-respecting American citizen would do in that situation: I walk outside and gawk like a moron.
My Badass Neighbor, on the other hand, sprints out the door, hops into his own truck and proceeds to chase the fucker down. Like he’s Jason Bourne or some shit. He finds the guy fishtailing and kicking up gravel in a nearby alley. Evidently it’s not so easy to drive on three blown tires. My Badass Neighbor then hops out of his truck, yells at some of my fellow gawkers to call the cops and engages in a foot pursuit with the guy, eventually tackling his ass to the ground.
Cops arrive, arrest the dude and throw him into the back of a patrol car. My Badass Neighbor –whose name is Paul King, by the way — tells the cops what happened, then comes and tells me that, according to the cops, the Chevy Z71 belongs to Fortuna Mayor Doug Strehl. [Update: It actually belonged to Ferndale Mayor Jeff Farley.] It had been parked at Eureka City Hall when the guy stole it, My Badass Neighbor says.
A handsome, crew-cut officer with the Eureka Police Dept. kindly declined to offer more details. We’ll provide them when we can. In the meantime, here’s the truck and the handsome officer:
Here are some of my kind neighbors and a few of Eureka’s finest:
Here’s the crazy driver/alleged truck thief being arrested:
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is My Badass Neighbor, Paul King, showing off some of the blood he shed for our freedom:
This article appears in How Does Your Garden Grow?.
Kudos to the neighborhood hero, Paul King, for acting when knuckleheads run wild in our streets. It is unfortunate that the reporter can not share a story of community heroism with the public without demonstrating a thorough disregard for social decency in his writing and choice of words. I suppose that is how the enlightened press in Humboldt County rolls. To diminish a good story about a selfless act performed in defense of his neighborhood and to report it like a drunken sailor is despicable. My apologies to all the sailors out there.
Uh, I liked it. Awesome event. Nice Gonzo-on-the-spot-as-it-happened-play by-play-no-holds-barred-and-way-cool colorful reporting. A few choice words and photos thrown in for vivid realism. A deepening Fortuna mayoral mystery, a badass neighbor, a tight truck, chiseled EPD beef and babycakes, and maybe a glass of beer or wine or two or three while making dinner? Refreshingly different and oh-so-the-Eureka we know and love.
What isn’t there to like?
The editor is to blame for the indecency. No professional journalist would allow this piece to go to press without cleaning it up.
What Skippy said.
For English-as-First-Language and Paul Crandall, however, I am pleased to offer this far more professional and respectable version. No one need get, um, golly gosh, interested.
“Eureka Police arrested a white male for joyriding in a pickup truck in the vicinity of Huntoon Street. The truck belonged to the mayor of Fortuna, a neighboring community. A citizen assisted the police.”
There. Calm sleep restored.
I’m shocked that a journalist might have a bit of fun writing a blog post. Anyway, good for Paul King I hope that the truck isn’t damaged much, because Doug Strehl (the owner) is such a nice guy.
Y’know, I get the coarsening language concern and it pisses me off when low-class fuckers loudly yell fuck at each other in the fuckin McDonalds, or Winco, or anywhere around the kids…but, people! This is alt-weekly land, and a blog, no less. It ain’t above the fold, ok? Context matters. Ryan’s story is fun, well told, and adrenalized. Those who know him know he is a respectable gentleman you can take to church or the DAR meeting. Besides, Bad Ass can be contagious and Ryan is obviously susceptible. Go get em, Tiger!
Well jeezus freakin keriss–“We’ll give you blogging rights,” they said, “You can post on our Blogthing just like the rest of us.” So great, I think, my big mutha of a rattlesnake will impress hum-world. But no, five minutes after My First Blog, Heidi swamps my cute Coratus with HER dog-in-a-suit glurge-pic, and then Ryan (“I never wanted to be editor anyway”) stages some crazy cops and robbers charade just to show who’s really the Blog King…what does a guy have to do to get respect around here?
You got blog rights? Sniff.
Felt like I was watching Cops as I read this, and loved every second.
Joel–you buy ’em burritos, they give you blogrights
Two days ago I wrote about a pastor who molested a child living in his custody. In this week’s issue our new editor shows why nobody’s building homes for the county’s low-income residents. And a couple weeks back we wrote about a woman accused of drowning her young daughter.
If, in such a world, you choose to be offended by a couple of PG-13 words that, in this context, literally don’t mean anything, then blame me, not our new editor. She didn’t see this post before I put it up.
You should have gone with “chase the scallywag down.” That’s how the kids are talking these days.
Great article, well done….I wanna sign up for classes at your school of journalism….you did’em proud!
badass, I believe refers to donkeys. Even the King James bible has Jesus on an ass. not sure if it was as badass as your neighbor but an ass no less. People who claim badass is indecent are the same dingbats that put clothes on historical art. The dude looks kinda badass too.
