Somebody That I Used To Know

The mugshots of Anthony Mayhew, are plentiful, and chronicle an adult life dotted with arrests for crimes of varying degrees of severity.  They date back to 1995, and depict Mayhew in a mix of clothing styles and haircuts that morph and change with the trends of the day.

As my eyes dart from one to the other, the crime photos from the early 2000's in particular, tug at my subconscious.  Somewhere in the transom of my brain the neurons are beginning to formulate a question:  "Where do I know that face?"

Mayhew is the man who was shot by Salt lake city police Thursday night outside the 2 News studios.  This after calling the assignment desk at the station, and announcing he has a bomb in his red backpack and is planning on detonating it.  As Mehul Asher, the man picked up the receiver , glances out of our studio that backs up to main street only to see an unhinged man, white dress shirt untucked, arms flailing wildly.  Ninety minutes later, after allegedly moving aggressively towards police Mayhew is shot and killed.  

As television stations dispatch their reporters the day after the shooting, on a familiar yet always frantic hunt for information, I stumble upon an old video, and a blog produced by Mayhew several years prior.  

It is a grab bag of narcissistic grandiosity, in which Mayhew refers to himself only as "Mr. Kenshiro (his middle name) and sees his persona as that of a modern day philosopher, crime fighter.  He claims in his writings to be a world renown expert on, among other things, hand-to-hand combat, surveillance  and interrogation.  It is as if I am reading, a fanciful fantasy tale penned by an 11 year old boy for his creative writing class.

The video is a scripted interview, in which, Mayhew, of course, is the focus, he is asked a disconnected jumble of questions, and rambles about made up philosophy and his contrived work as a "criminal contractor."  His "Job" as he sees it, is to "prevent violent crime from bleeding off into the civil world." 

As the news cast begins to churn to a start, I finally contact the person who assisted Mayhew in producing the video.  Jim Durham is a kind, gentle man, who runs a small video production company and who befriended Mayhew, despite concerns about his erratic behavior  and as others, particularly in Mayhew's family, were beginning to distance themselves from the troubled Mayhew.  

Durham tells me, Anthony asks him to make the video so Mayhew can submit it to a producer in New York for a possible reality show.  Durham knew it was probably untrue, but he dutifully helps his friend.  As I hang up the phone,  The words: "reality show," act as a finger pulled from a dike, and the memories come flooding from the back of my brain to the front.   

Several years ago, an acquaintance of mine asks if I will meet with his friend, a brilliant former criminal, who is interested in producing a television show about crime prevention.  Eric believes my experience in TV news might be helpful.  I remind him that broadcast journalism and entertainment television are two different animals, but that I would be happy to talk to his friend.  Unfortunately I had to cancel that first meeting and I re-schedule for a week later.  

We meet at the Dead Goat.  A gloomy basement restaurant, Eric and his friend are tucked away at a dark corner table.  "Anthony, this is Chris," Eric announces happily as I sit down in the  remote crevice  Anthony is in a tight, grey muscle shirt, he shakes my hand and begins intensely shuffling through a stack of papers, and explains to me that he is a former member of a crime syndicate, but has finally turned the corner and wants to help people avoid becoming a  target of crime.  

His years as a "bad guy," he supposes, makes him uniquely qualified, and he is convinced he has what it takes to helm a reality show.  I'm instantly skeptical of his "organized crime claim,"  I mean really, the mob, in Salt Lake City?  Get real?  None-the-less, I remain and politely listen to his pitch, as he suggest I help him host the show.  I have no intention of being a part of his project, but I quietly sip a Diet Coke taking in his darting banter.  

As each word trips out of his mouth, the intensity in his eyes and body language begins to unleash, as if he is an old Dodge Charger, that has languished in a weedy field for years, uncranked.  As he turns his key, at first Mayhew sputters with fits and starts, then his carburetor begins to rev, spitting chunks of rust out of his tailpipe, until his engine is churning with loud, uneven, bellowing noise. 

Anthony is raving, and for some unknown reason, he's angry, then unprovoked he points his finger at me and says, "and you!  I'm a busy man!" his eyes staring through mine to the back of my head,  "I'm not going to wait around for you as you cancel meetings on me!  I don't have time for that bullshit!"  

"Well," I announce as I slap my hands against my thighs, tug my wallet from my pocket, toss a $5 bill on the table, stand to my feet and say my goodbyes, "OK, thanks guys," I turn and head to the parking lot.  As I march away, I see Anthony return his raving gaze to his worn stack of papers, and I hear the legs of my friends wooden chair grind against the uneven oak floor as he chases me to my car.  

"Hey, I know he seems a little intense, but I think this is a good idea." Eric pleads "Not me," I announce as I continue my brisk walk to my car.  "Yeah," my friend sighs, as he matches my gate, "I'm thinking this might not work out either."  I look at him, "you're right," I warn as I yank my keys from my pocket and drive away.  

