I made a short film this morning. I’m really getting tired of doing this but I made a short film this morning. It’s a film about my neighbor’s story to the police when I brutally attacked her arbitrarily and without notice.
I was thinking last night about Being Had. This is the book I wrote about my incident in Poland. I went into the book today to look around. You know, seriously, Being Had is a pretty good book. It doesn’t really fall apart with age. I know it’s 20 something years ago already but you can read it and understand it pretty clearly. Maybe you need to have a sense of irony but it’s all there in black and white. A couple of things I noticed were from chapters 14 and then I think maybe 19. It was the period when we were getting into court and because this was a court case, I did have access to all of the documents and the stories and the statements so I just reprinted them. So, here is actually the story that the policeman told the authorities concerning our interaction. Everyone knows my story but this is exactly what he said. Here is the whole first statement and the actual violent moment is highlighted in bold text. You tell me if this story holds water.
I have been told about my responsibility in regards to the law about making this report. Article 233 1st paragraph…
On this day on the 15th of May in Warszawa I was driving with my daughter Katarzyna on Solidarnosci Street towards the Praga district in my Renault Megan serial no…
Which is my own car. I was coming to the crossroads with Andersa Street; I was driving in the left lane. There was no car in back of me and in the middle lane, there was a city bus. And the biker was heading to the bus. He quickly changed lanes a few meters in front of me. I made a signal so that I wouldn’t hit him. The biker then changed back into the middle lane and I came to the crossroads before the lights. I saw in the rear view mirror that the biker was approaching between the bus and the cars that were in back of me in the left lane.
When he passed my car, he threw away his bike and came to my right side and punched three times in my hood with his fist. He was screaming something in English and I think he was using vulgarities. He punched a few times into the roof; he kicked the backside of the car. He punched his fist in to the front window, then he took the bike threw it several times into the front of my car. Then he took it to my left and he threw it between my car and the divider (tramway) and was punching the side window with his fist and the roof. He opened my doors and punched me a few times into my face and I was trying to protect myself with my hands but I got a few punches into my mouth, my upper lip and chipped four of my teeth. And two of them were a little broken and he cut my upper lip. During this I was calling from my cell phone to number 112 and I heard an answering machine… but during this fight, this man tried to grab my phone so I put it down. One moment later this man left the car taking his bike. He got on the bike and began to ride on the sidewalk on Andersa Street toward Nowoliepia Street. In this moment some man said to me loudly that there was a police car two cars in back of me.
I went to the patrol car and I asked them to go and stop this biker. I drove in my car to Andersa Street and I saw this biker riding on the sidewalk between Solidarnosci and the building Nowalipie 2. I came to the KSP and I asked the police that were standing there to stop this biker and they did it. The biker saw me and started to scream and came at me and, l thought they were holding him back; he managed to punch me in the face. When I explained the situation they told me to go to KP Srodmieste and the biker went there too. That’s all I want to say bout this. But, I want to say that before it came to the confrontation, nothing happened (I didn’t do anything)
There is a second story to this that is also kind of worth looking at. The first interview was extemporaneous. He just spoke when he needed to speak about what happened. This second statement came after the inspection that said how much the damages were to the car and as you can see, the story changes just a little bit. He’s not quite so upset now. He is fully supported. He understands that there are certain things he is supposed to say and here’s what happens to the story.
What I said before I still believe is true, but I want to say something more: this man was riding (his bike) in the right lane and he was in front of my car to my right. When I was approaching him in my lane, he quickly changed his lane without signal coming into my lane.
Not seeing the possibility to stop (avoid him) I used signals that made this biker change back to his lane and we continued (on our way). When we came to the crosswalk, I stopped on the signal and to my right; the bus had stopped there. This was the same bus that was the one the biker was behind.
Normally, a bike should wait in a cue (wait in line) with the others (cars) but he was riding between the cars. And after I arrived at the crosswalk he came to me and without warning punched with his hand the side of the car while passing me. He did this because he didn’t have enough room between my car and the bus.
