Seattle Torchlight Parade

Tini Bigs

Tonight I went with a couple friends to Tini Bigs for some food before they went to the Nine Inch Nails concert. Instead of going home I decided to just walk around downtown and explore. I walked along all the Piers, some cool parks, then happened to come upon this parade. Without paying much attention to the people around me I just stopped at a good location and started watching.

The parade had all kinds of groups, lots of school bands, pirates, corvettes..on and on. About 2 minutes into me standing there I realized I was in the homeless section on the sidewalk. They had set up chairs, a home camp you might say, where I decided to stop. On either side of us there were families with kids. The first thing that made me realize all this was when a bum shows up { who we will call Archibald} and starts arguing with another bum about his seat{ who we will call Chauncey}. So Archibald finally yells at him enough to get out of his seat. This seat I am talking about is 2 inches from me..so I am right next to him. Archibald gets his seat and Chauncey has to stand like I do. I am like..well that is solved, back to the parade, I think at this point there were some young cheerleaders doing their thing so one of the bums kept saying things like "hey! you want to get with me!! ok ok...I will meet you around the corner", then he would wave them away with his hands. Which I thought was kind of funny.

In front of Archibald, there were 3 seats, all filled with bums as well. 2 women, 1 man. Well Archibald has a kazoo around his neck, on a string. I don't know where he got it, but he was going to town on it. Just blowing that thing as hard as he could. This annoyed one of the women sitting in front of him, so she turned around and said something along the lines of cut that out, but instead he just turned to her and starting blowing it in her face...without taking a breath. I was laughing pretty hard. She wasn't. She start hitting him which made him blow harder, and start dancing in his chair. Once she gave him a few good hits on the leg she gave up and just came and stood behind me against the building. As soon as she did Archibald gets up and takes her seat. I was thinking to myself..hmm...pretty smart. At this point Chauncey who was too drunk to make a good argument with Archibald about how annoying he was with that kazoo, started making motions towards the back of Archibald's head like he was going to hit it. Archibald was too busy blowing his kazoo at every person who passed in the parade to notice. Which in turn just made me laugh, but seemed to have an opposite effect on the bums around him.

I forgot to mention bums would come and go, they all knew each others names. One of the best moments during this time was when this one bum walks up to Archibald, he had just come from down the street and proceeds to tell Archibald a story : "Hey Archibald!" they slap hands "I was just down there { pointing down the street} and I was trying to help this guy park, and you know what he said to m".....KAZOOOOOO!!! Archibald started blowing his kazoo while the guy was trying to tell him this story, and the guy keeps telling it while Archibald keeps blasting away at the people marching in the parade. The guy thinks well he will quit in a second, so he keeps talking....nope. Soon the bum realizes Archibald is just gonna keep going and produces the biggest smile on his face, as if he is thinking - is this guy for real? Yeah, Archibald is for real, so the bum quits his story and just laughs, which makes me laugh even more, then he pulled a Budweiser out of his jacket, took a swig and kept walking.

Candy was the weirdest part. Clowns and other performers would walk by with candy and the bums would go nuts...me me me!!!!! Some, well actually only Archibald, would go out into the parade and ask for the candy face to face. It was like gold. But they didn't treat the candy that way. As soon as they would get some they would distribute it to those around them. The first few pieces Archibald got he walked straight back to the female he pissed off earlier and gave her a bunch of it. They would even give it to the families around us. Another funny side note was the cussing. Archibald would sometimes let them fly, and direct them mainly towards Chauncey who would constantly remind him of how annoying he was with that kazoo. Well every time Archibald yelled a cuss word the other bums would be like..hey hey!! there are kids right here! don't say that stuff!". It is funny how kids can tame anyone. Wouldn't matter who was around them normally, but if there are kids, they have to follow rules. I mean your a bum, you don't answer to anyone, except kids.

The bums had their own opinions about the different companies that sponsored the floats coming down the street. I remember when the local Seattle Masons float came by, one of the bums said something like, "those are all rednecks!". Archibald turned around and said, they have really good apple pie. You don't make fun of anyone who has good apple pie. So just be quiet." Then he sat back down.

Archibald continued to entertain me as well as the other bums. He would interact with every person who gave him attention in the parade, in between the groups he would get in the middle of the street and dance and blow on his kazoo. When bands passed he would blow louder than them. The most frequent chant from the bum section was " give me some money!!!". Which over time became hilarious, one would yell "give me some of that moneeeyyyyy!!!" "where is some money!!!!!" "give me yo moneeeyyy!!"..or something similar. It wasn't so much what they were saying, but the way they were saying it, it was like watching an SNL skit with Tracy Morgan playing Archibald.

As much fun as I was having it was getting cold so I headed out, but I remember thinking, this is the best night I have had in a long time. I laughed non stop sitting in the bum section, they know how to have fun. In fact I don't know if the parade would have been worth mentioning if I had stood just 2o feet in either direction. I hope there are more nights in Seattle like this one.