Seattle's Aurora Bridge, fenced at last

By Jack Brummet, Seattle Metro Editor & Mona Goldwater, Psychology Correspondent

A week ago today, Wash. Department of Transportation crews finished the nine foot safety barriers on the sides of the 167-foot high cantilever/truss Aurora Bridge (a/k/a The George Washington Memorial Bridge)that carries Highway 99 (formerly known as The Pacific Highway) across the Ship Canal.  Hallelujah!  We drove by and admired the work this weekend. 

The Aurora Bridge's height and easy pedestrian access have long made it a popular location for suicide jumpers.  In fact, the first person to leap to their death from the bridge did so while it was still under construction, in 1932.  It took us until 2006 to install six emergency phones and 18 signs to encourage people to seek help instead of jumping.  People even put up home-made stickers that asked people not to jump and call a suicide hotline instead.  Someone even posted their own number "call me!  I care about YOU!"

These fences are a beautiful thing, when you consider their potential.  If only a couple of people turn away a year, it is money well spent.  The Aurora Bridge is the No. 2 bridge for suicides in North America.  It was No. 3 until Toronto fenced their bridge. In fact, since they put up that fence, there have been no suicides.  This has happened at every bridge where they have installed fences.  That is goodness.  One week in 2009, three people jumped from the bridge, two of them "successfully." True, you will not stop someone determined to end themselves, but you will stop impulse jumpers and people who might reconsider.  One statistic we heard recently said that of all the people who came close to jumping, but turned back, 94% don't ever come close again.  If these fences buy the despondent two minutes to think, then, in our booklet, that's five million dollars well spent.   Seeing these fences go up makes our hearts sing.

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A great aerial shot of Ballard/North Beach (Seattle)

By Jack Brummet
Seattle Metro Editor


This is a nice aerial shot of Ballard (my neighborhood) in Seattle.  The waterway you see at the bottom is the Ship Canal that leads up to the Government Locks.  Near the top, the bulge in the land is Golden Gardens.  North and west of Golden Gardens is the North Beach neighborhood.

click to enlarge -- Photo by Dcoetzee (released to the public domain)

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Poem: I've Looked At Clouds From Six Sides Now

[Provisional? Maybe it is done. . .nor sure. . .sometimes means that if/when the real poem emerges, it may include only two lines or all of them, in some sort of subset or superset].

1
The Seattle skybox
Is defined by a thriving
Patchwork of clouds
That resort themselves
In the gathering winds
And rotation of the earth
Forming new collages
In the patterns overhead.

2
A mother-of-pearl moon
Unveils itself in the night sky
As the four winds
Weave tufts and strands of cloud
Around her like fig leaves
Revealing and concealing,
Draping the Sea of Tranquility
The Marias and the crater Tycho
In a cloak of modesty.

3.
250,000 miles below
Under murky clouds
The moon performs
A forbidden hootchie-kootchie dance,
Like Salome or a whirling Turkish Dervish
Spinning in the shifting clouds.

3.
Clouds add a necessary roundness
To our angular lives.
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The cold rain and snow

All last week, I was in Orange County, California, where it was mostly about 80 degrees. As I arrived home in Seattle, a month into spring, it was snowing. And it snowed all weekend sporadically...never sticking, but snowing every few hours. It even snowed on my way to work this morning. I was driving to the freeway, and there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was hailing and snowing. Traffic was slowing, and it looked like it might take hours to get to work. Three miles later, I was in the sunlight.

As it turns out, I am going back to Orange County tomorrow, where I'll get another blast of heat before returning to who knows what?

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TBTL --- Too Beautiful To Live? Luke Burbank's Talk Show On Seattle's Kiro 710 AM

Luke somehow doesn't seem like a baseball hat guy.

I should be, since I grew up in Kent, Wash.

I love these people! I have been a radio fan since sometime around 1960, when I got my first seven-transistor radio. When I was young, I used to listen to the talk shows on KGO (like KIRO another 50,000 watt powerhouse) in San Francisco at night, when their signal would skip all the way up the coast. When I lived in SF, I listened to KGO too, and when I lived in NYC, I used to listen to a couple of different talk stations. I have a collection of about 600 Jean Shepherd radio shows I listen to frequently--all from WOR in NYC from about 1960-1977. Alas, Jean Shepherd signed off the air on WOR just about the time I arrived. Next to Jean Shepherd, my favorite radio show of all time is a brand new one, that has only been on the air since January in Seattle (with podcasts available for the unfortunate who live out of broadcast distance). You hear that Luke? In some perverse way, you're up there with Shep!

Jen, who grew up in my neighborhood,, Ballard.