Next (he) put down the bike in front of my car and punched with his hands into the hood, the roof and the quarter panel of my car while screaming in English with spit (frothing?) coming out of his mouth.
And I want to say that my eleven-year-old child was with me in the car and she became hysterical. Because of his behavior and my daughter’s reaction, I decided not to go out of the car. The man then picked up his bicycle and began to use it to hit the bumper of my car. Then he threw his bike to my left between my car and the (tramway) barrier.
He approached my car from my left and began punching my car with his hands on the door, the roof and the window… and I want to say, that before he came to my left he punched the front window and broke it…
When he was on my left side he was trying to open the door and punching the door and the roof until he opened the door and was punching my face and my body with his fists. I was protecting myself with my hands and trying to call the police with my cell phone. But when I checked the number, he tried to take the phone away.
(And now the witness shows me the telephone and on the screen of the telephone I can see the connection number 112, the date 15.05.02 and the hour 14:00 and 30 seconds.) I don’t remember if I put away the phone or if the phone fell out of my hands. He was spitting all the time on my car, he was angry and he looked like a crazy man.
When he saw the telephone he seemed to understand that I was calling and it made him have a cooler head.
After this, he went back to the front of the car and punched the hood and then he took his bike and rode on the sidewalk in the direction of the KSP (the main police station) between Andersa Street and the Muranow cinema.
I decided to call the police and a man standing nearby told me that there was a police radio car behind me.
And I called them and asked them if they would stop this biker which I could see the whole time.
I rode down Andersa Street and the police went there as well. When I came to the KSP the biker was riding on the sidewalk. Then the police came and took control
I add two reports about the damages.
What’s interesting is that this man was trying to grab me although the policemen were there and trying to stop him and one time he was lucky enough to punch me. And this is all.
I really like the frothing at the mouth part. I don’t remember that I’ve ever actually frothed. Do you froth? I mean, when you’re really angry, does your mouth begin to froth? I know that when I think of peanuts and raisins my mouth kind of waters. It’s the raisins that do it. But we’re not really talking about food here. We are talking about legitimate froth coming from the mouth. Like a dog who has rabies. Like a genuine crazy person going completely berserker arbitrarily in one second because this car and this man just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back on this psychotic’s journey of madness through the world.
So you know it does just make sense that someone would just go completely crazy and tear apart your life and assault you and brutalize you and just be everything you’ve ever been afraid of your entire life. Every fear that ever comes into your head. Everything that makes the police very vital to the world we live in. The police are there to prevent mad men and crazy people from destroying property and harming people with these arbitrary moments of complete violence. There are people who simply exist to cause harm to good citizens and that’s the most important thing for us all to remember. We need security and we need a lot of it because the world is so dangerous that without them, we would all be fucked!
So in the spirit of all of this Christian rhetoric that is of course taken as gospel, I decided to do one more of these little films. This is my neighbor’s story as illustrated as best as I can with my limited artistic skills. I call this film, Zaremba.
There’s an old joke about a woman who visits a zoo and gets a little clever next to a cage with a gorilla inside. She makes eye contact with him and the gorilla seems friendly enough so when the gorilla motions for her to give him her hand, she can’t resist. It is a moment of nature. But the gorilla pulls her directly through the bars, bashes her against all the walls and throws her around like a ragdoll until the zookeepers dart him into oblivion and the woman is taken to the hospital in a coma. 3 weeks later she finally comes out of it. Her wounds are starting to heal but still, no one would believe that she will ever be beautiful again. And when the doctor asks her if there is anything she needs, she is shocked to find out that the gorilla has never called, never written or ever even asked about her.
Anyway, moving on and for whatever it’s worth, here is the link to the film I took on August 8th of the day I went berserker and attacked my neighbor. Theoretically I was foaming at the mouth there too but I don’t think it came up. All you can see is someone doing what they do and enjoying the attention of actually having people listen when they talk. Apparently in the Slovak world, even getting anyone to listen to you for a second is worth everything in the world. It’s like a drug. In fact, it’s such a powerful drug that people will tear their entire world down and take their entire families with them just to keep it going just a little bit longer.