That intense, angry, fuming man was Anthony Mayhew, his story to me was verbose and grand, and it turns out, complete fantasy. 

Jim Durham, Anthony's video producer, tells me Anthony never had a real job, and despite his life of petty crime, Mayhew wasn't an expert in crime prevention, or for that matter, anything. 

It must have been 2003 or 2004 when I met Anthony, It appears the fuse was already lit by then.  Eight years later the explosives would finally detonate, 50 feet away from my desk.  

Anthony always day dreamed of being important Durham recalls, and always ached to be on TV, in the end he got his wish. 

Unhappy Endings

The crackle, is reminiscent of a strand of fireworks, being sparked by an impatient teenager anxious to literally get the most bang for his buck.  In the end it turns out the echo is that of an eerie blast of gunfire, as a man, Anthony Mayhew, is shot by officers as he stands on a light rail platform, under a mostly full-moon in downtown Salt Lake City.

Mayhew tells police just moments before the shots are fired that he has a bomb and is willing to unleash it's power.  After 2 hours, according to police, Mayhew approaches them aggressively and reaches into his red backpack, officers see that as a threat, and open fire.

Mayhew, it appears, wants to make his upcoming showdown with police very public.  He phones 911, then calls the assignment desk at 2News where I work, to announce he has an explosive strapped to his chest, and he is right outside our studios.  The 2News set backs up to a window that looks out onto the very train stop on which Mayhew is standing.  He is disheveled, like a businessman caught in a unair-conditioned elevator for hours during a hot afternoon.  Mayhew's white, long sleeve dress shirt was likely highlighted with a tie and sport coat earlier in the day, but tonight it is untucked and the sleeves unbuttoned at the wrists and not rolled up.  The image makes for an even more chaotic scene, as Mayhew waves his arms, the sleeves flap and fly wildly, like an untethered tarp on a speeding dump truck, barreling down the highway.

I've heard gunshots before, but it's always striking to me how different real gunfire sound, relative to the blasts you hear in movies.  On film, the discharge of a bullet, is deep and bellowing, enhanced with metallic resonance, and long, extended, ominous echos.  The real thing is usually anti-climactic.  A simple pop, similar the sound of someone stepping on bubble-wrap, or banging closed the lid of a garbage can.

The aftermath of a crime scene is also very different in Hollywood compared to the real, grisly thing.  Movie effects experts often dish up gallons of fake, bright pink blood, splattered indiscriminately across the set.  The reality is far different, far less distinguishable, and to see actual blood will cause you tp furrow your brow, and search your memory bank for anything you've seen similar in the past.  It's color, the way it pools and coagulates is unlike anything you will witness, and at first glance is a mystery, until your mind is able to connect the disconnected fragments of information and you stumble on the truth with a gentle gasp of realization.

The give and take of a high intensity negotiation between police and an unhinged suspect is also very different as you might imagine.  On 2News at 10 last night, our crew, as well as thousands watched the real thing spill out across their TV screen, as police attempt to calm Mayhew, and take him into custody without blood-shed or violence.

His final moments play out publicly, camera's rolling (it's important to note, 2News cameras did watch the shooting, but did not broadcast it live, or show video tape of it after).  It was a surreal scene, Mayhew, alone, on that train platform on a Thursday night, a night that is usually bustling with bar-hoppers darting from the martini bar to the Micro-pub, instead the street was very much like a scene of a movie, swept clean of humanity with the exception of the desperate man and others clad in camouflage, helmets, body armor, and automatic rifles.  What drove him to this desperate spot, alone, untucked, unsure is, for now, unknown.

Some are speculating that Mayhew wanted to die by "suicide by cop,"  and die very much in public, and who knows, maybe he thought this very public temper tantrum would paint his final moment with cinematic heroics.  The reality is, all it did is create anguish for his family, and those destroyed feeling will not play out in the movies.

Sunshine and Rage

The image of those teeth, is emblazoned in my mind, gnashing violently, chomping wildly at a finger, nose, ear, or anything else that might accidentally find it's way near the human buzz saw.  On this night, those teeth were trying to clamp down on me.

"D," my former daughter-in-law, suffers from acute mental illness.  Doctors have never been able to successfully diagnose what challenges she faces, so treating her is difficult if not impossible.  What they do know is she is haunted by a seizure disorder, among other things, that has a tendency to sneak up on her, like a predator in the rain forest, dragging this teenage girl to the ground like tiger wrestling a gazelle to the jungle floor.  The disorder twists her limbs, contort her face, and force the usually giggly girl, to growl and groan uncontrollably, as the electrodes in her brain, blast her body with a chaotic, disconcert jumble of commands, that leave her frame crumpled, her spirit broken, and her family devastated.