It’s an interesting story but lose the profanity. It dumbs YOU down.
I vote for profanity too, in this instance.
I didn’t think it belonged in the NCJ stylebook when Hank insisted on a quota of fucks per story, but this post only had two or three too many.
Good, fun writing, Ryan! And hooray for the good guys. Why do they fire them?
Been watching these alleged “journalists” in HumCo posture like they’re the King Hell Journalo of the Century, for like 25 years now. And to date this is the lowest of the low I’ve seen. Even beating out every dumbass local blogger and very last moron that ever walked through the doors of the ER or the T-S.
Like people are saying, the NCJ is going straight-up tabloid. No ethics, no standards. Do whatever the fuck you fucking want and fuck what all those fuckers think, right?
Burnsy, you just made half of the parents in the county either block your site from their kids or had it auto-blocked in a web filter due to the profanity.
“Burnsy,” release the clowns.
Mr. Burns,
It’s already happened. Just check out today’s news.
It was a great story and worth the post. Could have done with out the F word but Badass was definitely warranted.
@Meanie– Kids really should not be reading the NCJ as it is adult targeted stories that are totally innapropriate for kids. This is not a child’s newspaper. You can tell by fact that it is NOT in the children’s section of the library. That is why there is Highlights magazine..for kids.
Barry, that rattlesnake is one evil-tailed, uh, scallywag.
Hm. In other news, is Paul King single?
Thats my Bad Ass son !…. Stay off Huntoon if your gonna act like a douche !
By the way …..Bad Ass article !
Three cheers for Paul King!
On a more somber note, folks may have to do a lot more of this kind of self-policing in Eureka, given that City Mismanager Tyson just fired the best Police Chief Eureka has had in decades, installed a dinosaur as interim chief, and together with the retrograde majority on the City Council he seems poised to turn the clock back to the bad old days of incompetent, uncaring, and often brutal policing.
You’ll notice the truck license plate reads Farley 7. Hmmm… that would have been one of Ferndale Mayor Jeff Farley’s fleet of numbered vehicles.
Hey, that’s a good call, Skippy. Likely the case.
Great write-up, Burns. Badass of the week?
Great story, I was engaged immediately into the story and completely thrilled with your writing style till I hit the F-bomb. I think that you took your article from a great article to junior high level in one word. It is inappropriate in any instance. I look forward to more of your writing in the future, hopefully without the obscenities.
If some articles are going to include profanity, why not put, ARTICLE INCLUDES EFIN PROFANITY READERS BEWARE at the top. Kind of like a switch on your tv!
Well, Michael, because we assume our readers are adults. Maybe if someone could provide a well-reasoned argument articulating exactly what harm they suffered from my use of the offending words (beyond having their sensibilities befouled) I’d be less inclined to use them. As I noted above, the associated mouth sounds can be heard in any PG-13 movie.
If you allow a word to have power absent of anything actually signified, well, that goes beyond puritanical priggishness. It’s just silly.
There’s a picture of a big ass rattler somewhere on this blog??! Cool!!
Ryan,
How about just for the reason of being respectful to others?
Or did that go by the wayside over at the Journal as well?
On the contrary, Anon. I respect our readers’ intelligence enough to trust that they care about more important matters.
True that, Ryan. I’m just happy to read about a guy who cares enough to get involved when things don’t look right.
On second reading, those who complain about your use of “fucker” are correct.
The joyrider is not a “fucker.” He is only an “alleged fucker.”
As for the bad-asses, the photographs are not sufficiently close up to make a determination.
Focus, folks! It ain’t about the bad words, it’s about the great work that the new neighborhood watch president, Paul King, performed. Awesome. Ya gotta know those cops were smiling inside. They should have bought Mr King dinner.
LOL DONT BEND ANY CORNERS ON HUNTOON IM ALWAYSE WACHING!!
Talk about being at the back of the line….while this is all ancient history by now, my now that is; I have half a cent to throw in: The lower classes have been tagged with the word: “Fuck,” to such a degree that it is now verb, adjective and noun simultaneously . It is a grunt that is the stand-in for actual language.
It is the lower classes which consume the movies and the television. And there they have been taught to speak in the language of the Mono-word. One word to rule them all. One word limited only by the speaker.
I despise its common usage. I hate having it barked at me by fools who have no sense of propriety.
But,
I like Savage Henry. I’ll read anything Vonnegut ever wrote. Words aren’t really anything at all.
So it’s like the man said: “We refrain from doing something not because the thing has any power; but that my brother feels it has power is enough for me to let it go; for his sake.”
“Fuck” is used equally across class lines. I once heard a wonderful story about Elizabeth Taylor at a dinner party, noticing her cat had gone missing. She screamed, “Fluffy, where the fuck are you!?.” Instant silence, followed by a hurried hunt for Fluffy.
If this story is not true, it should be.
You’re still doing it Ryan Burns. Observe, report, badass.