There is of course an aftermath to this and I think I wrote about the week that followed this interaction pretty well. This is found in the upcoming elections books but to make it easier, here is week 31, the week of August 8th and here is my best description of what happened next.
And I guess as long as we are watching films, here is my story, not necessarily about this moment, I think I’ve got that covered, but about life in general. Clearly the world is better For me having agreed to do everything that I’ve done. So just for the journalism of it all…
And then there were the death pictures. These were mostly for the ecological inspection. I’m still not so sure that I talk to the ecological inspection team. I think I met a couple of Russian thugs. But that would explain why my neighbor is still sitting there as of the moment of this writing. It’s tough convincing people who the criminals are in this world. I think that’s because it’s run by them.
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Have a good day y’all.
Ironic addendum
My buddies at the Barents Independent Observer are coming out completely on the side of public safety. Apparently they are distancing themselves from people who make alarming statements such as myself. In fact, here is their latest story illustrating why you don’t want people to panic no matter what the story is about and no matter how much you really believe in public safety. Or, exactly how much you wish to stay in business because you’re making money and you do have to allow the Russians to have their say in things.
Tiny amount of radioactive iodine measured in Tromsø – But there is no danger
Anyway, back in 2017 I was working with them translating Russian articles about corruption amongst the hierarchy in the Murmansk region. This was not a Tatiana Britskya article. I didn’t start covering her until a little later. In the book, Found in Translation, this story appears on page 33. But for the purposes of posting something interesting and ironic, you can read the story in English here in its original source.
«Dangerously close to the body»
There is quite some strangeness to the dismissal of the Murmansk Minister of Natural Resources and her criminal case under Article 285
The text is by Alexander Serebryanikov who is also known as blogger 51. He has been an anti-corruption writer in Russia for a long time. To be very clear, the Barents Observer have distanced themselves from me for whatever reason they believe it is important to distance themselves from me. They didn’t really even want to be a part of the book. It’s all very funny how strong the Russians are. Everybody but me seems to be scared. Nevertheless, this story is about public officials who arranged to build themselves a private hunting cabin in the middle of a protected state forest. It was just a place to relax for them and their close friends where they could be in nature and have a breath of fresh air while they killed animals or got drunk and fucked or whatever they do when they are away from prying eyes and people who might be upset at such things taking place.
Like I said, I just think all of this is pretty ironic.
Speaking of ironies, there is kind of a nuance of law that needs to be observed. The difference between a crime and a tort is knowledge. If you know you are committing harm, this is a crime. If you are just oblivious to what you are doing, this is called a tort. You are still responsible for the damage but they cannot say that you are a criminal. When I was dealing with Wiznakowski, the Polish prosecutor whose clock never worked, I always had a hard time understanding if he was a criminal or just crazy. I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s both. But maybe the biggest irony of all of this is the name we put to someone completely oblivious who causes damage. In the Russian language, a tort is a cake. Lots of sugar. Lots of fat. Lots of everything you need to stay stupid.
And if you really want to get deeply ironic into the background check, there was a politician in San Francisco who really had it going on by the name of Harvey Milk. Milk was openly gay but he was a great organizer in what at the time was known as the gay ghetto. This was a place known as the Castro district where gay people from all over the country (the world really) came for acceptance. Harvey Milk was shot to death by a guy named Dan White, a former city supervisor who lost his job to Milk. And yes, White was definitely a conservative type who liked to lead with charisma. He wanted everyone to know that he was a great man. He also shot and killed the mayor of San Francisco just to make sure the job was done well. The defense that got Dan White off with a ridiculously light sentence (don’t worry, he killed himself) even more ironically was that he claimed he went on a junk food binge right before he went completely crazy and shot the mayor and Harvey Milk. I guess thinking of the word tort and what sorts of things get you off in court got me going down irony lane again.
Check it out. It is known as the Twinkie defense.
On November 27, 1978, George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, were shot and killed inside City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. Wiki
