Latest Update: March 4, 2001 by Ben Marcus

SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2001, 15:05. KINKOS IN SAUSALITO.

What a great day. Raining like crazy, broke one of the power supplies to my laptop and spent a good 30 minutes handcuffed in the back of a National Park Police cruiser up at the Marin Headlands.

I have bad luck with the law in Marin County. Nowhere else, just here. When I was living in Tiburon I got two and a half speeding tickets, and anyone who has driven with me knows how ludicrous that is. I'm a slow, careful driver, usually.

One of the tickets was in the Marin Headlands. It's a National Park but it looks like Hazard County. The road to the beach is a two-lane, rural road with no one around. The speed limit is 25 MPH, which just doesn't feel right. It makes sense when there are bikers around, but on a lonely weekday...

Anyway, got a speeding ticket there sometime while I was living in Tiburon, and almost got another one in the same spot.

I also got one on Tiburon Boulevard, at night. I never, ever talk back to cops but this time I got close. I was pulled into a dark parking lot by the police cruiser but I kept rolling because I saw two police cars parked at the far end of the parking lot, under lights. I figured the officer pulling me over would want to be near his friends, in the light, no?

Anyway, one of the other cops got all edgy with me. He was black and I think he was on speed or something. I didn't talk back to him, but I was tempted. Idiot. I see why people get shot by cops sometimes. Some of those guys are too dumb to be cops.

I had two run ins with the law on my trip to Alaska. A cop pulled me over in Sequim, Washington because I was swerving all over the road. I was trying to get my seatbelt unstuck from the door, becuase I thought he was going to pull me over for that. I got a ticket for expired license instead, but you all know that story.

And then there were the customs officials in Victoria, looking for Mr. Walther. That time I was in the wrong but got away with it.

On the way back from Alaska, in Marin County, I stopped at the Alexander Avenue exit to scrape together $3 for the Golden Gate bridge toll. I was so broke at the end of my trip, I had to borrow money from the guy in the passenger seat, a guy covered with prison tattoos who had just gotten out of 15 years in Folsom. He knew Charles Manson. He was a nice man.

As I was separating Canadian quarters from American trying to scrape together the $3, a sherriff asked me to move. I guess I didn't do it fast enough, because he pulled me over and gave me the license, registration and insurance runaround. He asked if I had any wants or warrants, and didn't bother with the guy with all the prison tattoos on his face.

It's nice when you aren't doing anything wrong, you can relax. That guy let me go and I completed the last 70 miles of my Alaska journey, thinking, "I have the worst luck with Marin County cops."

Today I woke up in the van in Tiburon. No dead battery this time. It was raining like crazy and I discovered first thing that I had broken the power supply to my Gateway computer. Fortunately I found a power supply that I could plug into the cigarette lighter, so I was able to work.

I drove up to the Marin Headlands to work on the Surfing for Life thing. It's a history of Hawaiian surfing from Captain Cook to the present and it's going pretty well. I'm learning things. I'll have it done soon.

So I'm working with the heater and radio on and the computer plugged in and the battery dies. I had a nice view of the Golden Gate and the storm and all, so I kept working for a few hours, before getting a jump start from some guys from Virginia.

As I'm pulling out, the National Park Police appeared in my rearview mirror with their lights on. There were two cars. I thought, "Me and Marin County cops." I thought the problem might be my seatbelt again.

Am I really that suspicious looking? Is the van? I got a haircut. I bathed. I don't look like a vagrant, and the van is just a white van with a roof rack. It isn't a hippie van, it isn't anything.

So the cop told me my registration tabs were expired. I couldn't give them a clear address because I didn't have one and I guess that made them suspicious. One cop asked if I had any drugs or guns in the car. I answered honestly, "A shotgun." And then it was "hands on the wheel, step out of the car." They put the clinks on me and put me in the back of their cruiser, the fuckers.

So I sat there for 10 minutes, a little worried that there would be trace remnants of pot left over in the ashtray from my big buy in Homer, Alaska. They went through the van like the Victoria customs girls, and at one point one of the Park Police came back and told me that guns were illegal in National Parks.

I was pissed so I talked back a little bit, "You ever been to Alaska?"

They checked me out on the radio and the van for 20 minutes, but were nice enough to start the engine to keep the battery charged.

I thought the dipshits were going to arrrest me for the gun thing. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I'd just gotten back from Alaska.

Handcuffs suck. They're uncomfortable, degrading and make you feel helpless.

For a minute I thought they were going to take me downtown and I was getting pissed. I leaned back and started kicking the right window with my boots and that...

Psyche. No, I was very patient and polite and inwardly pissed, but I didn't argue too much.

After abotu 20 minutes they let me out, took off the right handcuff, made me put that hand on my head and took off the left handcuff.

The Park Police explained that I'd done right by telling the truth about the shotgun. They gave me a cheap ticket for expired tags and let me go.

That wasn't fun.

I have the worst luck with cops in Marin County. What next?

I may have to work that into the murder mystery.

Now I'm at Kinkos, glad that I'm not arrested for having a gun in a National Park. The rain has stopped and I'm wondering where to go now.

I want to work on that Surfing for Life thing some more. It's almost done and I'll need the dough to pay my registration. Oh the life of a hobo.

Oh, I also broke my tape recorder. Maybe I should get a home somewhere and get a life.

Nah. Too confining.

Ben