11/93 Misc. Newsletter
(incorporating four Stranger columns)
Welcome back to Misc., the pop-cult report that knows something’s gone wrong again when the songs on 120 Minutes are indistinguishable from the songs on VH-1, that loved Edward Muybridge‘s ol’ stop-motion photography experiments long before thatU2 video ripped him off.
STOP THE MADNESS!: Seems hardly a week goes by without another important cool thing about Seattle dying off. Next is the giant downtown Woolworth emporium, home of Seattle’s best selections of cheesy crossword magazines, kitschy souvenir mugs, by-the-pound chocolates, home aquariums, 10-pack tube sox, photo booths, board games, and fedoras (it’s where I’ve gotten all my hats). Where will we get any of these in the future? At some small-selection pharmacy or remote mall store? Hah! The store’s not performed poorly; the company just wants to cannibalize the variety stores for their real estate, then shunt the proceeds into more Foot Locker mall outlets. Do we need more places to buy Air Jordans and fewer places to buy $9 canvas deck shoes?
BP SELLS ALL WASHINGTON ASSETS: Guess we’ll have to go back to pumping gas into the pickup instead of replenishing the petrol supply of the lorry. Pity.
GENTRIFICATION MARCHES ON: The Eastlake dock that housed the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store for decades will now be a franchise of T.G.I. Friday’s, the NY-based king of meatmarket bars.
CITY-O-DESTINY DEPT.: It’s been a bad year for our pals in Tacoma. Their plan for a beautiful walkway from downtown to the waterfront died when Seattle talk-radio jerks branded it a waste of state funds. Then they lost the landmark ASARCO smelter smokestack, the Anti-Space Needle. Now the B&I Circus Store (one of the last independent discount stores in a region that used to be awash with Valu-Marts, Gov-Marts and Yard Birds) is bankrupt and will likely be sold to some chain, sending Ivan the gorilla to some out-of-state zoo. At least Tacoma’s greatest gift to rock in the past 25 years, Girl Trouble, isn’t breaking up as far as we know.
IN-A-NAME DEPT.: Haven’t said it before, but we’ve always been perturbed by the idea of Ortho brand contraceptives. Would you really put something in your body that had the same name as a bug poison? And do the burly truck jockeys ridin’ on Hyster brand heavy equipment know that that’s the old Greek word for a uterus?
MOREL CONCERNS: Mushroom hunters in Eastern Oregon forests have been shooting one another this year over the precious fungi. So much for the notion that the stuff makes you pacified and at one with the universe.
AD OF THE MONTH (from the Weekly): “I wish to apologize to all the people I called fat when I was selling a weight loss product. I am very sorry I offended each of you. I failed to see the essence of your being and your uniqueness. Maggie.” Runner-up (same source): “Achtung Baby! U2 can earn 3K/mo. starting in my international brokerage firm…”
LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTH: The Death of Rock n’ Roll, by Times freelancer Jeff Pike, is more than just a big book with all your favorite dead-rock-star vignettes. It also covers rock songs about death (especially the teen-suicide and car-crash songs of the early ’60s) and essays about “the three deaths” of rock itself (the clampdowns in the late ’50s, the wilting of flower power in the late ’60s, and punk’s supposed shattering of R&R populism in the late ’70s. I’d argue with the last point: instead of driving the final nail in rock’s coffin, punk and “alternative” music revived and codified the image of bad boys with guitars, for better or worse. Speaking of which…
AUDIO FILES: Didn’t care much for George Clark’s Stranger parody, The Whimper (too held-back and off-target), but his tape of Six Delightful Grunge Jingles is great. It’s the evil twin of Grunge Lite: Instead of making familiar tunes of bitterness more “commercial,” he makes bitter commercials. In the form of a fictional demo tape for a radio-ad production company, he introduces a band called Behavior Management that grinds out a perfect generic jam of drum thuds and guitar distortion, capped by a screeching rendition of “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” The other five jingles further explore the dichotomy between aggressive-poser music and ad happy-talk, as well as the desperation of marketers trying to latch onto any fad. Speaking of which…
DUDS (P-I headline on regional fashions): “It’s not just grungy anymore.” It never was. How many times to we have to say it: What the media call “grunge fashion” was invented by Marc Jacobs in New York, based mostly on Greenwich Village rich-kid primping. Don’t blame anybody here for it…Or maybe blame Charles Schulz. He’s got a new sweatshirt of Pigpen with the simple slogan “Original Grunge.” Speaking of which…
MORE DUDS: Nirvana agreed to have a logo sticker inserted in the new Sassy, but the band undoubtedly didn’t plan for it to be stapled in the middle of a fashion spread called “Oops, Your Bra Is Showing.” The sticker appears right in front of a monochrome shot of an outstretched butt in sheer undies. Speaking of which…
