8/90 Misc. Newsletter

BUY A PEPSI (OFFICIAL GOODWILL GAMES POP)

FROM THE QFC (OFFICIAL STORE)

IN NORTHGATE (OFFICIAL MALL)

Time for all first, second, and third-generation Hanford mutants to settle down with a refreshing glass of cherry-flavored iodine and the August edition of Misc., the pop-culture report that could spend its lagging mental energy thinking about important things, but instead is obsessed with the strange case of the Miss Washington who’s really from Oregon. Portland’s Lynnae Thurik, 26, claims to be a pageant-legal Washingtonian because her ad-sales job for a little Oregon magazine includes a few accounts in Vancouver, Wash. The obvious angle: Are Washington women really less pretty than Oregon women, or just too smart for this sort of thing?

MARK MCDONALD R.I.P.: He died very suddenly. His Spkn Wrds productions, experimental works with unpaid actors, played before no more than 60 people per show. Yet they proved very influential in both the local theatrical and literary communities. He brought people of disparate disciplines together, something this town needs much more of. Several times after something didn’t work right, he threatened to shut down the series. In the end, only a horrible virus ended his work.

PUMPED DRY: Weeks before environmentalists charged that Seattle drivers used the dirtiest gas in the nation, Shell Oil, the Euro-based giant whose U.S. operation began here with a one-pump filling station on Eastlake, selling its last 55 Puget Sound stations to Texaco as of next January. (Folks who grew up in other states have fond memories of plastic coins of U.S. presidents Shell used to give out in some contest that, for some reason, was illegal in Washington.) The sale leaves the local gas market with only six majors (Chevron, Unocal 76, Exxon, BP, Texaco, Arco) and two minor chains (Time/Jackpot and the ironically-named Liberty, Arco’s new off-brand). Of the remaining brands, only Exxon and Unocal don’t have a refinery in Washington; will they be next to go?

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF A NATION’S COLLAPSE: With German unity, we have to say goodbye to the funky East German Ostmark money (pictures of smoke-belching factories and quaint technicians in lab coats). But now Easterners can enjoy such tastes of freedom as Nonstop-Ratzel, the West German magazine that combines two of the world’s most popular editorial elements: (1) pictures of topless women, and (2) crossword puzzles.

CAN’T WIN FOR LOSING: On the same 7/1 that’s the first German Unity Day and maybe the last Canada Day, a guy pitches a complete-game no-hitter but loses the game on walks and fielding errors. The best part is that it happened to that traditional team-you-love-to-hate, the Yankees. (I personally have nothing against the Yanks, reserving all my booing for those bloated, spoiled-rotten Dodgers.)

ALSO ON THE SPORTING FRONT, ’twas nice to see the Goodwill Arts Festival proportionately outsell the Goodwill Games, as I predicted in my Ins/Outs for ’90. It fulfills Jim Bouton’s remark at the end of Ball Four about Seattle, “Any city that cares more for its art museums than its ball park can’t be all bad.” The Games themselves are, if nothing else, the biggest production ever made specifically for cable TV. Ted Turner’s investment works out, per hour of air time, to a little less than the cost of big-three prime time programming (though, unlike those shows or the colorized Knute Rockne Story, the Games will have little rerun value). And this UW grad just loved seeing video footage of the McMahon and McCarty dorms turned into an exotic Athletes’ Village. The record should also note that Lamonts cleared out official T-shirts and souvenirs at 25 percent discount over a week before the opening.

WHAT PAPER D’YA READ?: Tacoma News Tribune front-page headline, 7/9: “Bush: No Soviet bailout.” P-I front page, same day: “Bush will offer aid to Soviets.”

THE FINE PRINT (from a Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine French bread pizza box): “Stouffer’s prefers conventional oven preparation. When time is a factor, enjoy the convenience of microwave cooking in the microwave sleeve.”

JUNK FOODS OF THE MONTH: Metro Joe is a little carton of milk, coffee and sugar (for the Latte flavor) plus cocoa (for the Mocha flavor, much like Nestlé’s Quik with a kick)…Madelena’s Masterpiece Calzone, made by Madeline Peters of Redmond, is a pouch of frozen pastry that rises to twice its height in the oven. Inside is “over a cup” of cheese and just a “flavored-with” quantity of pepperoni.

LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTH: The Bellevue Journal-American, under its new Hawaiian owners, has adopted the slogan “The Eastside’s Community Newspaper.” This is more than just an excuse for not having the relatively thorough coverage of the Seattle papers. Its local coverage emphasizes a small-town-paper notion of “community affairs.” A lot of the miniscule news hole is given to large-type PTA listings, obituaries, birth notices, and police-fire-court records. (“Someone took a ring in a towel at the Seattle Club in the 10400 block of N.E. 8th St. Saturday while the victim was working out…The window of a car parked in the 200 block of 98th Ave. N.E. was smashed out Friday. Sometime the night before, someone smeared toothpaste on the same car and the victim believes the two incidents might be related…A resident of the 15400 block of S.E. 11th St. reported getting a number of nuisance telephone calls in which the caller said nothing. On Saturday alone, the victim received 15 to 20 calls.”) These notices help Eastsiders believe they’re in the country atmosphere they thought they were moving into, instead of an almost continuous mass of tract houses and strip malls with a total population close to that of Seattle itself.

AD OF THE MONTH (in Vanity Fair): “Mercury Capri. Think of it as a steel bikini.” I know it sounds uncomfortable, but it’s still better than the commercial by NY area Pontiac dealers with images of a Japanese takeover of famous U.S. landmarks, while a narrator warns: “Go ahead, let it happen. Buy a Japanese car.” If the domestic-car dealers had cars you would want to buy without having your patriotism questioned…Weekly classified, 7/25: “Frustrated? We need five people w/leadership and mgmt. ability. Must desire exceptional income. Unique oppty. with natl. company formed to help end world hunger.”

