The Living Room Times

[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]

Back on September 29, on the eve of the federal government shutting down, I announced a “shutdown” of my own: an “indefinite hiatus from Twitter“ (with the typical exceptions for Instagram, Tumblr, local event live-tweeting, and so forth). I had various reasons for this sudden decision — including, but not limited to, my desire to avoid the inevitable #DERPNADO of stupid arguments about the shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis with people who are Wrong On The Internet.

Of course, my tweeps were understandably skeptical of this announcement, given my track record of failed “hiatuses.” But looky here! According to my Twitter archive (which I downloaded during my Election Day “hiatus break”…heh), October 2013 was my least-active month on Twitter in almost four years, dating back to December 2009! That’s so long ago, it’s before Obamacare became law and destroyed freedom! 🙂

Throughout 2012 and 2013, I’ve been averaging nearly 3,000 tweets per month. But in October, I tweeted only 561 times… and 363 of those were during a single ~48-hour period early in the month, when Tropical Storm Karen was active — along with major thunderstorm, tornado, blizzard and wildfire threats elsewhere in the U.S. — so I took a “hiatus break” for the sake of my weather-blogging obligations to Pajamas Media. Outside of that two-day #SNOWFIREICANENADO, though, I only tweeted 198 times in October, which works out just over 6 tweets per day. For me, that’s unheard-of! 🙂 And it explains why my “word cloud” for the month (courtesy of Wordle) looks like this:

There are several notable things about this word cloud, outside of the obvious dominance of “Karen” and other words related to weather and geography. First and foremost is the amusing fact that I tweet so much about my own #hiatuses, “hiatus” is the fourth-largest word. That means, excluding words like “the,” as well as Twitter-specific common phrases such as “RT,” I tweeted the word “hiatus” in October more than any other word except “Karen,” “storm” and “tornado.” Heh. Looks like it beat “PANIC” and “DOOM” combined! (“PANIC” is near the bottom left — just left of “snow,” which is itself just left of “tornado.” It’s quite small. “DOOM” is even smaller, immediately to the left of mighty “Karen” and surrounded on its other three sides by “Halloween,” “weather” and “Iowa.”)

Another notable thing is how small the word “shutdown” is. (Did you even notice it? It’s vertical, in black text, on the lower right-ish side of the image. Look to the right of “now” and below “hurricane.”) If not for my #DERPNADO-avoiding Twitter hiatus, that word probably would have rivaled “Karen” in size — with “debt” and “ceiling” and “Tea” and “Party” and “Boehner” and “Obama” and “Cruz” and “Lee” close behind. “PANIC” and “DOOM” would have been much bigger as well!

Also notable is the prevalence of terms related to Becky’s and my local community of Stapleton: specifically, its official account (@StapletonDenver) and two hashtags: #lovestapleton and #StapletonHalloweenMadness, all on the left side. That’s due in part to my “Stapleton Civil War” satire, and in part to the craziness of Halloween in our ‘hood.

Apropos of which, one last thing: look closely at the area just to the right of “storm,” below “hiatus” and “threat” and “live,” above “mph.” Do you see the URL, http://t.co/wUMzuY4xXG? That’s the Twitter-shortened web address of my “channel” on Ustream, on which I broadcasted live video of trick-or-treating craziness on October 31. I tweeted out the URL repeatedly during the night, enough times that it made my list of most-used “words” for the entire month. Heh. (Alas, the URL of my time-lapse video of our 1,200+ trick-or-treaters just barely missed the word-cloud cut.)

P.S. Speaking of “Heh,” if you look very closely, you’ll see that Glenn Reynolds’s favorite word made the cut. It’s near the bottom right, colored red, in the area underneath “hiatus” and “just,” immediately below “like” (green) and “U.S” (orange). Heh. Indeed.

Anyway, that concludes today’s episode of pointless navel-gazing by yours truly. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives, already in progress. And I will return to—or rather, continue—being on #hiatus. (With the usual exceptions. Like the tweet announcing this Tumblr post. Heh.)

[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]

My satirical news article about the “Stapleton Civil War” was published this morning Issue 66 of The Stapletonion, our community’s local version of The Onion. As readers can tell, I had a lot of fun with it. 🙂

Hopefully, my fellow Stapletonians – residents of the various mocked neighborhoods, as well as my Forest City friends – won’t egg my house. 🙂 I’m just having a little fun. Maybe a little too much fun. Hee hee. But I tried to mock all of the parties and local factions, including my own, in an equal-opportunity way.