Last night's story about David Charles Baker a man who allegedly threatened to burn down a friends house if she didn't secure a private jet for him so he could fly his sick dog to Canada, plunges me back into those unpredictable days with a little girl who at once could be funny, charming, and sweet, at others, out of control, destructive and violent.

During my 8 years in a previous relationship, I learned that mental illness, ravages the person it inhabits, but also lays waste to friends and families as well.  Baker's friends say they were afraid to open the door for a man they believe was barrel rolling towards insanity.

In our story, we focused on the mobile crisis unit, a new resource, recently implemented at the University Neupsychatic Institute.  Three teams roam the valley, responding to calls from friends, family and neighbors who are concerned about loved ones, even strangers, with mental health issues.

Baker's closest associates say he likely would have slammed the door if the crisis unit came knocking, despite what appears to be a man in need.

"D" was in need of help as well, she had an undefined personality disorder that did more than incapacitate her body and mind, it vaporized her ability to effectively co-exist with friends, family, and the outside world. For "D'" her human interactions where composed of one uncomfortable, awkward, sometimes violent social interaction after another.

The disorder also whipped up a frenzy of anger, that like that tiger, would spring on the world, with what appeared to be little or no provocation.  She once stabbed a school mate with a pencil, head butted a teacher, and slapped a bus driver so hard, the punch ruptured the woman's ear drum.

This night was particularly difficult, "D" refuses to go to bed, refuses to take her medication, and at 10 pm has threatened to terrorize neighbors, by knocking on doors and "telling them all our secrets." She also talks about killing the bird.  A Cockatoo, living his caged life in fear, as the girl regularly poked sticks at him, and smashed her hands against the cage when angry.  We had tried everything, reasoning, ignoring her threats, even threatening back, but "D" is an engaged heat seeking missile tonight, and is destined to be launched and destroy everything in its path.

I decide paying attention to my laptop, and not the raging little girl might calm her, perhaps send a message that her threats are futile.

A few minutes later Kitty, the family cat gives up an uncharacteristic, tentative yelp.  As I turn my eyes to the sound of her frantic meow, I see"D" grasping the cat by her back legs as if the animal is a wishbone, Kitty is dangling, helplessly, head to the ground, front paws desperately reaching for the carpet, like a drunk man in an unfamiliar room searching for a light switch.  "D!" I scream, "What are you doing!?"

I snatch the frothing girl by the arm,  she drops the cat, who lands on all fours, and bolts up the stairs and under the bed for cover.  In retrospect I realize was a colossal mistake this is, "D" snaps her thin arm from my grasp, and brushes quickly past me to the kitchen grabbing a knife out of the drawer.  The long blade of the butcher knife drags its smooth metal against the pine drawer cover, it mimics the sound of a sword being removed from it's sheath.

Her siblings are horrified, "D!" put that down," her sister tries to calm her, but "D" holds the blade high, pointing it at her loved ones.

As I move in, I am aware, that behind those rage fixed eyes, this little girl still loves me, I feel that despite the red-hot lava exploding in her mind, she still cares for her family, and would never hurt any of us.

I don't remember how, but I've got a hold of her, as I struggle to take her to the ground.  "D" is tiny, maybe 110 pounds, but her limbs are long and wiry, and while in the grasp of this anger loop, her strength seems like that of a high school wrestler or an MMA fighter. Somehow, with sharp elbows connecting to my jaw and ribs, I fold her body to the ground.  Her arms flail, as I watch the blade, clink and clank to the linoleum next to me, her sister scampers toward the medal and plastic weapon snatching it up and clasping it to her chest, her eyes closed, she belches, "stop it! stop it!" as I swat and bat at "D's" arms, waving wildly like a spewing fire hose, that has escaped the hands of a volunteer fire fighter.

My head is close to hers, I can see her eyes, the usual light brown of her corneas, is replaced thanks to the disorder with black eyes resembling two large blackened pennies.

I lift my knee and place it on her right shoulder, and with my left arm try to pin the other.  She wields her head like a baseball bat, attempting to smash my face with hers.

finally I grapple my left knee onto her bicep, after what seems like an hour long battle, I have her under my control, she bares her teeth, snaps them audibly together, as she tries to sink them into my skin.  Now with both arms nailed to the floor, the fight begins to leave her, her head finally rest on the cool soothing floor, she lays silently and still.

Mental illness, is a mystery to most of us, heck it's indefinably perplexing to neuroscientists, psychiatrist and MD's across the nation, despite a hundred years of serious study.

We are in the darkness about what causes some of these disorders and how to solve them.  I won't rant for the need for understanding, funding, or more health care solutions, because I don't know the answer, just as "D" didn't know why she would giggle with joy one second, and rage in anger the next.

