11/94 Misc. Newsletter

(incorporating four Stranger columns)

BUSCH BUYS STAKE IN REDHOOK:

LOOK FOR THE ‘BALLARD BITTER GIRLS’

IN PIONEER SQUARE THIS FRIDAY

Welcome again to Misc., the pop-culture corner that has one question about the Varsity’s recent documentary Dream Girls: If an all-male Japanese theater is called Noh, is an all-female Japanese theater a Yesh?

AW, SHOOT: We begin with condolences to those who went to the Extrafest fiasco, billed as a free concert but more accurately a way for filmmakers to get crowd shots without paying people. The producers’ inexperience in live events showed throughout the evening. Some bands only got to play as few as three songs. There were long impatient waits during lighting setups. The director’s opening remarks treated the audience as idiots, asking them to be nice kids and not mosh. That only got audience members to mosh at their first opportunity; they were met by harsh security, who grabbed some folks by the neck, dragged them into the hallway, and made them stand for Polaroids for some reason. Three kids tackled a particularly nasty guard. Two-thirds of the audience walked out long before the end.

UPDATE: Looks like Nalley’s Fine Foods won’t be sold to archrival Hormel after all. The farmers’ co-op that holds a big stake in Nalley’s current parent company don’t want to lose the big processor-manufacturer as a captive market for their products.

GIMME A BRAKE: The Times recently reported that UW athletic director Barbara Hedges, since her appointment to the job, had been parking her Beemer in a campus space signed “Handicapped Parking/By Permit Only.” The UW Daily reported it, causing a temporary minor ruckus. The university administration resolved the matter by having the signs at Hedge’s space changed.

SPEAKING OF SPORTS: The Seahawks want to make the beleaguered Kingdome a truly beautiful place at last: Real exterior surfaces, bigger and better concourses, a slick green-glass entrance with shops and banquet rooms, a permanent exhibition pavilion on part of the current parking areas, landscaping around the remaining lots, even more bathrooms. The problem, natch, is the price tag: $120 million. The team doesn’t have that kind of dough and the county surely doesn’t, especially right after spending almost as much to fix the Dome than it originally spent to build it. The Mariners, meanwhile, say they don’t want to sign another long-term Dome lease no matter what’s done to the place–they want their own space, preferably with a mega-costly Toronto Skydome sunroof, for something in the $250 million range.

This has always been a town whose dreams far exceeded its pocket contents. For over 30 years we’ve planned and/ or built an array of “world class” structures on the limited wealth of a regional shipping and resources economy. The result: A handful of refitted older buildings, another handful of decaying newer buildings, and one truly world-class structure (the Space Needle, built with all private money). These days, we’re besieged with blueprints or ideas for one all-new stadium and one revamped one, a square mile of condos and token green space, a new concert hall, a big new library, an addition to the convention center, a new airport nobody except bureaucrats wants, a new city hall and/ or police HQ, and three or four different potential regional transit systems.

Just ‘cuz there’s some Microsoft millionaires out buying Benzos on the Eastside, it doesn’t mean Seattle’s become a town of unlimited fiscal resources. Of course, the politicians (most of whom never met a construction project they didn’t like) will support as many of these schemes as they think they can get away with, rather than bother with comparatively mundane initiatives like health care and low-income housing that don’t lead to campaign contributions from big contractors and construction unions.

However, let it be known that I like the Dome, for all its faults. It’s a great place for monster-truck rallies, boat shows, and the temporary neighborhood built each year for the Manufactured Housing Expo. No matter what happens to the sports teams, the Dome should be maintained at least for these uses.

GOTH-AM CITY: Saw a public-access tape made at the Weathered Wall’s Sun. nite “Sklave” gothic-fetish disco event. It accurately represented the spirit of the event, which I’ve been to and liked. But I took issue with one long segment where some young dancers in pale faces and black clothes whined that “Seattle is just SO behind the times.” This death-dance stuff’s almost as old as punk, and I can assure you it’s had local consumers all that time. But being new or hot isn’t the important thing anymore. What’s important is doing your own thing, which just might be the Bauhaus/ Nick Cave revival thing. Speaking of the beauty of death…

HOW I LEARNED TO LIKE HALLOWEEN: For a long time I was bummed out by the grownup Halloween. It was one of the three or four nights a year when people who never go out invaded my favorite spots, acting oh-so-precious in their identical trendy role-playing costumes and their stuck-up suburban attitudes. But this year I began to understand a bit about the need for people to let their dark sides out to play. I was reminded of this very indirectly by, of all things, Tower Books’ display of Northwest writers. There were all these guys who’d moved here and apparently couldn’t believe anybody here could have the kind of angst or conflicts needed for good storytelling. These writers seemed to think that just ‘cuz we might have some pretty scenery, nothing untoward could ever happen here. It’s horror writers and filmmakers (especially in recent years) who understand that some of the worst evils are dressed in alluring physical beauty. If a simple-minded drinking holiday can help people understand this principle, so be it.