Below, I’ve published a slightly modified version of the article — a bit longer than the Stapletonion piece, including some extra jokes with broader appeal (e.g., about national politics), and written in a “voice” more typical of a regional or national, rather than hyperlocal, publication. For instance, it defines certain terms and concepts that are obvious to locals (like who “Forest City” is, what “Swigert” is, etc.), but perhaps less obvious to the broader Internet.

Enjoy!

STAPLETON, DENVER, October 17—Warring factions of enraged parents took to the streets of this upper-middle-class Denver community Thursday, triggering widespread chaos and mayhem as they waged a pitched battle over educational preferences for their children. 

“The helicopter parents are going to war,” opined one Stapleton resident. “It is likely that we go to our doom.”

The conflict, triggered by a planned overhaul of the local elementary school admissions system, merged with long-simmering resentments and rivalries between Stapleton’s various sub-neighborhoods, exacerbating hostilities. By nightfall, this decade-old urban infill community on the site of Denver’s former airport – until now a bastion of stability, economic growth, and baby-making in the east Denver metro region – appeared to be on the brink of a full-scale civil war.

Residents of the Central Park West neighborhood, who are upset about their children’s dearth of access to the popular Swigert elementary school, quickly claimed Stapleton’s high ground by occupying the Airport Control Tower. “We shall tell our enemies,” one shouted to the assembled mob, “that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take OUR SLIGHTLY IMPROVED ODDS OF GETTING OUR KIDS INTO A SCHOOL THAT’S MARGINALLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER GOOD NEARBY SCHOOLS!!!”

On the other side of Stapleton, in the rival Eastbridge neighborhood, residents were seen building a barricade on the site of their long-promised, still-nonexistent “town center.”  The barricade appeared to be constructed primarily of discarded toys, barely-used children’s clothes that no longer fit, and old furniture that had been relegated to area basements after Ikea opened in Centennial.

“Swigert should have been in OUR neighborhood, but they stole it from us, precious!” one Eastbridge resident was heard to say. “Wicked, tricksy, false! We hates DPS, we hates Forest City, and we hates Central Park West, precious! We hates it forever!”

Forest City Enterprises, the master developer of this community of 17,000 – and the apparent target of several spray-painted messages reading “FC SUCKS” – appealed for calm. Company spokesman Mark Lockie pleaded with Eastbridge residents in particular: “Look, seriously, I’m pretty sure we can get you a Whole Foods if you’ll all just calm the f*** down.”

But Forest City was also preparing for the worst. Lockie said the developer was boarding up the windows at its headquarters on 29th Avenue, and barricading all entrances with massive piles of never-read copies of the Stapleton Green Book.

“If necessary as a last resort, we will create an impenetrable ring of fire around the building, using Green Books as kindling,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of them.”

Appeals for calm seemed to be falling on deaf ears, however, amid reports of further escalation. Witnesses said a large mob of Conservatory Green residents, who want equal access to the South Stapleton schools, was advancing on foot toward the Central Park Boulevard Bridge—which is being defended by an even larger mob of South Stapleton residents who don’t want their children shipped across I-70 to High Tech Elementary to make room for Conservatory Green kids.

Also, there were indications of a brewing cross-neighborhood insurgency led by a group calling itself “Parents for Preschool Justice,” which is agnostic about boundaries but demands that the kindergarten admission preference for students enrolled in Early Childhood Education not be eliminated, as has been proposed.  Shortly after the commencement of hostilities, PPJ claimed responsibility for a “biological warfare attack” earlier in the evening on joggers in Westerly Creek Park, although experts cast doubt on that claim, saying the “attack” was most likely the work of an unaffiliated mosquito swarm.

Meanwhile, dampening initial hopes that the Eastbridge barricade would merely be a “Occupy Wall Street”-style peaceful protest site (but with better hygiene and less secondhand marijuana smoke), reports emerged of a looming clash. Several hundred homeowners from the proposed “preference zone” for Swigert, mostly from Central Park West, were seen marching down Martin Luther King Boulevard toward the barricade site, carrying torches.

“We don’t like what we don’t understand, in fact it scares us, and this Bird school is mysterious at least,” several of the marchers were heard singing, referring to Isabella Bird Elementary School. “Raise the flag, sing the song, here we come, three hundred strong! Three hundred Westers can’t be wrong… let’s kill the East!” they added.

As the chaos spread, there was growing concern that loud outbursts could interrupt local toddlers’ naptimes, causing further mayhem. Some even darkly whispered that, if the situation deteriorates badly enough, it might prevent nannies from making it to Stapleton.

“My God, this could become a nightmare,” said one local mother.

