Month: April 2024

by Travis Mateer

At first I thought it was just an insurance scare tactic, but after the Riverbank Run article, I’m now convinced our local media is DESPERATE to help our city “leaders” convince strapped taxpayers to attach a fire levy weight to the concrete boots we’re expected to swim with.

The first link goes to apparently the first shot in an all out blitz to make sure what happened to the crisis mill levy doesn’t happen again.

What happened to the crisis mill levy, you ask? Since I take partial credit for killing it with my appearance on KGVO, I’ll provide some helpful links to show you exactly what I think happened to the crisis mill levy in 2022, and my continued perspective after the fallout.

More Reasons To Vote No On The Crisis Mill Levy (October 11th, 2022)

With Ballots In The Mail, Local Leaders Make Final Plea For Crisis Mill Levy Money In Perpetuity (October 14th, 2022)

The Blame Others Strategy Is In Full Effect (November 11th, 2022)

This Toxic Air Extortion Scheme For Revenue Bond Crack Is A Move Only Shameless Public Money Addicts Would Consider (January 23rd, 2023)

A Figurative Hand Job For Montana’s Attorney General, Courtesy of KGVO (July 25th, 2023)

Anyways, let’s take a quick look at the insurance fear tactic coming from the city if you don’t vote YES on the levy:

As the city asks voters in Missoula to consider passing a fire levy this spring to help the Missoula Fire Department keep up with growth, it’s also reminding residents that doing so may be tied to their insurance premiums.

Missoula Fire Chief Gordy Hughes over the last two years has warned City Council that the department’s response time to emergencies, including structure fires, was beginning to lag.

As it stands, he said, current response times are roughly two minutes slower than what’s called for by the National Fire Protection Association.

While strategic fear can be found in this article, you will find NOTHING about the role of Tax Increment Financing draining the “General Fund” of tax revenue with the skim&give scheme that siphons it to the Missoula Redevelopment Agency (MRA). Check out this fantastic documentary I couldn’t show at the ZACC or Roxy if you want the nitty gritty on this detrimental scheme and its detrimental impact on our town.

Moving on to the article about someone collapsing during the Riverbank Run, here’s the shameless use of that incident to remind readers about the upcoming levy:

Saturday’s incident comes as the Missoula Fire Department is asking Missoulians to vote for an MFD levy in June, a request that would give them more funding to support an uptick in call volume across the city.

In an update to the city council earlier this year, Missoula Fire Chief Gordy Hughes reported medical calls eat up the majority (roughly two-thirds) of what MFD responds to on a daily basis.

Do you want to hear more from our Mayor about this levy and why voters should vote YES? Well, if you can handle it, then watch the video below and tell me whether or not Tax Increment Financing gets a mention, because I suspect that this community and its retarded “leaders” are going to continue exhibiting cognitive problems by NOT acknowledging how the TIF mechanism has eroded the ability of the General Fund to pay for essential city services.

Having made a significant impact during the last panhandling levy request put to Missoula voters, what’s my capacity to bring my unique style of attention to THIS panhandling levy request?

Unfortunately I realized something about myself while sitting in my Trash Truck the other day, and instead of using my words to describe this realization, here’s a picture that should immediately communicate how the public might view me these days.

If I wanted to give City Council an update on my Farley-esque living situation, then calling in a public comment via phone is the only way I’m able to do it.

Why? Because I was told explicitly by a Municipal Court judge that I am NOT allowed to attend City Council meetings on Monday OR Wednesday because of the legal trouble a former collaborator and romantic partner has made for me by exploiting the criminal justice system to depict herself as a victim. It’s been QUITE the learning experience for someone like myself who has had to use orders of protections several times against mentally unstable homeless clients who presented threats to me and my family. One woman even found my home address and sent me dozens of crazy letters back when I was still married and living within city limits.