In January, in Seattle, talk radio began to live again. Or at least someone was performing artificial recussitation in hopes of breathing life back into what had become a loud and moribund format. Unfortunately, according to its creators, it may be Too Beautiful To Live. Luke Burbank, who was working on NPR returned to Seattle for his own talk show on KIRO 710 AM Radio.

Luke Burbank's TBTL is a bit [extreme understatement] of a departure from "typical" AM radio — "I'm going to hang out with my friend and talk about things," Burbank says — and that's the whole point of these three hours a night. The show spits in the face of talk radio conventions, and they are fatalistic about it. But, I have heard people on the street, at work, and at parties mention the show. That's never happened before with a local show. People write in from around the world and all over the U.S. "There's something happening here/What it is ain't exactly clear..."

Sean, cook, engineer, and mixmaster

"Too Beautiful To Live" runs from 7-10 p.m. weeknights on 710 KIRO-AM, with a Best Of... on Saturdays. You can download the MP3s a/k/a PodCasts from KIRO's Web site Mynorthwest.com, and also from iTunes.

Luke is vain, funny, often a smart-ass, and always sharp. His partner in crime, Jen, is also funny, and extremely bright. She has a wicked sense of humor along with a heart of gold. Their engineer Sean, is an amusing knucklehead who sometimes talks about making eight bucks stretch the last four days before payday. TBTL is like sitting around with some funny friends, friendos. And the strangest and best part: they almost never take calls. Unlike most talk shows, you're glad. Unlike most talk shows, you actually want to hear the host.

"You have to treat it [the show] like it's a firefly and you've put it in a jar and it's flickering," said Luke in an interview.

Burbank and producer Jen Andrews have daily weigh-ins along with their engineer Sean. As most diet experts tell you, you shouldn't weigh yourself every day. But it's a great icebreaker and they treat it like it matters (also a recurring segment on the show: "Why ____________ [insert the name of something cool like Office Space] Matters." And then, they often delve into just what, and how much, they drank the night before (even Luke, who is now training for a marathon).

Just tune in and you'll figure it out on your own. Or you won't. You'll either detest it, or become a fan for life. Like most people (I'm too ancient to say peeps), I can't describe the show. . .I just ask is that you give them a listen. The podcast, with its high fidelity and no commercials is excellent.

I guess I am one of the 10's...a group of people who've been listening since the show's listeners numbered in the 10's. I tuned in the very first night after reading an interview with Jen and Luke before the shows began. Sure, I'm old enough to be their Dad, but I love these people. Even when they rant about pushing the graybeards out of the way (as they did this week)! Tune in M-F 7-10. They live in that dead zone...one of radio's worst possible time slots. They may be too beautiful to live, but I hope they're just homely enough to survive.

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Five Greatest Cities In The United States

This is my current list of the Five Greatest/Favorite Cities In The United States. In order. As with all of my lists here, I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow. Let's debate!

1. Seattle.
2. New York City.
3. Austin.
4. SF/Berkeley-Oakland.
5. Los Angeles.

Five greatest cities not in the United States:

1. Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico.
2. Rome.
3. Madrid.
4. Chora Sfokya, Crete, Greece.
5. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Seafair in Seattle & lyrics to the old folk song: What Do We Do With A Drunken Sailor

It's Seafair week in Seattle. When I was young, this was the event of the year: The Torchlight Parade, The Greenwood Parade, The Pirates landing at Alki Beach, and, of course, the hydroplane races, and, in later years. the appearance of the Blue Angels flying all over town in formation.

This is the week the Navy arrives too. You still see sailors walking around town once in a while, but during Seafair, the fleet comes in, usually several ships and submarines, and you see hundreds of sailors in dress whites looking for------------well, who knows what? Seeing one of the big ships reminds me of this folk song we used to sing in school and Boy Scouts. I doubt if it is much sung anymore due to political correctness considerations.

What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor

What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor
What shall we do with the drunken sailor
What shall we do with the drunken sailor
What shall we do with the drunken sailor
Early in the morning?

Hoo-ray and up she rises
Hoo-ray and up she rises
Hoo-ray and up she rises
Early in the morning

Shake him take him try to wake him . .

Shake him take him try to wake him . .

Early in the morning

Give him lashings with a rope end ..
Bathe his wounds with salty water . .
Sling him in the long boat till he's sober . .
Pull out the plug and wet him all over . .
Put him below until he's sober . .
Get a hose and wet him all over . .
Shave his tummy with a rusty razor . .
Send him up the crow's nest until he falls down . .

That's what we'll do with the drunken sailor
That's what we'll do with the drunken sailor

Early in the morning.

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