mikebeauchamp.com

What a weird, weird week...

On Saturday night, I met up with a nerd named Darren that I met through mirroring this page here. We walked around downtown with police scanners, digital cameras and his laptop scanning for wifi. After that we sat on "The wall", where I usually spend my weekends downtown, watching the drunks go by. I was using his super-duper digital camera to take photos of people when we saw the prisoner transport wagon pull up about 20 meters away from us. So I took the camera and snapped a picture of the officers searching the guy against the van. Here's where the week gets weird...

You can read about every detail here, where I wrote everything down the next day to remember. But for the MTV generation, I'll describe it briefly. An officer came up, demanded that I delete the picture or he confiscate the camera. Since it was the nerd's fancy and expensive camera, I didn't know how to delete the picture. The cop didn't buy that (which was sadly the truth) and grabbed the camera from my neck. When my arm touched his, he gave a classic "touch me again and I'll charge you for assault" or something straight out of a movie. He fiddled with the camera for a minute and returned it to me and I ran back to the nerd on the wall, who looked at the camera only to notice all the pictures were gone, not just the one the cop felt necessary to delete.

Darren and I were stunned at the action of the cop, especially since they contradict laws and freedom so I took his backup digital camera and found the police officer. I asked him why he did it, and he denied knowing who I was or what I was talking about. So I snapped a picture of him as he was walking away. He didn't like that and told me I was under arrest and that he had already given me a warning (spot the obvious contradiction). Him and his partner threw me onto a wooden garbage can and cuffed me and grilled me about not having ID and disturbing the "peace" after I yelled for Darren (Who was across the street watching our thousands of dollars of equipment and bikes). They called a prisoner transport van, and put me in it and I drove around with it full of drunks for a long time and then was brought to the station, held in a small-ass room, searched and questioned. The best part of the questioning was when the officer asked me if I had been drinking. After I replied no, I watched the officer scratch out the word "yes" from his sheet. It is extra funny if you know that I've never drank in my life.

Anyways, I was thrown in a small cell with a cement bed and metal toilet for the next 3 hours and then given back my shoes, cycling gloves, digital camera and keys and released at around 7AM only to have to walk 6KM home. I hadn't had cuffs on me for 3 hours and my wrists were still red! I managed to get the arresting officer's badge number by asking to keep the evidence bag as a "souvenir", which had his name and number written on it, which hopefully will make the complaint process easier. Thankfully Darren walked all the way to his house with my bike on his shoulder and stayed up all night incase he had to pick me up at the station the next morning. Darren also managed to recover all the pictures from his expensive camera, and plans on taking his other camera to St. Clair college to recover the picture I took of the cop (which he also took the camera and deleted). here is the recovered picture that I first took, the one that made the cop take the camera and delete the whole memory card.

I've printed off the Public Complaint Form from the website, and requested a copy of all my records under the Freedom of Information Act. Every person I or Darren has talked to has been completely blown away by the cop's actions and every photographer or friend of a lawyer seems to really want me to complain about this. I obviously do as well, since I don't want to ever live in a place where cops can not be photographed and anything you have just be randomly destroyed/deleted without explanation, logic or supporting law. Of course, after seeing how the officer and his friends acted, I'm pretty afraid of any police officer now and I'm definately worried about some sort of retaliation by him or his friends if I do file the complaint. If he can delete the contents of the camera and put me in jail for the night for no reason, imagine what may happen if I go through the process of complaining and drawing attention to his actions.

The next day, Paul from the UK arrived on his bicycle journey From A to B to raise money for the Red Cross! I met up with him on Prado and Riverside and took pictures of him on his Tandem bicycle with a triathlete from Chatham on the back! My mom drove her to a friend's house and then Paul and I came back and I let him reply to all of his email on my PC and we planned our Journey to Toledo Ohio for the next day!

In the morning, he came to the radio show with me and I quickly told people about his journey then played some Neil Young. I felt bad making him ride 20KM to the University and back with me, since the guy has rode his bike from fucking NORWAY! After the show, we met up with a cute reporter girl from the Windsor Star who asked Paul a bunch of questions. She kept trying to dig for a complement of Windsor from him, like "so, have you seen the sights?" "What do you think of Windsor?" to which Paul could best reply something along the lines of "it's okay..". I'd jump in with smartass comments like "The factories are great" and "I like the traffic jams", which I don't think she appreciated. Then the photographer arrived and we went into the parking lot so he could take pictures of Paul. With the riverfront and bike trail 1 block away, I still have no clue why the guy decided just to take his picture with the U's parking lot behind him. Then again, it could have been some nice tongue-in-cheeck action. During Paul's interview, I talked to the photographer about how I was arrested, and how the cop deleted all the pictures. He was obviously blown away, and said it "wasn't right". He then told the reporter about it, just as I hoped he would.. as a story about the situation in the Windsor Star would definately draw some attention. She replied "write a letter to the editor!". I told her that it wouldn't get published because it wasn't about Pit Bulls. She looked sort of stunned, and the photographer laughed and said "agreed".

