This won’t be a proper review of the week, since I’m writing this on my phone. I would use my computer, but the connection isn’t secure and I don’t want to risk more X factors in my east coast travels.
Cooperstown town is a town built on a lie about baseball, and that lie has to do with the origins of baseball.
Cooperstown is also a town that sits at the not-bullshit origin of the Susquehanna River, the east coast’s longest at 444 miles. it’s the river, more than the baseball, that interests me.
It’s Equinox time, which means we’re falling now to Solstice. I’m writing everywhere I go, and it’s going to make quite a story, but I don’t think I’d call this a vacation in the traditional sense.
If you want a scenic spot to feel lonely around a ton of people, may I recommend Niagara Falls?
Anyway, there’s so much more going on I’d like to write about for this space, but the vast majority of my writing energy is going to the book.
I’m definitely going to keep updating this space, though, even if I have to “phone it in” for some shorter road content. Pictures are pretty easy to upload. Tesla, is that you?
One last thing, and that’s a BIG thank you for the recent donation. If you would like to donate, previous posts have the ways to do it at the end of each post, usually. And then I sign off by saying…
This is what it looks like to spend 22 hours traveling from Spokane to New York City. Normally it wouldn’t take a crazy amount of time to make this airplane trip, but Alaska Airlines and, really, the entire country, is short-staffed, so you just have to roll with delays that change your departure time in Seattle from 7:11am to 1:40pm.
Just because I didn’t get to my hotel until after 11pm didn’t mean I was going to just SLEEP because this city, if you haven’t heard, doesn’t do shit like SLEEP or apologize for being assholes. I think I might like it here.
It took being assertive (i.e., an asshole) with RV Share to make sure I didn’t get fucked by them like I got fucked by Alaska Airlines. The outcome? Success. That means I have to check out, grab a taxi, and get to a ferry to ferry me across water from New York to New Jersey.
This leg of my journey is going to be focused primarily on Pennsylvania. I’ll share more when I have more time. Until then…
The man you see with a cool gun and scruffy beard is Bob Franke, a Missoula Detective who I knew as the Downtown Officer working with the shelter-resistant homeless population on the streets of downtown Missoula.
Since I enjoyed working with Officer Franke, you can imagine my disappointment when I realized his role in the death of Sean Stevenson. And what was that role? That is just one of MANY things I would like to know, which is why I sent an email to Whiteny Bennett, the Public Information Officer for the Missoula Police Department.
Here’s a part of that email:
Good morning Whitney,
You haven’t been responsive to my email requests, so I’m cc’ing some people on this email so they know what’s happening with my investigation into the Sean Stevenson case.
I’d like to know how Detective Mitch Lang and Detective Bob Franke knew Sean Stevenson was dying. I have listened to one of Lang’s interviews with Johnny Lee Perry and he tells Johnny explicitly that Franke is in Sean’s hospital room and Sean is about to die. Lang even mentions organ failure. If Sean’s dire situation was known to CITY police, then it’s even more odious that Sean’s family was NOT NOTIFIED of their family member’s impending death until AFTER the Sheriff’s Office removed him from life support.
And here’s a screenshot of the response I got from Officer Bennett:
Yes, the CHARADE that occurred after Sean Stevenson was EUTHANIZED by the Missoula County Sherriff’s Office was a MULTIPLE DEPARTMENT charade, as pointed out by Officer Bennett. Thanks, Whitney!
If it was just ONE case, I’m not sure I would be putting my neck out so significantly to raise the alarm, but it’s not.
The bodies are piling up in Western Montana, and the bullshit narratives that those in authority expect family members to just accept without question are NOT being accepted by everyone, especially when a belief in MAGIC is necessary to accept bullshit narratives, like how ONE chokehold deployed by an intoxicated homeless man can produce MULTIPLE bruises and other physical damage ALL OVER the victim’s body.
