6/92 Misc. Newsletter

(incorporating five Stranger columns)

QUAYLE SHOULDN’T PICK ON CANDICE BERGEN.

SHE GREW UP LEARNING HOW TO ARGUE WITH A DUMMY

We at Misc. bemusedly note the spectacular rise of Perot as the candidate of bus commuters, computer bulletin board users, and talk radio callers. He appeals to their sense of independence, of freedom from the petty rules of governance. The GOP has long appealed to the frontier mentality of people living outside the old social structures, especially in the west. But when times got tough, the Repos retreated to their old-money, old-power base, leaving the Mad-As-Hell crowd to seek a new champion. But Perot’s not beholden to special interest groups, he is one. He ran a bureaucratized company with a Safeco-like dress code, courted politicians of both parties for sweetheart contracts, and sponsored dubious foreign adventures on behalf of right-fringe causes. (His name is a soundalike to moralistic fairy-tale writer Charles Perrault, whose version of Red Riding Hood was an uppity female who paid for her unladylike curiosity by becoming wolf chow.)

PAY ‘N SAVE, 1947-1992: Washington’s dominant drug chain for four decades grew from a single outlet at 4th & Pike to over 120 outlets. It was the flagship of the Bean family’s retail empire, which at various times included Tradewell, Rhodes of Seattle, Ernst, Malmo, Lamonts, Sportsland, Sportswest, Schuck’s, Bi-Mart, Price Savers, The Bean Pod, and Pizza Haven. The Beans were known for their Mormon paternalism, particularly in their generous employee benefits — which made the company ripe for a hostile takeover and dismemberment in 1984. Shorn of its sister chains, Pay ‘n Save lost its focus and market share. Now, the stores will be absorbed by Pay Less, a much less classy operation started in the ’20s by the Skaggs family (also involved in the founding of Safeway and Albertson’s). By the ’60s the Pay Less logo was divided among three completely separate companies: one in Oregon and Washington; one in California; and a four-store chain in Tacoma. The northern and southern Pay Lesses were both bought by K mart a few years back; they remained somewhat gaudy places, while P ‘n S was getting glitzy in past years. P ‘n S stores will now change to PL’s garish pastels. But the P ‘n S headquarters staff will be thrown out. A similar front-office closing is rumored for for Seven Gables Theaters, which will now be run directly from LA by the parent company, Samuel Goldwyn. As we’ve seen with banks, fewer people will be able to authorize local charitable or arts donations. Fewer firms will be able to respond to local market needs.

ICONO-GRAPHICS: CNN’s Showbiz Today lists the weekly Neilsen ratings against a graphic of TV antennas rising from urban rowhouses. A cable channel offering nostalgia for the pre-cable days…

CORRECTION (Times, 5/12): “To keep cats away from indoor herb and vegetable plants, sprinkle leaves with red cayenne pepper. An article in the home/real estate section on Sunday listed another spice.”

LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTH: The Journal of Northwest Music is Bruce Blood and Chris Carlson’s catalog of discs (real and compact) by area bands from the Dynamics up to the Melvins. It’s also got an interview with jazz guitarist Larry Coryell (an ex-UW Daily writer just like me), on his early days in Seattle rock, circa ’61 (“the kind of music the local bands were playing for the kids was a higher, more sophisticated type of R&B than they might be getting in other regions”).

THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT: In endorsing the destruction of most spotted owl habitat in Washington, Bush gave final proof of his total submission to big bucks. The owl is an indicator species whose disappearance signals the decline of an ecosystem. To move a few birds away as an excuse to level that ecosystem is the most cynical action that could be taken. Few jobs will be saved by clearcutting at an already too-high level. Timber workers are out of work because of log exports, mill automation, corporate consolidation, and excess cutting from past years that’s left too little old growth left and not enough tree-farm stands to replace them.

SIGN OF THE MONTH (at the Christopher Paul Bollen print gallery on 3rd): “Hi. Popcorn, candy, children and pets are most WELCOME in this gallery. If you break it, no big deal. No shoes, no shirt? Goodness, it must be sunny. COME ON IN.”

AD OF THE MONTH: (huge boldface slogan on a brochure for Ultra Meditation tapes from Zygon of Issaquah): “In 28 Minutes You’ll Be Meditating Like a Zen Monk!”… We’re always mesmerized by the Horizon Shuttle billboards with the digital clocks flashing in half-hour increments every second, bearing the slogan “Nonstop Non-stops to Portland.” As I recall, Delta was the first to run billboards proclaiming, “Fly Non-Stop to Portland.” Every flight from Sea-Tac to Portland is non-stop. There’s no place for a commercial-class plane to stop, except an emergency landing at McChord AFB.