RETRO GRADES: Kudos to the Pearl Jam guys for refusing to be interviewed for that tacky, utterly point-missing Time cover story last week. First, the mag makes the most pathetic definition of “alternative rock” this side of Rolling Stone. Then, it patronizes present-day rockers as mere ’60s throwbacks without even mentioning those ’60s bands who really did influence today’s kids (MC5, Stooges, Velvets). Then, it chooses as the definitive angry young punk combo an outfit that never claimed to belong to any dissonant postpunk genre, but whose neo-blues-rock sound probably appeals to yup journalists more than the N-boys, the Overkill kids, the Pumpkins, the The, or other still-popular yet somewhat more street-level bands. But at least Time gives its clumsy sort of recognition to modern rock — unlike a 10-page rant in the new Utne Reader, that pseudo-liberal magazine that thinks the most oppressed people in the world are affluent white boomers. In it, some ex-hippie whines that there hasn’t been any good rock since (you guessed it!) the ’60s. He insists there won’t be any good rock again until those persnickety kids start obeying their elders by (you guessed it!) conforming to the blues-rock tradition. He doesn’t see that today’s post-mass-media world doesn’t need white R&B; we can get our black music from black people today. What the rest of us can make is music, art, etc. that speaks to our own life situations, no matter how rootless and disillusioning they may be, and hope the message doesn’t get too diluted in the hype. Speaking of which…
IN MOTION: In the new Wired, Paul Saffo posits that all it takes to start a cultural revolution in America is about 100 people plus overzealous press hype. That was about the number of hardcore Beats prior to the publication of On the Road (as Saffo quotes George Leonard), and about the number of real Cyberpunks in the mid-’80s. Saffo could’ve added, but didn’t, that there were maybe 100 Dadaists in 1920, or 2-300 Soundgarden and Green River fans in 1986, or about that many Riot Grrrls in early 1991. Seen in this light, a mass event like Woodstock could be viewed not as the dawn of an era as it was usually hyped, but as its close. It could also mean that we really do have to be as afraid of little hate groups as the media want us to be. Or, taken to an extreme, it could mean that any movement big enough to have its own professional magazine is already too unwieldy big to be effective. By the time the mainstream media hears about a scene, it may already be over. Speaking of which…
THE NON-SHOCK OF THE NON-NEW: Most “political” writing and art from as late as last October seems utterly dated now. One can almost look at the late ’80s-early ’90s as what all nostalgized eras are called, a simpler time. Everything seemed obvious then: “Activist” art didn’t have to bother with changing the world, only with announcing your own righteousness. All you had to do to call yourself politically active was sit and complain about Bush and other easily dehumanized targets. Because Republican rule was considered permanent, you didn’t have to bother with devising any practical agendas of your own. You could just keep making pseudo-“confrontational” art that only slammed people you safely knew wouldn’t be in your audience. Then we got a president who wants to make a better country, even if a ’50s-style Congressional coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats doesn’t want to help too much. There are detailed debates going on about not just whether but how to climb out of America’s assorted messes. You have to actually think about things these days, not just follow some “hip” line. Speaking of which…
PRESSED: Remember when the Weekly “discovered” the Italia restaurant as headquarters of “the new art scene” in town? Guess who’s on the ground floor of the paper’s new building? Speaking of which…
REVOLTIN’ DEVELOPMENTS: NYC politicians are supposedly giving up on their 25-year dream of razing most of Times Square for bland monolithic office towers. Actually, they still want to build the office towers, but now they’re grudgingly willing to have street-level retail in them, maybe some fast-food chains with appropriate-for-the-area loud signs. They probably wouldn’t think to have the wig shops, music stores, and other places that give the human touch to that huge district. And no more porn, of course. Speaking of which…
PRO-CREATIVITY: It’s common knowledge that the best aspects of most XXX videos are the titles based on regular movies (Fleshdance, Edward Penishands). So don’t be surprised that a Nevada company’s made Sleeping With Seattle.
CATHODE CORNER: Imitation Ren & Stimpy cartoon shows are popping up all over. They’ve got the flashy colors and gross-out gags but not the comedic or artistic excellence instilled by fired R&S creator John Kricfalusi. Nickelodeon’s new Rocko is produced by the same in-house team that’s preparing the new version of R&S, to premiere later this year. If the sorry Rocko‘s any evidence, the new R&S won’t be much. And the Ted Turner people running Hanna-Barbera have 2 Stupid Dogs, whose rehashed retro-’50s design is unsupported by flat gag plots….Meanwhile, if the makers of New Pink Panther show had to give the cat a voice, it shouldn’t have been the nasal Canadian whine of Matt Frewer. To me, the only guy living who could voice this character right would be Tony Bennett.
AUTO MANIA: Damn, I want one of those 2.5-foot-wide “commuter cars” proposed by Subaru to meet Calif.’s forthcoming tough emissions requirements. The prototype shown in the Times is bright red and about the size of an Indy car, seating one passenger behind the driver. Utterly, utterly cool.
ICY DILEMMA: I’ve been receiving reports from college towns across the country, via people on my newsletter mailing list. They’re talking about what they see as a new social coldness on campuses. Students are shutting themselves off from public displays of affection or courtship. Men and women aren’t even looking one another in the eye.
Under the new propriety it’s OK to have a boyfriend or girlfriend if you publicly treat the relationship nonchalantly, as settled down into blasé platonics; otherwise, you’re supposed to be aloof and untroubled by those pesky anti-intellectual hormones. That’s not being cool, that’s being frozen.