CENSORY OVERLOAD: The Stalin wannabes of the censorship movement are all wrong about art and human nature, but very astute in picking targets. 2 Live Crew was chosen for persecution because they’re black and (like last year’s harassment target, Jello Biafra) self-published. The simple truth is that much second-rate rap is, like all second-rate rock, about sexual posturing. Early rocker guys tried to impress girls; rap (and metal) guys try to impress other guys with boasts of their prowess. (Andrew “Dice” Clay is even worse. With pre-pubescent backwards logic, he “proves” his manhood by having nothing to do with women.) It’s occurring when most areas of society, including mainstream pop music, are more co-ed than ever. (First-rate rap and metal, meanwhile, is about fighting for identity in the hostile terrain of corporate culture.)

SOUTH END STORY: The good news is that Sears’ 1st Ave. location (the company’s oldest extant store) is staying open, even though the upstairs catalog warehouse is becoming office spaces. The bad news is that I missed the laser light show held at some of the suburban Sears outlets (newspaper ads promised “a surfer flying out from a giant washing machine…Larger-than-life images will dance over you, around you and across the Sears store”).

DID YOU SAW WHAT I SAW?: The BC government, finally becoming concerned about public-image effects of its industry-at-any-cost philosophy, is spraying grass seed from helicopters over massive clear-cut areas near the coasts of Vancouver Island, so they’ll not look ravaged from tourist boats. This sort of environmental make-believe is not likely to fool many, and can at best postpone a full backlash against the province’s rapid growth. That backlash may turn ugly if it gets racial (the nervous rich of Hong Kong are among the most visible of today’s BC investors).

THE UNBEARABLE LITE-NESS: Mathis Dairy of Decatur, Ga. is planning a new cholesterol-free “milk product,” nonfat milk withvegetable fat added to simulate 2-percent milk. Ice cream-type desserts with the “fake fat” Simplesse are now out; a similarly-engineered fake milk will presumably follow. There’s even Spam Light now!

FROM THE LAND OF NANAIMO BARS: For years, there have been lighthearted legends of an “Ogopogo” Monster allegedly living in depths of BC’s Lake Okanagon (one of the names I always loved to hear on the Vancouver Francophone radio station); now, researchers hired by a Japanese TV crew claim to have spotted the long, thin creature on sonar. Somehow, I can’t give this any more credibility than the mysterious “field circles” appearing in the English countryside (since proven to be a hoax).

MAYBE JAGGER’S NOT A TOTAL HAS-BEEN: The Rolling Stones were playing Wembley Stadium, in a rare concert appearance in their former homeland, on the same night of the crucial England-Germany World Cup soccer semifinal. As fans, cheering and booing to their Walkmen and portable TVs, began to boo the disallowing of an English goal, the band struck up a rousing rendition of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” .

HEADLINE OF THE MONTH (Times letters column, 7/24): “Children are not the same as a BMW or Cuisinart.” Higher maintenance costs for one thing, and no warranty…

UPDATE: The CBC lives on Seattle cable, at least on TCI Cable. The cable giant backed off from plans to drop the respected Canadian network after a deluge of calls and letters, resulting in a long, apologetic newspaper ad. TCI went ahead with plans to bring back the Rev. Pat Robertson’s CBN (renamed The Family Channel), subject of an intense lobbying campaign to TCI by Robertson followers; the move shuttled Black Entertainment Television to daytime-only status, to the highly vocal displeasure of many viewers. Viacom, meanwhile, is planning its own channel overhaul. This is likely to last a while. As they say on CNN, the news continues. (Remember when there were only six stations to watch, and two of them weren’t even on in the daytime?)

CATHODE CORNER: The KCTS miniseries Free Ride was similar (but not really that close) to a series a Misc. subscriber and I have been trying to sell, but that’s not the only reason I liked it. Its segments on local “unique personalities” showed much more respect for their subjects than you find in segments like them at the close of local newscasts. It did, however, get cloying in the linking segments involving a comedienne-cab driver, and it did give quite a ride to Puget Sound Bank, which paid partly for the four-part show and in return got its branches driven past quite a bit…KING’s Seattle Today is now carried on The Nostalgia Channel, a national cable network not carried locally. This may explain why the show seems to have less local-oriented stuff these days, and more traveling book-pluggers and beauty-makeover artists.

LET US MAKE A PLEDGE to meet in September; ’til next we meet, be sure to visit the Pure Manifestation health food store in the beautiful Madrona district, see The Unbelievable Truth, read Kitchen Sink Press’ comic-book collections of a nasty little strip calledSteven, and remember these words in Moby Dick that don’t make it into most adaptations: “Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than with a drunken Christian.”

PASSAGE

Vaclav Havel, in Disturbing the Peace: “It’s important that human life not be reduced to stereotypes of production and consumption, but that it be open to all possibilities; it’s important that people not be a herd, manipulated and standardized by the choice of consumer goods and consumer television culture…It is important that the superficial variety of one system, or the repulsive grayness of the other, not hide the same deep emptiness of life devoid of meaning. “

REPORT

As you can see, the advertising threatened last time is still not here yet. Something has entered my life (someone, actually), leaving me without the time to hustle for sales. Anyone interested in advertising in the bottom space on this page may contact me at 524-1967 (days) or at the subscription address.

My long-announced novel The Perfect Couple will be available in a limited-edition trade paperback as soon as I can find a publisher or an appropriate self-publishing bid (184 pp., white stock with 2-color smooth card stock cover, perfect bound, 8.5″ x 5.5″).

WORD OF THE MONTH

“autonomasia”