Doug Clark

Anyone with an ounce of gray matter has sense enough to stay clear of the biker scene. That world is rife with dope deals, flash violence and menacing characters straddling two-wheeled rocket ships.

Three area residents and maybe more are in the running for Poet of the Year. Wow. Should this trend continue Spokane may become known as the Dublin of the Pacific Northwest.

All the sidewalk's a stage Street musician Dax Johnson belts out tunes on his portable piano near the Bon Marche at Main and Wall. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Yeah, yeah, firecrackers start blazes and sometimes leave people with colorful nicknames like "Stubby" or "Three Fingers." You safe-andsane sissies no doubt feel smug about the ban on fireworks, which has sapped the snap and sizzle out of the Fourth of July in Spokane.

Do your achy-breaky joints tell you when rain is on the way? Does the amount of fuzz on a caterpillar tell you if we're in for a long winter? If you answer yes to either question, a Spokane market analyst wants to pit your unorthodox skills against so-called weather experts.

Artist John Thamm and his controversial exhibit. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

I've had a bellyful of Jimmy Marks and his so-called Gypsy curse. The time is long overdue for this bellicose, selfappointed "senator" of Spokane's Gypsy community to yank the plug on his obnoxious and hateful behavior.

It was one weird, wacky world outside the U.S. Postal Service's annex on Trent Wednesday morning. First, two Spokane television news crews show up to get the scoop on what they think is going to be a mass 7 a.m. walkout by postal workers. Then 11 teenage boys with stars in their eyes arrive, looking for a moment of fame, some easy money and a bad haircut.

Harry Willadsen Jr. carries 160 pounds of supplies. Photo by Doug Clark/The Spokesman-Review

Eric Warren saw the tragedy coming. The murder victim this time was little Rachel Carver. It could just as easily been someone named Heather or Linda or Jason. Warren is a veteran Spokane Child Protective Services worker. He's heartsick at seeing the following recipe for disaster repeated over and over again:

Ed Kell, 75, won the singles crown in his age group at the National Indoor Championship last month in Boise. He also beat the pants off Doug Clark. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Is it something in our water or dark cosmic forces that keep thrusting us into the glare of the world spotlight? Disasters, scandals, global conflicts .... For reasons unknown, we humble inhabitants of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area seem to get sucked into just about every major news event that breaks.

Cindy Lambert isn't the least bit ashamed to be interviewed while she sprawls in warm sand as nekkid as a peeled onion. The woman invited me to Spokane's famed haven of ungirded loins the other day to chat about something that really embarrasses her: Being considered lewd for her nudist ways.

Debbie Brayman has named the trantula "Wooly Bully." Photo by Doug Clark/The Spokesman-Review

You don't need Sherlock Holmes to track a runaway pear tree. Not as long as Sam "Spade" Childers is on the job. Childers is a maintenance man for Northwest Regional Facilitators, a non-profit agency at 525 E. Mission that sponsors community improvement projects. He arrived at work the other morning to find one of the agency's 15-foot ornamental pear trees snapped off near the base like a toothpick. The rest of the tree was missing.

Forget the Brady Act. This country needs a 15-day arachnid waiting period. That's because any terrorist wacko can march into a pet shop and buy a tarantula to hide under his best friend's coffee cup.

What would you do if some punk spit on you? Throw a punch? Go for a throat? Dan Brown, who writes parking tickets for the city of Spokane, didn't have much time to think.

Bob Flory's the best landlord a deadbeat ever had. The poor guy gets stiffed on rent, damages and the water bill, yet he's kindhearted enough to deliver two truckloads of debris his delinquent ex-tenant left when he moved. Donna Sprague has a darker view of Flory's benevolence.

At 77, Sue Ent is old enough to be the University of Washington's designated Class of '95 grandma. Except that during the June 10 morning graduation ceremony, the Spokane Valley woman will be one of the kids wearing a cap and gown. Sue should be the featured speaker.

It happened one warm morning in May when Michael Coleman was a long, long way from home. The 19-year-old Marine private from Spokane stooped to gently remove a bomb Viet Cong soldiers had set on a bridge a little north of Da Nang. The explosion blew him 75 feet backwards; yet somehow, Coleman stayed conscious.

If there's anything Mike Ellis loves more than causing a three-mile traffic jam, it's a young woman who'll have her breast tattooed in a crowded parking lot. Hiding Doobie Brothers concert tickets in a funeral home. Paying Elvis impersonators to show up at a doughnut shop. A giant in a pink bunny costume handing out cash. No radio station promotion is too shameless or bizarre for this whoopy cushion man. Wacky Mike knows the gullible, greedy public always will play the fool to his madness.

He battled the Leaping Toilet Spider of the Amazon. He fished for sharp-toothed piranhas, probed murky depths for crocodiles and danced around crackling campfires with bare-breasted tribal women. Jungle Joe Blumel explored the steamy, snake-infested South American wilds for a month, returning to Spokane the other day with nary a scratch.

Hey, Mark Wayne Clark! A jury has just awarded a sicko convict artist like you $8,550. Where will you spend your loot? Disneyland?

Proud homes. Landscaped yards. Professional people... Ah, the living looks easy out here in Evergreen Point - an affluent Spokane Valley development where you can drop a quarter-mil on a home as fast as you can open a checkbook. For Greg Matthews, Evergreen Point is no oasis of suburban tranquillity.