Tuesday, August 29, 2006

the deal

What is the deal with L.A. and helicopters? Sure, on the beach you know people are being shuttled from a shwanky house in Malibu to their private jet at the airport. And standing on a friends deck in Silverlake you can see the helicopter downtown with its shining beam of light, cops, police car chases? But when I am trying to watch a movie in my living room and a helicopter continues to circle over my house, I really have no idea what is going on. More police? I know better than to try to find out through the media. Living in Cincinnati there was a night where armed gunmen robbed a bank and were roaming the neighborhood, streets were blocked for hours and a friend (and another friend of a friend) said there were tanks driving up the street. The news? nothing. Continually check through the rest of the week...nothing. (--by the way as I type the helicopter continues to circle, seriously it has been about an 1/2 hour)*. Cincinnati's only reporting was on the bank robbery that occurred around 10am, however a friend driving home from my apartment around midnight was stopped by the police and reprimanded for being out, when armed gunmen were about....news....nada...she had to return to my place because the streets were barricaded leading the 4 blocks to her place. That helps you sleep at night doesn't it? Ah the ghetto, will I ever miss it?

*Michael's helicopter comment "It's kind of weird, cause its right above our house”.


p.s. Kate wants me to tell the story about the time I Bruce Lee kicked down the door to our bedroom. I think she could tell it better as the more rational sibling in the situation. You should ask her to guest post it here.

4 comments:

Alice said...

"But when I am trying to watch a movie in my living room and a helicopter continues to circle over my house, I really have no idea what is going on."

We get army planes flying over our house. There's a testing site (for the planes. Not nuclear testing. Or at least I don't think it is) nearby, and they go low enough to think "wow, that's low" and "ow, my ears" if you're outside but not really low. Doesn't happen often anymore, but used to be every day at least twice.

"That helps you sleep at night doesn't it?"

Yeah, I know what you mean. We live on a council estate and there are often cop cars arriving at one house or another (usually the same ones), and three times police have came up and questioned me as to whether I'd "seen" anything suspicious. Each time, the answer has truthfully been "no", but
they did prompt (he was yay high, wearing this...the noise would have been quite loud, like a firework going off...that sort of thing) to see if they can 'trick' info in case I was holding out on them.

Most people from Broadwaters don't trust or talk to police. I'm not fussed.

There have been some fine scenes, as well, at a set of flats (there are three separate buildings with around 100 flats in): stabbings, shottings, drug dealings...My best friend lives in the quieter of the three (thank God she's never been involved in anything), and reported to me that she came down one day to go into town and found blood (as in, pints of it) all over the last set of steps. It was cleaned up by the council a day later and nobody ever found out what happened.

Reassuring, huh?

Anyhow, Kate, guest post the story please.

:-)

Angelique said...

Kate! We want to hear the story.

Anonymous said...

Definitely want to hear the Bruce Lee-esque kick story, Kate!!

Granny said...

We had an Air Force Base about five miles down the road when we first moved here (flying B-52's). The Air Force moved out and it was almost too quiet until we got used to it.

When we have helicopters it's almost always the sheriff's dept or a News chopper. Sometimes we hear about it the next day and sometimes not.