11.28.01 - 12:50 p.m.

there is always another saga. in the great, endlessly open-ended and looping monster that is a post-modern, post-industrial "information-based" economy, there is always another dragon for us lonely little pencil (pen, key) pushers to slay.

today it was my infinite privilege to attempt to find and subpoena someone's criminal records. we know he had two arrests in the past year, but we wanted to know what he did, why he was arrested, whether he was incarcerated and so on. now, given that this is a teeny tiny town and that i have subpoenaed local city police records before, you would think that this would not be a problem. and although we knew that the city police had arrested him in the first incident, we did not know whether city, county or state police had arrested him in the second incident.

keystone cops mania ensued as i attempted to contact each agency individually and discovered (not so much to my amazement as to my ironically detached amusement) that each of the area police agencies has a different policy on releasing records. of course, in the "information age" it is bad enough that these thangs aren't somehow centralized, and that they are so damnably confusing. so. in case you are either morbidly curious or just morbid, here we go:

1. city police - they'll release records if you have a subpoena. But they won't tell you what records they have, if any, without a subpoena, so you might end up doing all the f'ing work for nothing.

2. county police - well well well. THEY sent me to some guy who quite pleasantly told me that they had not arrested my guy since 1998, when they arrested him for assault. these records are outside the scope of my search, but the info was quite helpful. was he a little too quick to give out the info? why are they allowed to give it out, when the city police aren't?

3. state police. ahh, yes. the state police. no, the local guy wouldn't tell me whether they had made the arrest. he sent me to the main office. the main office guy told me that they wouldn't release the records, even with a subpoena. o_O O_o i mean. what's up with that?

"you should be able to get everything you need from the prosecuting atty's office."

sooooooooooooooooooooooooo, lil ole me, intrepid navigator navigator of the shark infested and murky waters of the navigable but ever-changing swamp known as the government called the prosecuting attorney's office and so on.

it all feels a little absurdist, and reminds me of those so-telling scenes of the bureacratic life in terry gilliam's brazil. i want the pneumatic tubes. i want the vast and echoing spaces that imply not only the graduer of the big brotherish government but also that you are part of it. by passing through you own these vast spaces, but i always find to my mildly depressed amusement that these scenes are not far wrong, all things considered. fine, maybe things aren't so oppressive, but they are just as silly. erk. i want like, clean lines, easy access, ever-improving efficiency but there is just SO MUCH to do and know that it is impossible to get there, though one can do one's best.

well. i spent 1.8 hours (believe me, I know) slaying that particular dragon. and now it is indeed time to go and refuel myself for another foray against the relentless beast.