I remember as she lay calmly on the kitchen floor, I watch as the gentle brown returns to her eyes, along with tears that fill, then overflow her lids.  "D" cries gently, apologizing for the outburst.

As I help her up, she hugs me, tells me she loves me, does the same to the rest of her siblings and mother, and picks up the long ignored medications on the kitchen counter, gulps them down, says, "good night," and slowly drags her exhausted body to her bedroom at the top of the stairs.

Under Fire

"Look, I think this conversation is over," I project tartly into my phone to the cagey women on the other end, "You've got to tell me something, otherwise how can I help anyone," the tenor of my voice raises slightly as I prepare to click her off forever.  The tone of my conversation is uncharacteristic of the way I tend to treat people with information, or, for that matter people in general, and on this day as I fold myself into a cramped television live truck, swatting wildly and futilely at an aggressive horde of black flies bouncing, with quick succession of my face, I'm simply not in the mood.

Outside the aging, white news truck, a world of chaos is whipping wildly around me.

Police are, like that pack of flies, swarming around a subsidized apartment complex in Kaysville, Utah, hunting for a suspected gunman, who has just shot a man half a dozen times.  The suspect is considered dangerous, and likely injured.   Just an hour earlier a pair of maintenance men are moving a refrigerator, and get into a verbal altercation with a man who, for some reason, pulls out a gun and unloads it into the chest of Steve Bailey, a beloved handy man, who hums gospel music as he tinkers with the apartment water heaters, and holds a Monday bible study for the residents of this apartment complex in Davis County.

The man who allegedly pulled the trigger is barricaded in his apartment as police surround him, tightening a human noose around his small box in the middle of acres of identical, small boxes.

The woman breathing into her receiver, has a nugget of information, I know it, and she wants to tell it.  She has called our TV station, I believe, with a small correction about the address or the name of the apartment units.  Her number is relayed to me, "She doesn't want to be on camera or anything, but give her a call,"  The assignment editor tells me.

"Hello?" she says as if I might be a bill collector or an ex-boyfriend who types star 69 into his smart phone in an effort to anonymously stalk his former love.

"Hi, this is Chris Jones with 2News," I coo gently, an attempt to calm a woman who is already on edge.  "Oh, uh.  Hi?" she says regretting that she ever recited her digits to the indifferent man at the television station.

"Hi, I understand you might have seen something," I ask, not knowing if that is true.

 "Five minutes Chris Jones, five minutes," the producer barks into my earpiece, warning me that my deadline for the 5 PM newscast is fast approaching.

"Uh, I really don't know anything, I just want to get the word out that the family of Steve is going to need help," she sputters, eager to click down the hand receiver.

"Ok, I understand, did you see anything," I press, "Well, some kids saw something, I didn't, but really I just want you to tell the viewers that Steve has a family," repeating her bullet points,

"Three minutes, Chris Jones, 3 minutes for Chris Jones," the producer urges, noticing she doesn't see me in front of the camera.

"Ok I get that," I frown, as a fly makes an aggressive play for my right nostril, "So If you could just say something about that," she says

"Look, you haven't told me anything! You gotta tell me something, otherwise we are wasting time!"  I bark, as I impatiently glance at my watch.

"Ok, ok!" followed by a long pause, "Hello!" I announce, assuming she's hung up, "Steve has kids, Ok!" she releases, "they are here in my house right now, they watched as their father was shot." she blurts out the information, spilling it like a tired, earthen dam, battered by a wall of unstoppable water.

"Oh."  I say quietly, and with a bit of embarrassment in my voice.  "I'm sorry, I get it now, I see why you were so reluctant, I'm sorry," I confess.

She tells me how the boys 9 and 11 were playing nearby as an unhinged gunman blathered angrily, at their daddy, then blasted him with a handgun.

She tells me how she calmed the boys, how they are watching cartoon right now, cartoons I can hear jauntily and cheerfully bouncing in the background.  I recognize the common whistle, as the coyote, or other animated animal falls and flails toward the ground or pavement.

I ask if I may use the information she gives me, she agrees, and I gallop in front of the camera, with some startling, and unsettling new facts.

In the next few hours, the woman will call me periodically, giving me updates on SWAT movement, or the moods of the children.  In turn, I relay to her the condition of the handy man, and the mood outside her sealed off apartment complex.

We'e bonded into An odd, interpersonal network, forged under the pressure of violence.

Cold and Tired

I was at least the forth reporter to come knocking on her door this day.  Cheryl Braham is the adoptive mother of Jason Braham, a 21 year old  burglary convict who, just 2 days earlier, had escaped from the Uintah County jail with the help of another inmate, Dallas Derrick.

I know she's home, the door to her house is propped open slightly, I can hear the muffled tones of the television droning on in the background, and When I knock on the glass screen door of her Layton, Utah subdivision, her dog, a Pekingese, I think, juts it's wet nose through the crack and begins yipping incessantly at me and my photographer who is standing on the sidewalk a few feet away.

