On Friday night, Ann and I went to see the New Court Theatre‘s production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. As always, we had a great time. Josh Burton, who directed the play and runs the company, consistently puts on productions of the highest quality and with some of our area’s finest actors. If you’re anywhere in the area, be sure to put it on your to-do list.

During the intermission, Josh helped serve snacks and sell raffle tickets. He looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, but what’s your name again?” I told him. (Josh used to work in the same offices as my stepmother, but we only see each other a few times a year, mostly at his plays.) “That’s right! I’m sorry. Oh, and guess what? You won something in the last raffle.”

So, it seems I have the eponymous neon sign from their production of The Spitfire Grill on its way. I think it may end up over our stove.

My sister Jody just dropped me a note about a good cause my fellow Wisconsinites might be interested in:

This is the website and story of Corinna’s brother, Pete. Do you all remember
Corinna, with the twins and the tatoos:) Anyway, her brother was diagnosed
2 years ago, at the age of 18, with bone cancer. The parish in Spring Green,
where Corinna and Pete grew up (with thier other 7 siblings) is creating
a fund for Pete. He had most of his leg amputated because of the bone caner
and is hoping to get an artificial one that will allow him to run and do
several other things he wouldn’t be able to do with the kind he could get
with help from insurance. The kind he’s looking to get isn’t covered at
all by insurance. So, here on the website you can check Pete out and find
out about the documentary a friend did about him that won a prize and about
how you can help if you like. Even notes of encouragment help. In August
there will be a fund raiser for him.

So, stop by 4Petesake.com and check it out. If you’re a fan of the American Players Theatre, you might notice that some of its best actors–including the all-too-talented Jim DeVita–are taking part in the fundraisers. You could too.

First, Al Qaeda bombs London. Solidarity to my friends across the Pond. Our hearts are with you.

Then, I find out that my friend Scott Haring was in a horrible auto accident with his family, that cost the life of his 12-year-old stepson. Scott, for those who don’t know, has been in the gaming industry as an editor and designer for decades. I’ve only worked with him professionally a few times–notably on my only published review for his own magazine, the now-defunct The Gamer. He’s currently back with Steve Jackson Games, as their e23 editor. Put simply, Scott’s a wonderful editor and a solid guy.

Scott was single when I first met him, and for many years after. I remember jawing with him at a convention, about his then-soon-to-be wife. He just shone with love for her and for her kids. He was honored and overjoyed to be a part of that family, and to have part of it taken away so randomly boggles the mind. My heart goes out to him and his wife and their son Porter. I can only imagine the pain at their loss, but even those thoughts are hard to bear.

If you happen to be in the Madison, Wisconsin, viewing area tonight tune into the 10 PM news on Channel 17. They send a reporter over to interview me about the incident last night and tape some of my footage. If you get a chance, check out the 10 PM news tonight to see my 0.15 seconds of fame. 🙂

You can also see stories on this event on the websites for WTVO and WREX. The best article is up at the Beloit Daily News site.

As you might imagine, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Most of the details I have about what happened came to me second-hand through a couple of teenagers who chatted with a cop last night while wandering around the neighborhood, trying to get the best view of the house in which the fugitive was holed up. The local TV news websites report that the guy is a convicted killer and one of the most wanted men in Illinois, but that’s about all they’ve released so far.

I happened to have picked up a new DV camcorder a couple weeks back, and I got an hour or so of footage of last night’s events. Once I get a chance to cut it into something watchable, I’ll see about posting it.

It seems this guy, who the cop with the bullhorn repeatedly called “Curtis,” was violating his parole, and the police learned about it. When they tried to take him in, he got away and took three children hostage yesterday evening, sometime before or around 7 PM. He eventually let the kids go, although the teenagers I talked with claimed he fired some shots off at the police as or after he did. Then he barricaded himself in the attic, trying to hide.

Of course, the police aren’t going to just leave and let the guy walk out of there. Somewhere around 1 PM last night, they got tired of waiting and went in. I got some great shots of a three-man SWAT team firing flash-bang grenades through the windows of the place. They (and some other teams) did this two or three times before they finally stormed the house.

They brought Curtis out a long while later, after they’d thoroughly searched the place. The teenagers reported he had a handgun but that it was empty and that he gave up when the cops finally found his hiding spot. I stuck around until they brought him out, marching him buck naked across the street to a fire truck where the EMTs checked him over. When I next saw him, he had some clothes on–a sweatsuit maybe–and the police stuffed him in the back of a cruiser and took off.

While this took a long time to play out, I never felt that my family or I was in danger at any point. Well, except maybe for me when I was filming the house, wondering if a stray shot might pop out of one of the windows and tag me with a karmic penalty for taking silly risks. The Beloit Police Department did a fantastic job of clamping down on the situation, getting the kids free (which I didn’t see happen), and taking Curtis in. It might have taken a lot of effort and disrupted the neighborhood for a bit, but no one–including Curtis–was seriously hurt, and that makes it worth it.

I’m trying. I really am. But the world seems to be conspiring against me giving my full attention to my writing tonight. Since about 7 PM, we’ve had a hostage situation unfolding less than 50 yards from my house. The Beloit police swarmed all over the place and surrounded the house across the street from our next-door neighbors.

Apparently, an undercover cop bought some drugs from two guys down the street. The police managed to arrest one of them, but the other ran back into this house and has been holed up there since, reportedly with some children. The first I heard of it was when I was in my driveway, attaching the carrier frame for our quadruplet stroller to our minivan’s trailer hitch. The sound of a police officer on a bullhorn ordering someone to come out with his hands up smacks you awake.

Ann and I gave the kids baths and put the quads in their cribs just like normal. I read Marty another part of A Wrinkle in Time before putting him to bed too. Before that, though, he got a kick seeing a few members of our local SWAT team strolling through our back yard and hopping over our fence to get a better angle on the house with their assault rifles. I got a wild shot on my camcorder of Marty waving at me while the SWAT guys moved into position behind him.

It’s been over three hours since this all started. The police seem to have identified the guy in the house, as they’ve started calling him by name and telling him that they know there’s a warrant out for his arrest. Still, he shows no sign of communicating with them at all, refusing to even turn on a light in the house to acknowledge that he can hear them. The cop on the bullhorn keeps repeating his plea for reason every few minutes, despite this, guaranteeing the man’s safety if he comes out peacefully.

A group of our neighbors and other rubberneckers are camped out on the lawn directly across the street from us, watching this all unfold. I’ve gone out a couple times too, once to see more SWAT guys jog up my driveway with a K9 unit on a leash. People have come and gone as the evening has worn on, but there’s a solid core that seems to be determined to stick it out to the end. Sadly, the guy in the house looks to be just as determined. Still, as the police keep telling this “Curtis,” “We are not going away.”

Me, I’m just trying to write something while I listen to the negotiator keep talking over his bullhorn, asking the guy to walk out the back door with his hands up.