It’s important to neutralize people like me who know things about this community and, more importantly, have shown a willingness to TALK PUBLICLY about what I know, so I’m sure my petitioner’s former boss, Susan Hay Patrick, is VERY HAPPY to have a pawn that can moved around the chessboard in order to give our local officials a level of protection from my truth-telling, like a forcefield.

Yes, not even a Trash Truck can penetrate the amazing forcefield that now surrounds our elected leaders thanks to a professional victim who did the only thing she could in order to try and shut down my ability to inform this community (where my kids are growing up) about what is happening and NOT happening when it comes to serious life and death matters.

If you appreciate what I’ve had to go through to continue writing and publishing blog posts, then please consider a donation to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). Any little bit helps.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

On Saturday, April 27^th, a memorial was held for Jane Rectenwald, so I went to pay my respects to the person I called THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN in Montana.

Jane passed away on January 5^th, exactly four years after Sean Stevenson was euthanized by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office at St. Patrick’s hospital. Sean was allegedly assaulted by just one man, Johnny Lee Perry, in the men’s dorm of the homeless shelter where I used to work. Johnny was ALSO killed by the Sheriff’s Office, just two weeks after I posted footage of him making threats toward law enforcement. Yeah.

Sean was born in Pittsburgh, but until the memorial, I didn’t know that Jane was raised in Pittsburgh as well. Here’s her brief bio:

Jane was the type of person who couldn’t ignore wrongs when she discovered them, and that’s what made her dangerous. But this weekend I got a reminder that there’s something MUCH MORE dangerous for those who have power and are doing everything they can to keep it, and that’s the ability to LAUGH and to KEEP LAUGHING, despite the depressing fact that 4 years ago the Covid fear campaign decimated the cognitive abilities of previously sentient human beings.

Informed consent? Yeah, like liberty, it’s a quaint notion that had to be jettisoned to do funny things, like social distancing. Remember that absurdity?

I didn’t see much evidence of sentience at the University of Montana yesterday as Missoula said HELLO to Donny Junior, but thankfully I did see quite a few smiles as some local artists (myself included) used our talents to give Donny a PROPER greeting.

What’s a proper greeting, you might be wondering? Well, yesterday it included a saxophonist in a ski mask, an amplified operative with an ear-piece reporting on suspicious protestor activity, and a guy claiming to be representing “time-travelers for Trump”. It was glorious!

Also, it wasn’t reported, because WHY would any local media report on weirdos doing funny shit as all the SERIOUS protestors did their predictable BITCH AND MOAN routine? Yeah, weirdoes being funny doesn’t fit the lazy narrative that stokes anger, thus instigating DIVIDE AND CONQUER actions from well-meaning idiots who can’t see beyond their collective nose, so I’m not surprised our antics were ignored.

Lucky for my Zoom Chron audience, I’m not your typical local media, which is why MY efforts continue to be focused on identifying and breaking local narrative control wherever I find it strangling truth, and these days that’s pretty much everywhere. Here’s my quick report from the parking lot of the University of Montana:

I finished off the weekend giving an interview where I dispensed some of the truth I’m dealing in relations to the broken criminal justice system and the limits now placed on me that restricts where I can go and what I can say about certain things.

First amendment? Yeah, that’s another quaint notion we, as a society, don’t seem to have the LUXURY of supporting anymore.

If you’d like to support what I’m doing, your donation to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) would be greatly appreciated, since I’m scrambling to come up with my last month of rent in the little room I’m paying $800 dollars for. After that, it’s TRASH TRUCK living for me!

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Since turning my Trash Truck into a mobile stage for the new approach of self-promotion I’ve embarked on, I’ve had lots of interesting conversations, but one story stands out for the harsh comparison a grieving mother gave me regarding the value of her dead child, which amounted to the cost of “an expensive Lego set”.

What happened? The woman described watching a motorist hit her 12 year old kid while they were both crossing the street in a crosswalk. This lethal vehicular collision occurred in Bozeman.