I am certain Cheryl, who has no idea I am coming to her home to ask personal, and some might argue, invasive questions about her son, her family and her child rearing, knows I'm lingering on her front stoop, but chooses to ignore me, weary of reporters who have likely been gently stalking her all afternoon.

After about 5 minutes, and just seconds before I am ready to click off my mic and head back to Salt Lake Empty handed, she barks at the door, "who is it!"  "My name is Chris Jones, I'm a reporter with 2 News."  I hear her release a weary, incredulous laugh, it says to me,  "oh brother here we go again."

Cheyrl creaks the door open, her hair dripping wet, and she is draped in a green bath towel, "I just got out of the shower, I can't talk right now," she says urgently, making the gap in the door into a centimeter wide sliver, from which I can she only a fragment of her form.

This is the part where you get to jeer me, call me a heartless vulture, and smack your forehead in disgust of everything I do.  I lean in, just a bit, smile gently and say with real understanding that I am invading her privacy, "if you have just a second."

This exasperated mom, stands literally and figuratively naked in front of me, goosebumps racing across her skin, as she rushes out of the warm, steamy bathroom, into the stark coldness of the living room.  "I know, I'm so sorry," I say with an awkward smile on my face,  "could we just talk to you for a moment?"  "Uh," she says pushing the door closed tighter, "I've said all I have to say," Cheryl fiddles the door knob, as she, trying not to be rude, begins the difficult task of shutting the door on me forever, "I know," I interrupt, "I'm sure you're tired of seeing people like me, but we just want to give you one more chance to communicate in some way with your son."  She sighs as she flashes her eyes to the ceiling, "let me put on a robe."

She returns a few minutes later, dressed in a colorful coverall, emblazoned with bright, multi-colored, vertical stripes, and her hair, dryer, and straighter then when I met her before.

Finally dressed, and not nearly as vulnerable, Cheryl tells me about her adoptive son Jason.  By all accounts his life, almost from the beginning has been, to say the least, a challenge.  Cheryl, a foster mom, took in Jason, his brother and half sister, because of some major, yet undisclosed to me, issues with their natural mother.

After some time with Cheryl, Jason, at age 7 was finally slated to go home to his mother.  As he packs his bags with clothing, and toys, his mother is on the phone with Cheryl, telling her "she didn't want him anymore,"  Jason's real mother, had just made it, real clear, to Cheryl that "you can have him," and from that day forward, Jason, abandoned by the one person who is supposed to love him most, deems himself, unlovable.

Almost immediately Cheryl says, Jason displayed his rage of abandonment by stealing.  First in daycare at age 8, Jason stole from his daycare provider, snatching cash and checks right out of the woman's purse.

Beginning at age 15 he was in and out of jail, always for taking from others, until he was finally imprisoned after he and another man ended up burglarizing an Ogden, Utah home.

According to Cheryl, the men were in the home, the owner catches, then Jason's cohort pulls out a gun and fires, the man isn't hurt, but Jason runs and hides in a bush nearby, in what proves to be one of the coldest winter nights of the year.  Hours later he is found, unconscious and hyperthermic by and man and his daughter, out for a brisk morning stroll.

Cheryl says he nearly died that night, and was later sentenced to the jail from which he would eventually escape.

It would be easy to describe Cheryl as heartbroken, distraught, or shocked.  The truth is she is none of those things, the woman in a bright robe, running her finger through her hair, scouting for knots and tangles, is just indifferent.  She has the attitude of a woman, who has done all the worrying she can for this boy.  "I Love him, I mean, I'll always love him, but..." wanting to be brutally candid, Cheryl decides political correctness is the best approach right now, and punts, "I think it's possible people can change at any age," she says, referring, it appears, to "other people," not her troubled son.

The man she raised from a little boy, is now one of Utah's most wanted.  After a decade and a half of mind-numbing frustration, Cheryl can only hope that when her son when found, and she knows he will be, she just hopes his desperation doesn't get anyone killed, "that's my fear, that they'll (the two escapees) be desperate, and they'll hurt someone."

As we wrap up the interview I ask her how to pronounce the name, "it's Braham, like Graham, as in cracker," she laughs, "have we been pronouncing it right on the news, I ask with a smile,  "No, I've heard it pronounced every way," she says with a laugh and a shrug, as she gathers the opening of her robe at her collar, and turns to finish her shower.

Jester and Gesture

It is the excitement akin to finding an unattended $10 bill laying on the pavement, and "M." (I won't say his name to protect his identity) has the same reaction, first shock, "is that a $10 bill?" then reticence, "Is there anyone around here who will see me pick it up?" then glee, "that IS a $10 bill and it is now mine!"  Outside the City/County building in Salt lake City, "M" doesn't find cash, he discoveres something far better, a political statement in the form of a drunk transient, asleep in the bushes.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect for the earnest activist.  "M," along with half a dozen others, had just addressed the Salt Lake City Council opposing a plan that will allow for a small number of bars to be licensed in many Salt Lake City neighborhoods.

