"The Dark End of the Street"

All problems are easily remedied if one has plenty of energy. Energy is the key. When one is feeling ill, exhausted, compromised, low, angry problems are not so readily solved. Routines conserve energy. A variation -- a radical variation -- the introduction of an unknown -- produces stress. Stress is a sudden energy purge; it is the "fight or flight" response. If one could merely rest after undergoing a "fight or flight" response all would be fine. But the rat race, such as it is, does not allow rest; hence, the importance of a steady routine.

Waiting for the train this morning I saw my companion from last week's commute fiasco. I'm pretty sure he saw me as well. But while just recently we might have been good buddies talking and speed-walking past crime scene tape, we were dead to each other now. We said not a word and cast not another glance each other's way. We were back to the routine the rat race demands; it conserves energy. And energy solves problems.

Tonight upon arriving home I headed into the kitchen and turned on Greg Vandy's The Roadhouse, which appears on KEXP every Wednesday at 6 PM. He's doing a tribute to the "Muscle Shoals Sound." I heard a snippet of Dan Penn saying that the finest version of "The Dark End of the Street" is James Carr's, which reached #10 on the R&B charts in 1967. Vandy played it. I listened. Yes, it is good. But I'm partial to the Sufi Hippie version by Richard and Linda Thompson from 1975. You be the judge.

Chaos on the Morning Rail Commute

The commute this morning was an exercise in chaos. The light-rail train out to SeaTac was not running in the tunnel. Riders were advised to board one of several bus lines and then disembark at the Stadium Station stop. We did as instructed. Then as a bus-load of us approached an empty train at Stadium Station a fluorescent-green-jacketed Metro employee told us that we had to go back across the street and get on a southbound bus to the next stop, SODO Station, where we should board the train on the northbound track because it would actually be heading south. Once again we did as instructed. And then we waited. And we waited. We waited for another bus to come along and take us the mile or so down the busway to SODO Station. Finally I and a guy who had worked a night shift and was trying to get home decided to hoof it. On our way we passed a light-rail train in the intersection at Holgate surrounded by police and cordoned off with caution tape. Here was the source of the morning commute chaos -- a train had struck a pedestrian.

The night worker and I kept hoofing at a good clip. Arriving at the SODO Station platform, we joined other commuters and travelers with their luggage bound for the airport. Soon after, our brothers and sisters whom we had left behind at Stadium Station arrived by bus. I borrowed an iPhone from a guy worried that he was going to miss his flight, and I called the office and said I was probably going to be thirty-minutes late. A southbound train arrived in ten to fifteen minutes. We all boarded, and off we went. I made it to work before 9:30 AM.

Link Light Rail passed at the polls as part of the 1996 Clinton landslide over the moribund Bob Dole. Being a monorail guy, I was skeptical at first. My trips to and from airport flights were not very pleasing. The train cars seemed cramped and the seating was uncomfortable. But since I've been taking the train to work the last couple of months I've got to say I'm now a big proponent. I've figured out where to sit. The cars are light and not crowded at all southbound to SeaTac on weekday mornings. I sleep a sleep of great peace from Mt. Baker Station to Rainier Beach Station. The only disruptions I've encountered -- two in number -- is when a train collides with a motorist or a pedestrian. Then all Hell breaks loose and chaos reigns.