What was the harshest penalty the motorist faced in this situation, the woman asked? A hundred dollar fine, she said, answering her own rhetorical question, or…the cost of an expensive Lego set.

The woman (an indigenous woman, if you’re calculating how much to care in your woke mind) was from California and, because she was a Native property owner, she had LOTS of dealings with government bureaucracy, but nothing she did in Montana amounted to getting ANY agency to give a shit that the stiffest penalty a motorist faced for the lethal car collision that killed her son in front of her was a hundred dollar fine.

I asked her if I could write about what happened to her son and she said YES, PLEASE DO! Considering I’ve spent over 4 years trying to get this community to care about the ramifications of letting the Sheriff’s Office euthanize and execute black men in our caring community, I’d say that I’m the perfect person to document yet another tragedy that won’t get the attention or justice a grieving parent needs when something terrible like this happens.

After that interaction I brought out a small bucket of Legos and not long after an older man came up, saw the Legos, and stuck his hand in like Amelie fingering a sack of grain.

When the old man got his phone out without saying anything and started scrolling, I started getting curious. When he finally found the image he was looking for, he came over to show me that, like me, he was a MASTER BUILDER.

When I see a Missoulian article about unique approaches to theater hit the same day I post about wanting to Doctor Parnassus the streets of Zoom Town, then see an AWFUL politicizing of Legos, well, I know I have to GET TO WORK to counter the bullshit.

Maybe Trump Junior will appreciate how I have his Dad riding on the three-headed pig beast of the apocalypse.

While I’m being super creative and documenting tragic ACTIONS, the engagement I got on Facebook recently centered on my use of the “R” word because, as I was reminded in the parking lot of the Good Food Store this week, the terrible use of LANGUAGE is what concerns a seeming majority of people in this town.

Here’s the triggered comment of a woman who used to employ me and who allowed the violation of my first amendment right to free speech to take place at the non-profit she led for three decades because Gwen Jones phoned her up after I wrote my sidewalk poem.

Do I have patience for this bullshit? Nope, I’m pretty busy hustling the money to cover one more month of rent before I call my Trash Truck home.

If you would like to help this wonderful life transition, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) could use a donation or two. I set the amount of $5,000 last year, and have inched toward that goal month after month, but since The Pulp is ALSO asking for $5,000, and they go DAYS without new content going up, well, I think it’s obvious who you should support.

No post this Sunday, but I’m sure I’ll have something fun for Monday, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Sometimes I simply marvel at how the spirit moves me to be in the right place at the right time…and looking HILARIOUS! That’s what happened as I happily rollerbladed down Higgins with a new idea for my Trash Truck in mind.

I’ll be honest, the spirit that moved me was the water I needed to pee out somewhere, so I got on my skates, strapped on my knee pads, and put an antique black fireman’s helmet on with the appropriate number 9 on the front (I’m a Virgo, figure it out) to go find a nice dumpster somewhere to relieve myself, and that’s when I saw Ellen.

“Hi Ellen!” I exclaimed as I skated by.

“Hi,” she replied back…”how you doing?”

“Great, I’m on rollerblades!” And that’s all I could say as I rolled by the director of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency.

As I’m typing this I’ve still got my skates on and there’s music blaring from my megaphone. I’m pretty satisfied with how I MacGyver’d my phone to get close enough to the detached mouthpiece for amplification. 

Did Ellen enjoy the classic Köln Concert recorded by Keith Jarrett in 1975? I sure hope she did, because there’s so many OTHER things that could be getting amplification right now, ya feel me? 

What ideas are brewing? I’d like to go Doctor Parnassus on the streets of this town, but I would need some help. Am I finding people approaching me who might be able to bring a new level of street theater to this spiritually dying town? Maybe. And there’s also the Noise Complaint crew, who I hear might be having some fun on Sunday for the appearance of Trump Junior. Oh boy, things might REALLY get fun if that happens!