Mayor Ralph Becker is fond of the idea for a couple of reasons, he feels it will promote a sense of community in Salt Lake City's diverse blocks and streets, and he believes it make the city safer, as people walk or peddle to a neighborhood pub rather than drive to a bar miles away from their homes.

"M" and others make a convincing argument against the idea, citing statistics about alcohol related crime, underage alcohol use and binge drinking.  Ultimately however the proposal wins with the overwhelming support of the council, 6 to 1.

As Mayor Becker, reluctantly agrees to an interview and is rolling, bike in hand, towards a bank of cameras setting up for television live shots outside city hall, "M" rustles the sleepy, weary $10 bill to his feet, and shoulder to shoulder with the groggy, still slumbering man, makes his way towards the mayor, "Mayor, Mayor," "M" beckons the man who proposed the neighborhood pubs idea, "this is what alcohol does," "M" announces, loud enough for the reporters and the mayor to hear, as he attempts to steady the man who is now semi-conscious and wondering if he is being arrested by police.  Becker, clearly misses the moral point, glances at "M" and with a shrug, "oh, let's call security."

After his interviews, the mayor mounts his bike and peddles home, zipping past "M" and his prop.

The odd couple is quit the sight, "M" meticulously manicured, his eyeglasses propped properly on his nose, his grey recently pressed suit, and his red-power tie, especially powerful under the brazen Tungsten lights switched on by television photographers.

"M" continues to hoist the drunk man up, like a friend, helping you move a heavy microwave, waiting for you to open your door, so he can finally plop the contraption down on your kitchen counter.  The formerly sleeping man appears to be native-American, a red, white and blue baseball cap askew and rumpled atop his head, and a matching patriotic windbreaker covering his torso.  The two do an uncomfortable dance, the drunk leading, as he sways one way then the other, "M" attempts to follow his lead, stutter-stepping a couple times as he misses the drunken man's alcohol influenced dance moves.

It is 10 PM on the nose, time for television live shots, and behind the rows of camera's, blazing lights and reporters, stands "M" and the now alert and increasingly confused gentleman, who just 20 minutes ago was enjoying a pleasant nap under the trees.  The two men drift in unison, as "M" gets into the drunken grove, "M's" head is bowed as reporters give their notepads one last glance, straiten their collars, and inserting their ear pieces, ready to listen for their cues.  "M" understands the power of images, and this one, I assume he believes is a potent one.  "M's" prop in hand, he stands in a place he believes is directly in the camera's lens view, it turns out all the photographers have angled their cameras just past "M" and his statement, so they can capture the talking head in the foreground, and the majesty of the City/County Building, in the background.

As the newscast moves onto the next story, reporter's detach their earpieces from the boxes affixed to their belts, the photographers click off lights and stow their camera tripods, "M" senses, his imagery didn't impress the brigade or journalists, as his head darts from one disinterested reporter to the next, you can see as the stoicism and artificial concern for his dance partner drains from his face.

"M" imagines, the swaying drunk embodies everything he had preached against as he addressed the city council just minutes earlier: rampant drunkenness left unattended.  The man, who likely does not have a home, was "M's" perfect embodiment.

The weary drunk represents something indeed, but it has nothing to do with happy hour, mahogany bar stools, or after work cocktails, he, ironically draped in the colors of the flag, is a picture of a the deep, difficult and intractable American issues associated with mental illness, substance abuse, and homelessness.

What "M" might not understand, is the man, who has no home, likely didn't get smashed in a charming Irish pub, near his 2200 square foot ranch home.  According to police I've talked to, men and women who make their home on the streets, likely guzzle cheap Rothchild's Vodka purchased at one of a dozen liquor stores owned by the state of Utah, or he, as according to the head of the downtown police precinct adjacent to Pioneer Park, a swatch of green space infamous in Salt Lake as a hangout for people like "M's" example, drinks cheap mouthwash or hairspray to achieve his high.

The inebriated man's issues are likely not related, to a walk able pub in his charming bungalow dotted neighborhood, but are probably rooted in years of mental heatlh issues, lack of family support, and unbreakable, and untreated alcoholism.

As "M" parades the man in front of the camera's he wears a solemn, stoic and grief stricken face.  He also bows his head in what appears to be a prayer, as reporters rundown the meetings happenings on camera.

By this time, The man with whom "M" stands is beginning to come to and is grinning as he takes in the lights, the reporters and the mayor, "Mayor!" he happily slurs to Becker, who responds with a simple, cheerful, yet detached, "hello," as he peddles home.