Another harsh reality that these grieving families are facing this this: no help from the STATE is coming, nor should anyone expect FEDERAL oversight to produce a damn thing, because it doesn’t exist. And the media? Yeah, right. The media is a BIG part of this by abdicating its duty to hold power accountable.
How else am I supposed to process the fact that black men in Missoula can be euthanized and executed by the Sheriff’s Office and no one is making a big fuss about it three years later as an unpaid blogger risks his own safety and sanity to expose what’s happening here?
When this post goes live I’ll be traveling to a city I’ve never been to before, looking for context to a death that has taken on gargantuan proportions, which is why the pages are stacking up.
Tomorrow’s post will ask WHAT’S IN A NAME as my middle name continues popping up in fascinating places, like the patriarch of the Rockefeller clan, so stay tuned! And, if you’re so inclined, consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or making a donation at my about page.
Since I’m stuck in the Seattle airport wondering when I’ll get to my destination on the east coast, I decided to write a quick post about why my flight is now in limbo, and it’s the same reason I had to wait until 6:30pm yesterday to get the birthday meal I ordered at 5pm: staffing shortages.
My problems actually started in Spokane, where I waited and waited for a shuttle that wasn’t coming. If it wasn’t for a nice employee of the airport telling me that the shuttles didn’t start running until 3:30am, I would have continued waiting in the dark cold. Thanks Edgar!
As I followed Edgar to the terminal, we chatted about the staffing issues that kept functioning shuttles parked in the garage: there’s no one to drive them. Ever since Covid, Edgar said, it’s been difficult to keep employees around. The shuttle service used to be 24 hours, but no longer.
My Alaska Airlines problem started off as a “drain” issue. Planes have drains? Yes, I guess they do, and THIS plane had to have its drain cleared of debris, which caused a delay, which then caused the crew of the plane to NOT be able to continue because, I think, they had reached their maximum hours and therefore couldn’t keep working, by law, so another crew had to be found.
That’s what I’m currently waiting for, for another crew to show up to operate the plane so that myself and the rest of the pissed-off Alaska Airlines customers can continue with the travel plans we spent good money on. And if I don’t get to my destination tonight, I’ll be out the money I spent to book my hotel room.
Since my travel plans are out of my control, the best I can do is keep my cool and wait, then wait some more. It helps that I’m NOT in Missoula, where the entire town is basically one big trigger for me.
Speaking of triggers, our elected leaders decided to NOT pull the trigger on the fire levy because their favorite scapegoat, the state of Montana, won’t be mailing out tax bills until AFTER the November election, so THAT is the excuse being used for taking an action that will (they hope) diffuse some of that taxpayer rage at the games being played by ALL our jurisdictions. From the link:
At Monday night’s meeting, Hess said Missoula’s current and uncertain tax climate isn’t conducive to bringing a new major funding measure to voters.
“The state Legislature has created an absolutely untenable situation from a property tax standpoint and has created a massive tax shift to residences,” Hess said.
“The concern I have, and the concern the department leadership has, and the reason we’re bringing this before you today, is that tax bills won’t even be mailed out until after ballots are out,” the mayor continued. “So people will be voting on this measure without knowing what their own tax bills will be.”
This trepidation about property tax obligations for the perpetually squeezed taxpayer is rich coming from leaders of a ZOOM town that still shovels out Tax Increment Finance money like it’s candy while positioning the city to buy a fucking mountain.
Public acquisition of the 480 acres comprising much of the former ski hill has been inching forward over the past year, checking off the steps required to legally expend funding from the bond. The city and county will render a decision on spending $1 million each at a joint meeting slated for Oct. 4 at the Missoula Public Library.
“That hearing, the decision is solely related to funding to support acquisition,” said Kali Becher, the county’s open lands program manager. “The larger decision on whether the county will take on the long-term ownership, management and operations, with support from the city, will happen at a hearing in November.”
Becher said the land acquisition stands at roughly $2.2 million, along with $600,000 for immediate improvements to the property. The effort already has secured a number of grants, including a $600,000 community forest grant and a separate $40,000 grant from the Conservation Alliance.