I did notice some limitations to my setup last night. For example, when three cute girls approached me on bikes to ask what’s up, I couldn’t TURN THE VOLUME DOWN very easily, especially since I was sitting cross-legged and still wearing my skates. Damn!

Anyways, all it takes are a few good interactions to cheer me up, and some ideas to stay focused on, so let’s see where this one takes me.

If you’d like to assist my creative efforts, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is ready to accept your donation.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

What location did I choose for last night’s public display? If you can’t tell from the picture, I’ll tell you precisely where I was parked, and that’s the parking lot of the Top Hat, which is owned by Nick Checota. 

Did my special location garner some productive attention? I think so, since my first visitors were curious BECAUSE of my location, considering one of them worked for Nick, or used to, I think. It’s kind of hard to keep up with those enjoying the night life when you yourself don’t consume adult beverages.

How about Virgil? Did he enjoy the evening?

Yes, he got a very nice outing when a small audience gathered to hear my tales of exploring places like Las Vegas, where my most effective teaching tool was waiting for me to find him and bring along on this very weird adventure.

If you doubt the veracity of my Vegas claim, here’s an article about the Stranger Things store launch.

From the link:

Vecna and his army of monsters from the Upside Down are headed to Las Vegas, and they’ll be here for a while. Netflix will launch Stranger Things: The Official Store at the Showcase Mall on the Strip on May 26, open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Earlier in the day, in the parking lot of the Good Food Store, it was a different story.

There I was eating my pricey salad when two paid GFS workers came out to assess what I was doing. What was I doing, they asked. Eating my expensive salad, was my reply. And what is ZOOM CHRON? They asked. My blog, was my reply, then I introduced them to Virgil, but it did NOT go very good.

I think it was when I suggested the possibility that Benjamin Franklin “fucked children” at the Hellfire Club that triggered the two women, because it was at that point I was told to “turn my sign around” while I finished my food. Ok, ladies, your wish to remain protected from reality is my command.

For some context about the show’s inclusion of a real club in its “fiction”, here’s a link that briefly explains the reference:

The fourth season of the Netflix series Stranger Things introduces us to some Hawkins High School boys who belong to a rather innocent Dungeons and Dragons club named “The Hellfire Club.” When I watched it, I immediately thought “Haven’t I read about a real Hellfire Club somewhere?”

Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive men’s clubs for high-society clientele in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century. The most famous is Sir Francis Dashwood’s Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. (Dashwood’s earlier club was the Order of the Knights of St Francis formed in 1746.) These clubs were supposed to be places where “persons of quality” could safely take part in what were socially perceived as immoral acts. They met irregularly from around 1749 to perhaps 1766. The club motto was Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt).

Dashwood and the Earl of Sandwich are alleged to have been members of a Hellfire Club that met at the George and Vulture Inn throughout the 1730s. Benjamin Franklin is known to have occasionally attended the club’s meetings in 1758 during his time in England. But there are no records left (these having been burned in 1774) so the list of members is often based on references in letters sent to each other. He was also known as a prankster.

Other groups using the name “Hellfire Club” were set up throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Lord Wharton was a prominent politician who led a double life as a “man of letters” and after hours as a drunkard and rake who started his own Hellfire Club which allegedly had some very prominent members. His club included many interests from poetry, philosophy, and politics, and it was also very anti-religion. It was not considered to be a dangerous group. Though the president of this club was supposed to be the Devil, members did not worship demons or the Devil, but called members “devils.”

I’m sure it’s just fun and games and nothing to get too worked up about. Merch just means true fans get to take a piece of their beloved programming home with them. Just some harmless fun and entertainment, right?

Where will Virgil and I set up shop next? I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.

If you appreciate my unique marketing and educational services, please consider making a donation to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF). I have one more month of rent to come up with before gaining my homeless super powers. Isn’t that exciting? So stay tuned…

And, as always, thanks for reading!