A few minutes later, after I disconnect my earpiece, and stuff my pages back into my briefcase,  I glance back, only to see both men have disappeared, "M" likely heads to his home in the prestigious SugarHouse neighborhood of Salt Lake City, the man he had held earnestly and tightly, has vanished as well, likely back to his spot under a tree to finish his slumber.  When he wakes in the morning, he may not remember that for a brief few minutes, he was a callous, grand, political and media gesture and jester.

By Their Own Rules

I don't know what powers the economy of Thailand, my guess is, (apparently I'm too lazy to Google the answer) it's tourism and farming.  I do know the country is the number 1 exporter of rice in the world.  That being said, I bet they also lead the world in the number of people who could call themselves small, albeit rogue, business owners.

I don't mean small businesses in the American sense of the word.  Thai people don't apply for licences, or get bank loans, In Thailand, it seems just about anyone who can find a few feet of pavement is ready and willing to set up shop and start working.

From Bangkok to Surat Thani, to Champon, to Koh PhaGnan to Chaing Mai it appears every Thai is selling food from a street cart, jumping behind the wheel of a Tuk-Tuk (trucks with modified beds on the back with two rows of bench seating used as a taxi), or peddling cheap pictures, pants and paper toys, at a rotating and never ending cavalcade of street festivals and markets.

If you live here, and have a pair of sandals you do something, anything, except hold out your palm for money.  During our two weeks in Southeast Asia, I can count the number of beggars we saw on one hand.  It seems everyone is doing something.

If someone runs a restaurant, dry cleaner or scooter parts shop, they usually live right in the back of the space used to sell their wares.  You may just need a shirt cleaned or pressed, but at any Thai laundry, at any Thai business for that matter,  you will also find a cheap purses, sandals or trinkets for sale, along with a cooler stocked with Leo, Chang, and Singha beers, cold and ready for a Brit, Frenchman, or German to snatch up and guzzle down.  Thai law forbids selling alcohol before 11 AM, but it turns out the locals take that as a suggestion rather than a rule.

When it comes to transporting their stuff, be it rice, eggs, or auto parts, Thai people are not quick to hire a transportation company.  No matter what needs to move, it will get to to its destination on the top, side, or bottom of one of the millions of scooter that putter across the country.

We saw ancient little mopeds stacked comically, dangerously, and if in the United States, illegally high and heavy with products.  The pilot scoots, slowly with determination down the highway with Tuk-Tuk's and larger pick-up trucks patiently barreling past them on the right.

Despite the countries constant, frenetic motion, it is still a nation stricken with abject, disturbing poverty that seems to rack every province.  As we motor from Bangkok international to our hotel in the city, our mouths were drawn wide open as we zip past hundreds of poorly constructed thatch huts, tied together with branches, wire, and corrugated metal under the highways, where adults and children shuffle down dirt roads.

As we were zipping through the forest canopy outside Chaing Mai, our guide Yai, tells Conner, a young Irish businessman, that shoving tourist along a metal tight rope, earns him about $300 dollars a month. An unliveable wage by American standards, but apparently enough to survive in Thailand.

What is more difficult, is the successful businesses appear to be run by ex-pats.  Granted, according to Thai law, foreigners cannot own more than 49 percent of any given endeavor.  On day one of our trip in Bangkok, we met Sean, a gregarious Irishman who runs a gorgeous pub in the heart of the city.  He introduces us to his Thai wife, who, I assume, is the majority owner of the bar, but likely has little to no input in how it is run.

The French resort owner at the small, 7 room bungalow we stay in on Hin Kong Beach, brags that the 49 percent law is simple to dodge.   He informs us, that all an ambitious Westerner needs to do to own a Thai business, is track down a handful of Thai residents willing to sign a few papers, take a few Baht, and go away, leaving all the profits to the ex-pat owners.

Most people will also tell you that it is a virtual impossibility for foreigners to find jobs in the former Kingdom of Siam, unless of course, you are willing to teach English for a pittance.

"I'm just helping out," says Sara, a Canadian, selling drinks at the Freedom Bar, in downtown Chaing Mai.  "I've only been here three days, I'm just staying at the guest house out back, I don't work here."  Then she locates, without hesitation, the tools, condiments, and glasses necessary to make a Mai Thai and turns to a fellow "tourist" and rattles off detailed, locals only, type directions to another nearby bar or hotel.

Sara is a lot like the Thai people she works next too, aware of the rules, hustling, despite what the rules so if you want a larger at 7 AM, throw a rock, you'll find one.

Bangkok Dog Fight

It is the dogs that give me pause.  Three of them, they spot me and my new bride tentatively searching for a Buddhist monk at a Wat (Buddhist Temple) in Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand, and they converge together to send out a howl, reminiscent of a light bulb being ground to pieces under the heel of a workman's boot.