The answer is NOT in this article because our leaders still don’t know what purchasing Marshall Mountain will cost, but that isn’t stopping them from moving forward.
If this mountain is acquired it will take STAFFING to maintain it, and right now I doubt Parks and Rec is a very desirable job opportunity, with homeless camp cleanups taking up so much time and financial resources.
On my birthday I put in an order for sushi at 5pm and was told it would be ready at 6:00pm, but at 6:30pm all I was being told is SO SORRY, SO SORRY…STAFFING! I finally got my food, sped to where my kids were waiting, and we had a nice meal, then I drove to Spokane so I could start this hellish day of traveling at 3am.
Ok, it sounds like I might finally be able to board my plane again for my destination, so I’m going to wrap this up now. Tomorrow’s post is already scheduled, and it will be posing another provocative questions in regards to the death of Sean Stevenson, so stay tuned.
A caesar salad with EXTRA anchovies sure does sound good, I thought to myself as I strolled into a nice downtown location to treat myself to lunch.
I had just come from talking with a University newspaper editor, then a University police officer, so I was basking in that post-info-sharing glow I get when talking well-deserved shit on cowardly jurisdictions forcing unpaid people like me to do their job for them.
My train of thinking suddenly derailed when I saw the puffy face of a conniving media player, pictured above, who allowed local reporters to show up to a locked workplace on September 11th, 2018, because that’s the classy way to inform a community you’ve sold out an information asset to corporate interests.
Instead of a caesar salad I quickly recognized that the universe had just given me the MOST AMAZING birthday gift, and all I had to do was open my mouth in proximity to this influencer in order to receive it.
“Are you Matt Gibson?” I asked. “Yes I am.” He replied. “I thought so, I just lost my appetite and you’re the reason why.”
I proceeded to ask Gibson if he was familiar with the name Sean Stevenson. No, he said, he was not. Well, now he is.
I told Matt Gibson that this Missoula community is less informed and, therefore, less safe because of him, and as I said this, I pointed my finger at him.
Can anyone tell me (maybe Gwen Jones, or perhaps Susan Hay Patrick) if pointing a finger at a person of influence is a criminal act? I kind of feel like it might be, but I’m not sure.
Knowing how dangerously skittish these influencers can be, I kept my chat with Matt short, but upon leaving I wasn’t sure if this poor rich man knew who he just had the pleasure of talking to, so I paused my exit and let him know VERY LOUDLY that my name was TRAVIS MATEER.
Then I left.
After enjoying this birthday gift I found out (from a former Indy reporter) that some other former Indy reporters have finally gone live with THE PULSE. Here’s something from just four days ago. What nice timing!
A few weeks ago, at a small fundraising event for The Pulp, a supporter lamented the loss of the Missoula Independent, the beloved weekly newspaper that unceremoniously closed in 2018.
“The Independent taught me how to be a Missoulian,” he said, recalling his first couple of years after moving here in the early 2000s.
What a great description of the Indy. Every week the paper revealed a Missoula a little more interesting and complicated, leaving you a little more attuned and connected. Its pages informed our thinking, our weekend plans, our votes. The Indy’s void still feels fresh, maybe because this fast-changing town has us craving an authenticity the paper reflected.
I’m as nostalgic as anyone. The Independent taught me how to be a reporter. Same for Erika Fredrickson, who spent more than a decade as the arts editor. Erika and I are launching The Pulp five years to the week after the paper’s abrupt closure to honor what was Montana’s only alt-weekly and to make clear where our roots lie.
After sending this new Missoula publication a warm, welcoming email, I turned on my recording equipment to capture the inspiration that Matt Gibson gave me at lunch. I’m telling you, that puffy-faced media man is a gift that just KEEPS ON GIVING!
And here’s the song to prove it:
If you would like to support my work, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way, and making a donation at my about page is another.