There are plenty of potential causes: a decade-long media campaign to instill a fear of sex (you won’t get AIDS by eye contact), ongoing ill-will between macho men and judgmental women, rising heterophobia within the boho/alternative community (reminding me of a line attributed to Robert Anton Wilson or to the book Principia Discordia about “what was once compulsory is now forbidden”).
It is possible to be a man (or a woman who loves them) and a human being. Don’t buy into one-dimensional stereotypes, mainstream or alternative flavors. You don’t lose your soul via emotional intimacy, you strengthen it. This neo-puritanism doesn’t deter abusive relationships (creeps don’t bother with intellectual dogma except when it suits them). It only reinforces the fears of smart but shy young sensitives, the very people who need relationships, who could bring more humanness into the social realm.
It’s OK to be whatever sex and sex preference you are, even if it’s an outré one. It’s not what’s in your pants that makes you good or evil, it’s what’s in your heart.
MISC. UNPLUGGED: Power outages aren’t supposed to happen to urbanites with underground wiring. They’re supposed to happen to middle-class couples out in some forlorn suburb they mistakenly think is “The Country,” where overhead wires dangle dangerously beneath wind-vulnerable tree limbs. Little did I realize (‘tho I should’ve, from friends’ experiences in the ’88 downtown outage) that all these new Regrade condo projects had been fed into the same aging WWII-era circuitry.
So, around 2 a.m. Monday morning, I glanced at the digital alarm to find it off. Everything was off, even at the seniors’ housing out the window. Only the emergency lights were on in my hallway (by 9 a.m. their batteries died, and the windowless halls became pitch black). The Sunday/Monday wee hours are radio’s traditional dead spot, so there was no news of the outage ’til KIRO-AM signed on for the morning commute. Even then, local radio stations seemed to care little for the story, even the stations that were in the blackout zone. You could go for two or three consecutive news breaks without hearing a thing about it. In the Information Age, this is a pathetic excuse for “When You Want to Know First.”
‘Twas weird to see the Space Needle enshrouded in the morning fog without even its top aircraft beacon. ‘Twas weirder to glance into the Western Ave. band studio, one of those mazes of cheaply-built sheetrock walls; too bad one of the bands based there,Candlebox, couldn’t live up to its name.
Found myself depending on the kindness of strangers, including one household where I spent one night on a couch with two hyperactive kittens shoving each other all night for the right to claw me. More frustrating were my attempts to recruit sympathy from acquaintances outside the affected area; so many “hip” folks these days are so proudly ignorant of any local news, that I had to explain what an outage was and why I had one.
As my computer/video/stereo withdrawal set in, I caught a glimpse of the pristine life of info-chastity my acquaintances were living. Its simplicity was seductive, but dull! I decided quickly that I like modern life. Heat, hot water, electric shavers, coffeemakers, toasters, dishwashers, answering machines, VCRs, and modems are good things (‘tho there was something nice about not hearing the next apartment’s bass speaker).
People in the neighborhood were serviced with a Red Cross meal van, serving up free coffee, fruit, soup, and Spam sandwiches. I spent as much time out of the house as I could, hanging out at art spaces. The evening after getting re-plugged, I was doing the Pio. Square gallery crawl and happened to run into ol’ pal Bill Rieflin, who’s drummed in a couple of famous bands but was best known here for his work with one of Seattle’s best-ever combos, the Blackouts.
Lessons? Only that big developments, even in established urban areas, entail a public price for infrastructure. City Light bet it could get away without upgrading its wiring system, and lost. The Seattle Commons plan, which would stick a population the size of Pullman into what’s now a square mile of light industry, will take a lot of public investment. The advocacy group Allied Arts wants a public vote before the city spends or rezones toward the Commons condos. They’re right. I like living downtown, and wouldn’t mind more company, but we all need a voice in whether to adopt this massive scheme.
‘TIL NEXT TIME, try to figure why the state puts signs in over-21 places saying you’ve gotta be 18 to buy cigs, and hope all your troubles disappear as completely as the Canadian Conservatives.
PASSAGE
Sign outside Dr. Zipper on Fremont Ave.: “When I, Dr. Zipper, made the Zippocratic Oath, I pledged to fix zippers on PARKAS and PACKS, Heal SLEEPING BAGS and TENTS. Apply the mending touch to snaps and buckles. Restore CAMPING GEAR and SOFT LUGGAGE to useful life. Invisibly Patch Gore-Texreg. and other STORMGEAR. Restitch CLIMBING GEAR for maximum safety. Teach the MENDING ABC’s: All-One-Zipper Meshed-In-Line, All-One-Zipper Save-You-Money, New-Life-To-Outdoor-Gear Lesson. Don’t Replace! REPAIR-REPAIR-REPAIR OK!” (Cf. Dr. Bronner’s soap bottles.)
REPORT
Still seeking a publisher for my local-music history book. Thanx to all who’ve participated in it so far.
WORD-O-MONTH
“Pithacoid”