CATHODE CORNER: When Sony took over Columbia Pictures, it inherited rights to the Merv Griffin and Chuck Barris game shows. Now, it plans the latest specialized cable network, The Game Show Channel. (What’s next: The Soap Channel? The Blooper Channel? The Station Break Channel?)

JUNK FOODS OF THE MONTH: The much-touted Milky Way II bar has the solid, chalky taste of the original Milky Way imitator, Milk Shake. The 25-percent calorie reduction comes from Caprenin, “a reduced calorie fat made from natural sources”… Get ready to welcome back that fond relic of the ’80s, New Coke, rechristened “Coke II.” It’s being test-marketed in Spokane, and may go national this fall…. People call me a cynic but I’m not. When I shop for a soft drink I look for Minute Maid Orange Soda because I enjoy the bizarre combination of syllables of that mystery ingredient, “glycerol ester of wood rosin.” I enjoy the slippery thickness it gives to the beverage, making a glass of flavored water feel like something juicier.

THE MAILBAG: The anonymous editor of something called Eye on Nirvana: A Report on Nirvana and Nothing Else writes in part that I shouldn’t scoff at Rolling Stone‘s comparison of Seattle to Liverpool; since we’re “becoming one of the power centers of the alternative music scene”, I could only oppose publicity for the town if I were living “in fear daily of having our little pan of heavenly mazurkas sliced into even thinner pieces and distributed to even more `outsiders.'” Yes, I used to scoff at outsiders. But the people coming here now are making real contributions to our community. They’re moving here to be part of something. People used to come here to avoid social involvement. That horrible “Emerald City” slogan, adopted by the Convention and Visitors Bureau in ’82, typified a post-hippie generation wanting to get away from it all to a dreamland where nothing ever happens. So many people wanted their own nature oasis that they destroyed a lot of nature so they could have their big ugly estate houses. We don’t need that. We do need all the people we can get to make great cultural stuff, to make a better community.

MAKE YOUR OWN JOKE HERE #1 (NY Times “Surfacing” brief, 5/14): “Test Tube Pets: Today, leopards by artificial insemination. Tomorrow, sperm banks for cats.”

MAKE YOUR OWN JOKE HERE #2: In the unauthorized bio Hard Drive, an ex-girlfriend of Bill Gates describes him as “a combination of Einstein, Woody Allen, and John Cougar Mellencamp.”

THE FINE PRINT (from Cakes Men Like, Benjamin Darling’s book of photostatted pages from old food-company recipe brochures): “The recipes in this book are the product of an earlier era, and the publisher cannot guarantee their reproducability or palatability for contemporary readers.”

LATEX LESSON: Without straying too far into Mr. Savage’s topic range, Misc. wants to briefly note how the ex-“new morality” generation just doesn’t understand the cultural implications of safe sex. They think that anybody having sex must be having it the way it was had in the ’60s, either as strict monogamy or undisciplined licentiousness. They don’t get that with today’s much more assertive women, relations would naturally be more protection-conscious even without STDs to worry about. Contraception alone would be taken more seriously. Women taking more charge, even in short-term relationships, invariably means more discipline (I don’t mean S&M but simply more thought and planning). That attitude shows in the elaborate visions of club fashions, in dance music that’s all about energy and control instead of “letting it all hang out”.

WIRED: Pat Robertson tried, then gave up trying, to buy what remains of United Press International, the news service that reported the end of World War I a couple days prematurely in 1918 and hasn’t had editors’ full respect since. It’s no longer carried by many papers, including the Times. (It’s still a big supplier of news bulletins to computer information services.) Anyone who’s seen a 700 Club “news” segment knows that Robertson’s idea of news is more like sports reporting, cheering his heroes (Reagan, Helmes, Israel, the Pentagon) and hissing his villains (abortion-rights supporters, peaceniks, artists, the First Amendment, rock music, unions, environmentalists, anybody to the left of Franco). The UPI name may live a while longer, but any remaining credibility it had is shot.

YOU THOUGHT THE SIMPSONS WERE TOO MERCHANDISED: The Channel 9 Store in Rainier Square is one of a series of boutiques run by PBS stations. They sell books, soundtrack CDs, videos, toys and assorted doodads inspired by your favorite “noncommercial” shows. No MacNiel/Lehrer salt and pepper shakers, yet…

OFFICE HUMOR TURNS PRO: The Wall St. Journal sez a New Jersey branch of Seattle’s Red Robin restaurant chain has comedy shows in its bar, and is getting local companies to sponsor employee entrants in a Corporate Laugh-Off. Do you tell your cruelest boss jokes to win, or not tell them and keep your job?