By this time, it was around 4PM and way too late to just start trying to get across the border with a tandem bicycle, a guy from the UK, 150 pounds of "kit" and me, completely lacking any proper photo ID. So, we rode back home and I called up Joe to bring his soccer ball over and we all played soccer for a few hours. Paul seemed happy, since it was the first time he got to kick a football around during his whole trip thus far. So, he stayed another night in my bedroom, while I slept on the couch.

In the morning we woke up and called a taxi to come with a mini van and loaded shit in and drove across the border. As I expected, the taxi driver started driving wildly as soon as he entered Detroit and got us pulled over. why do canadians suddenly not understand the laws of the road once they get into Detroit, as though the no-turn-on-red thing is completely fucking overwhelming? After the cop let us go, we were dropped off in a shady park just underneath the bridge. The plan was to ride down Jefferson Ave. until it changed names about 6 times and then through Monroe and then into Ohio, while avoiding getting shot obviously. I had my directions and maps I printed off, and was confident it would not only work, but be the most scenic route ever.

We went past endless abandoned factories and the smell/taste of metal and freshly paved road nearly gave me my first asthma attack in 3 years. About 1.5 hours into the journey, we passed right behind the Zug Island complex, and then about 4 hours later we passed right by the Fermi II nuclear reactor. Paul admitted to me this was the ugliest part of his whole journey. The guy has travelled across the fucking world on a bike, and the leg of the trip I join him for is the ugliest possible one ever... If you live in this area and you don't think you are living in a shithole, think again. I wish Paul could have explained the taste of metal in our mouths and the disgusting views of zug island to the girl from the Windsor Star. Speaking of which, the article and picture never made it in the paper! There was however a quick mention in the Business section about me receiving a grant over 3 months ago, which also stated I was still attending high school.

Another thing that was funny when Paul arrived, some pretty shitty things that upset me a decent amount had just happened in the city. The first was a woman that gave birth to a baby in the bathroom at Devonshire Mall, and either left it there to die, or killed it (inconclusive autopsy). Then went and walked around the mall for over an hour. The second was a cyclist getting killed on the corner of Jefferson and Tecumseh, the very corner Paul, Joe and I went to get food. The Windsor Star said that he was not wearing a helmet and went through a red light. They made a point about the no-helmet thing, as though some styrofoam will save you from getting plowed into and ran over by a minivan.

Anyways, the ride was great... I think it was around 60-70 Miles and we found a hotel just outside of Toledo. Riding a bike across state lines was cool, and so far I'm the only person that's been across eiher internation and state borders with him. Pretty cool.. I hope his journey goes well.. I'm sure it will, despite leaving his pump here.

He will be writing a book about the whole thing when he gets done, which he already has an agent for. I can't wait to read about him sitting on my couch while Dave, Joe and I ate gyros and watched the Home Shopping Channel. Speaking of mentions in books, I haven't heard much from the guy authoring the book about Neil Young fans who is supposed to come interview me, I'll email him.

Today, "The Mentors" came to inspect what was going on here for my business grant. They seemed impressed, and couldn't really tell that I haven't been working on the instruments in over a month. However, I want to get them done soon, so I will be finishing them off ASAP, just to get the first batch sold before September and then start filling all of the back orders I've received for them.

I went to the library with my mom a few days ago, and returned some books and paid some late fees I was confident I had already paid. I picked up the second Lance Armstrong book for something to do and finished it tonight. It was okay, but it's slightly depressing reading about a guy that got his nut cut off, had brain surgury and was in the hospital for months of chemo and still manages to be a better athlete than you'll ever be, and get more punani than you'll ever get. The second book I got is "French Revolutions", about a guy that decided to go to france and cycle the whole tour route, but I haven't started yet. Judging the book by the yellow and red cover, it might be hard to read.

Since it is 6:30AM now, I may as well stay up until 9AM so I can watch Formula 1 Qualifying.

So yeah, there's more personal life BS that I was planning on mentioning this week, but then I spent the night in jail and did a charity bike ride to Ohio a few days after. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be plenty less execiting personal BS in the next update.

Increase da peace