The conflict began earlier Thursday with several heated arguments among attendees at Stapleton United Neighbors’ annual Education Expo. The disagreements surfaced during a discussion of SUN’s recommendation that Denver Public Schools create a “soft boundary” or “preference zone” elementary school admission system within Stapleton, which would only marginally improve Central Park West residents’ access to nearby Swigert. Some “Westers,” incensed that their children have not won the community-wide “lottery” for spots in the glittering school located practically in their back yards, have demanded a stronger geographic preference, or even closed boundaries – either of which would represent a major shift away from Stapleton’s traditional “open choice” exception, toward a “neighborhood schools” model more typical of other parts of Denver.

Witnesses at Thursday’s meeting reported that the situation began to escalate after one Eastbridge resident shouted at a Central Park West resident, “I’ll see you in Hell before you limit my kids’ school options just because you didn’t read the damn rules before buying your stupid house.” The Central Park West resident retorted that at least his neighborhood was focused on “something that matters, like our kids’ education, instead of a nonstop town-center bitchfest.”

Shouting led to pushing and shoving, which triggered punch-throwing and hair-pulling, and before long a full-scale riot broke out.  DPS and SUN officials fled for their lives.

Political leaders, including Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, also urged Stapletonians to refrain from violence, but otherwise generally stayed mum for the time being, focused on gathering information about the rapidly changing situation. However, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo quickly put out a statement lamenting “this latest outburst of violence fueled by illegal immigration.” It was not immediately clear what on earth he was talking about.

Meanwhile, early reports out of Stapleton suggested a sudden shift in the community’s political alignment, as conservative gun-owners, previously ideological pariahs in this heavily left-leaning community, have suddenly stepped into leadership roles. Sources say community elders in the East 29th Avenue a.k.a. “Classic Stapleton” neighborhood (or “Stapleton Natives,” as they prefer to be called), were huddled late Thursday at the home of some lady who had a Jane Norton lawn sign in 2010. Meanwhile, that guy who likes Ron Paul has reportedly become the de facto leader of the new Westerly Creek neighborhood militia.

“I told you idiots that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state,” said Ron Paul Guy. “Dumbass liberals.”

As the conflict widened, fears spread of possible looting. Indeed, several South End homeowners reported late Thursday that it had already begun, with a number of bikes stolen, garages broken into, and car windows smashed. One commenter on StapletonMoms, however, speculated that those incidents were probably unrelated to the school-boundary conflict. “Sounds like a typical Thursday night,” she wrote.

Even so, some local businesses were taking precautions. Udi’s Bread Café issued a statement saying, “We are closed until further notice due to the ongoing violence, so you crazy white people will have to get your overpriced frou-frou sandwiches somewhere else.” At King Soopers, an employee was seen in the parking lot, painting new arrows on the asphalt – all pointing away from the store. “This’ll keep the looters away for sure,” he was overheard muttering to himself.

There were reports that Forest City was preparing to take more drastic action.  An employee at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that the developer had asked the stadium to prepare a possible blast of Raffi music that could be heard throughout Stapleton. Military analysts agreed this would be an excellent psychological warfare technique, and would probably end any rioting almost immediately.

Lockie, the Forest City spokesman, would not comment on those reports. But he did tell reporters that, in a worst-case scenario, continued school-boundary-related violence could lead to the unprecedented cancellation of Stapleton Halloween later this month. Economic analysts said the resulting massive falloff in candy sales would likely throw the entire nation into recession. The economic impact could be exacerbated further if the Eastbridge barricade is eventually destroyed, greatly reducing the stock of unwanted crap available for next year’s Community Garage Sale.  Global stock markets fell as much as 3% on the news.

On a happier note, Lockie said Forest City was delighted to learn that a use has finally been found for the airport tower. “We congratulate the Central Park West residents on their creativity in that regard,” he said. “But now will everyone please simmer down, go home and finish putting up your Halloween decorations?”

Again, you can find the original article in The Stapletonion. Also, thanks to @eastviewphotog for the photo illustration, responding to my request on Twitter the other day.

P.S. Just to be perfectly clear, for the sake of the sort of people who think Onion articles are real … this news story is FAKE. None of the events described herein actually occurred. Any resemblance between the referenced individuals and actual people is purely coincidental. (Well, except Tom Tancredo.) Also, “Mark Lockie” is not a real person, and all of the quotes attributed to Forest City via him, and to other individuals and businesses, are completely made up – invented for satirical purposes. In conclusion, please don’t sue me, or hate me. Heh. I’m just having a bit of fun. I really do #lovestapleton.

P.P.S. Also, although I make fun, the “helicopter parents” are my favorites, because they “helicopter” so I don’t have to! It’s a classic free-rider situation, and I deeply appreciate their good work. 🙂