FOR YOUR TRAVEL PLANS: Seattle-area McDonald’s are sporting paper tray liners with a cartoon map of all its 25 outlets in Alaska. It shows a Coke straw-sipping salmon, a French fry-eating moose, and burger bags delivered by float plane, snowmobile, and in an eagle’s talons. However, the lifelong Dog House fan in me can’t help but be offended by the headline on the liner, “All Roads Lead to McDonald’s” — a ripoff of the “All Roads Lead to the Dog House” placemats.

‘TIL NEXT TIME, voice your opposition to those who want to ban musicians and street vendors from Broadway, and heed the words of local artist Joanne Branch in her recent show at Art/Not Terminal: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly, at least for a little while.”

PASSAGE

Hugh Hefner’s editorial in the first Playboy (1953), on why his would be one of the few men’s mags of the day not about hunting or fishing: “We plan to spend most of our time inside. We like our apartment.”

BIG EVENT!

The sixth birthday of Misc., and the 35th birthday of your correspondent, will be celebrated Mon., 6/8, at the Queen City Film Festival Dream Theater, 1108 Pike St. (Enter thru the mystery bookshop.) Bring stuff to celebrate with. There’ll be readings, short films, and audience participation.

WORD-O-MONTH

“Amanuensis”

IN THE STREETS

The Weekly, in one of its best reportages ever, noted that the 4/30 mixed-race window-busting spree downtown was smaller than fight scenes at two Rainier Valley dances last year that the white media ignored. As you know, the following night’s mob scene was mostly white guys, led by U-District anarchists who wanted a riot of their own. They’re the successors to the punks I knew in the early ’80s, whose idea of creativity was to imitate the latest LA fad. But like the second wave of most subcultures, today’s circle-A guys are more orthodox and serious than their forbearers. They may think they were formenting revolution in solidarity with blacks, but (with the help of irresponsible media who exaggerated the threat) they just made white Seattle more afraid of African Americans, who will now be collectively blamed for the anarchists’ work. Most of the busted windows, except for the Bon and a 7-11, were at youth- or hip-oriented stores, including a sneaker outlet, blue jean boutiques, the Broadway Jack in the Box and Kinko’s Copies. Most were independent businesses that could least afford the damage and the panic-driven loss of clientele; none had anything to do with the Rodney King verdict. The nightclubs that weekend were shut or mostly empty; the anarchists directly threatened a youth culture that’s taken 10 tough years to build. To the people who stayed home, I say: Two isolated sprees of highly visible property damage must not kill the scene. If anything, we need more people out at night, making positive contact with one another.

BACK SOUTH, who’s to blame for the conditions that sparked the rage? Every CEO who moves jobs to the suburbs, the Sunbelt or overseas. Every politician who ignores lower working class people or treats them as something to protect “decent people” against. Every baby-boomer who treats minorities as sexy savages, not as human beings. Every yuppie customer of drug dealers. Every bank that “invests” in funny-money schemes instead of in its own community. A tax system that insures that only rich suburbs get the best schools.

I HOPE THIS IS THE END OF LA LA LAND, of the disgusting mythical SoCal of Fleetwood Mac and Tommy Lasorda, limos and liposuction. Of celebrities who’d rather care for the rainforest than for their own city. Of violence movies celebrating “cops who break all the rules”. Long before this, when people tried to turn me on to the latest “alternative scene” in LA, I told them that LA is what everything else in the world is an alternative to. If LA’s so hip, how come it gave us Nixon and Reagan? Calif. wasn’t just home to those old student rebels, it was home to most of the things they were rebelling against. Then, the more violent faction of the white New Left accomplished little except to serve its own ego trips, drive working-class whites into the law-&-order Right, and destroy any hopes for a real broad-based movement to actually help people. Few “relevant” white songwriters mentioned racism except as a pretext for peace-n’-love sentiments. One song that did address the issue was Frank Zappa‘s “Trouble Coming Every Day,” from the now-reissued Freak Out! album. In biting monotonic couplets that predate rap, Zappa describes watching the 1965 Watts riots through the then-new gimmick of live TV helicopters. At one point he shouts, “I’m not black but there are times when I wish I could say I’m not white.”