In Thailand, dogs are plentiful.  They roam the streets, they dart in and out of the open air markets, restaurants and bars.  They have the sharp pointy snouts of a dingo, and each one looks like the one before it.  Years, generations really, of cross-breeding have created a population of feral, yet lovable look-a-likes.

The natives don't chase them off with brooms or swat at them wildly with their sandled feet.  In fact the dogs seem to have a revered place in the streets and businesses of Bangkok, Chaing Mai and Koh Pha Ngan.   We learn early on that they are not to be feared.  My wife Amanda, woke up early one morning, actually around 12 am, rustled awake by jet-leg and wandered out of our sweaty bungalow to the dusty, lonely street of Hin Kong beach.  It didn't take long for her to be accompanied by a black and white mascot, who at first frightened her, but later she learns is only looking for a pat on the head, or more likely a spare piece of chicken.

On Koh Pha Ngan.  The beach that host the famous, or should I say infamous, Full-Moon Party,  A drunken orgy of Brits, Isrealis, booze and sand, that brings out thousands of University students from around the world to drink painful amounts of booze as they party, painted in neon, into the night, only to wake, their faces planted in the sand of the beach. and say "where the bloody-hell am I?"  We attend, and I will leave it at that.

After the party, I see what I describe to Amanda as, "the ugliest dog in Thailand, maybe the entire world," scooting through the well-worn, streets of this weary beach town.  His coat is long and mated with dirty, gum, and God only knows what else, as he shuffled aimlessly searching for scraps of food from alcohol-idled tourist.

I remember as Amanda and I escape the beach town, heading to the airport in a rattling Thai Tuk-Tuk, I see the "worlds ugliest dog," laying in front of a Thai restaurant, being meticulously groomed by a waitress.  She untangles his sticky mane, and plucks bits of food, dirt and bugs out of his weathered coat.

The dogs here never snap at you, they never growl, and they certainly never pose a threat.  So it is off putting when these dogs converge, snarling, howling, and warning us to stay away, as we shuffle outside the wat in southern Thailand

Amanda and I had talked for months about getting a blessing from a Buddhist monk while on our trip in Asia.

The search for this distant Buddhist wat is uncomfortable, it's hot and humid, and Amanda is laboring with every step after being ravaged (we counted more than 51 bites) from a frenzy of mosquitoes the night before.

At the same time I am burying my sweaty forehead into my arm, and am confronted with my own religious beliefs, or lack thereof.  So it is curious to me that this is something that I want.

 At first blush it probably strikes most people as the thing white Yuppies do so they can prattle on and on at party's to their liberal friends about how "spiritual," and "life-changing," the monk's blessing is to the upwardly mobile couple, only to forget the real meaning as they hop in their Subaru and dart off to The Pottery Barn for a coffee table and matching prints to go over the end tables.

I think people like the idea of Buddism because no one really understand what it is.  People fill the void of knowledge with their own beliefs assuming that Buddism is all welcoming, all inclusive, all encompassing.   My guess is, that if I was to really study the faith, I would find that it is diametrically opposed to my belief system in every way, from abortion to gay-marriage to equality of the sexes.

Oddly, given my reservations, I kept moving forward, only to be met by this pack of mangy, yapping, probably disease infected dogs.

Amanda isn't afraid, she parts her way through the yelping mutts, and drifts her towards the monk, clad in a brown, orange frock wrapped around his slender Thai body.  He invites us in, escorts us through a room that serves as his restroom and laundry room, up some steep dusty stairs, that snake their way past a pile, of what appears to be thousands of pieces of chalk, into his modest bedroom.   The lone mattress lay on a concrete floor.  It is piled high with bags of food, offerings, and what appears to be garbage.  This is his bedroom.  No air-conditioning, a single oscillating fan, and three cushions on the floor in the corner.  He performs a ceremony, blesses our rings, and tells us we, "Will be happy, will have children, (a boy), and will have a very great honeymoon."

At the end, he speaks to us in broken English about his love for friends world-wide.  He tells us if we come back to Thailand we must stay with him, and he says if he comes to Salt Lake City, he will stay with us.  His prayers are all in a language I don't speak, but he welcomed us in, he took the time to love us and send real, positive love out to the universe about our marriage.  I don't know what he said during his prayer, I don't know if Buddha approved our bond, or if he even exists, but this little man, 8,000 miles away from our home, believes what he put into the world, and I embrace that with real love.

 As we exit the monks hot bedroom and venture out into the even hotter Thai sun, those once menacing dogs lay silently nearby, one being scratched happily by a maintenance worker, the other digging his snout into his backside, searching for a nagging flea tormenting his leg, the third, lay sprawled in the cool dirt under the shade of the tree, he squints, and pants silently, it seems smilingly, as my bride and I shuffled through the dust back to our lives in America.