THE ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT, THE SMELL OF THE CROWD: A glowing Times story claimed there were approximately 1 million seats sold in each of the past two years to Seattle’s top 12 nonprofit theater companies and the for-profit touring shows at the 5th Ave. Theater. (The story waited till far inside the jump page to say that attendance at some of the biggies, especially the Rep, is actually down a bit.) Even then, more seats are sold each year to the major theater companies than to any local sports enterprise except (in a good year) the Mariners. If you add the smaller, often more creative drama and performance producers, the total might surpass the Mariners’ more popular years. (All the big sports teams together still draw more than all the big theaters together.)

Maybe Seattle really is the cultured community civic boosters sometimes claim it to be. Or maybe we’re a town of passive receivers who like to have stories shown to us, whether in person or on a screen, instead of creating more of our own (our big theaters aren’t big on local playwrights, even as some of them get into the business of developing scripts to be marketed to out-of-town producers).

THE FINE PRINT (inner-groove etchings on Monster Truck Driver’s new EP): “We don’t want to change your oil…”, “…We just want to drink your beer.”

BEAUTIFUL SONS: There’s still no real Cobain memorial in Seattle, but there’s one of sorts in Minneapolis. The paper City Pagessez Twin Cities Nirvana fan Bruce Blake (who’s also organizing Nirvana stuff for Cleveland’s Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame) has started a Kurt Cobain Memorial Program at the Minneapolis Children’s Medical Center. It’s a fundraising campaign to provide art supplies and toys to hospitalized kids. Donations can be sent to Carol Jordan at the hospital, 2525 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis 55404.

BUTTING IN: The New York City government’s proposed laws against smoking in most public places, similar to Washington state’s tough new law. In response, Phillip Morris threatens to move its corporate HQ out of NYC, and also (in a move that would more directly affect politicians’ lifestyles), canceling its support for NYC arts groups. Some of these groups are lobbying the state to give in to PM’s demands. Think of it as a warning to anybody who still thinks artistic expression can stay independent of its Medicis. This might be what conservatives wanted when they slashed govt. arts support, driving producers into the influence of corporate patrons.

The issue of the arts and cancer-stick money is working out far differently in Canada. In that paternalistic land-without-a-First-Amendment, the government banned all cigarette advertising (even in print) five years ago. But they left a loophole: Cig makers could still sponsor arts and sports events, under their corporate names. The feeling at the time was that it might help a few museums and in any event, the Big Two Canuck cancer-stick makers, Imperial Tobacco and RJR MacDonald, didn’t put their corporate names on cig brands. Instead, the companies formed paper subsidiaries with the names of all their main brands (Craven A Ltd., Benson & Hedges Inc.) These false-front companies exist only to sponsor and advertise sports, entertainment and some arts events (the Players Ltd. IndyCar race, the Matinee Ltd. women’s tennis tourney), using the same logos as their parent firms’ no-longer-advertised cigs.

FOREIGN ADVENTURES: The non-invasion of Haiti just might signal a revised definition of “America’s Strategic Interests.” In the past, we warred and invaded over material resources like oil to feed US domestic industry. Now, we’re taking charge of a country whose main asset is cheap labor for multinational corporations. It’s certainly feasible to think of this as the first military occupation of the NAFTA/ GATT era.

TUBEHEADS: Seeing the KCTS “Then and Now” promos with those old kinescoped clips of live, local, studio-bound educational shows, I sure miss those things (I’m just old enough to remember old shows like Builder’s Showcase and Dixy Lee Ray‘s nature lessons). There is something special about live TV that you just can’t get in edited location videotape; the lack of commercials makes the discipline even tougher. Studio TV is the electronic incarnation of Aristotle’s rules of dramatic unity: one place, one time, one linear sequence of events. Now I love shows like Bill Nye, but there’s something to be said for the surviving studio-bound shows likeThe Magic of Oil Painting. And the sheer volume of local programs on KCTS in the pre-Sesame St. years made it the closest thing to community TV before cable access. To see such examples of Pure TV compared negatively to the likes of Ghost Writer is like those talk-show beauty makeovers that turn perfectly fine-looking individuals into selfless style clones.

PVC BVDS: The Times, 10/14, reports a New Hampshire co.’s making thermal underwear (available thru the Land’s End catalog) from recycled plastic items including pop bottles. Just the thing to wear under your vinyl outerwear when it’s too cold to wait in line outside on Fetish Night. Alas, they only come in navy blue or green, not black. (Other non-fetish plasticwear’s available at Patagoniain Belltown.)

MEAT THE PRESS: Green Giant’s moving in on that health-food-store staple, the meatless burger patty. Ordinarily, this would be just another case of a corporation muscling in on a product developed by little guys. What’s different is that Green Giant’s owned by the same Brit conglomerate that owns Burger King, causing a potential conflict-O-interest in its slogans for the veggieburger, promising, a la ice beer, “more of what you want in a burger, less of what you don’t.”

THE CLAPPER: Spielberg, ex-Disney exec Jeff Katzenberg, and Courtney Love’s boss David Geffen want to start their own global movie/ music/ multimedia studio empire. What’s more, Bill Gates is rumored to be investing in it. I thought Gates had more sense. The last guy in his tax bracket with no media experience who tried to buy into the movies, John Kluge, is still pouring cash down the fiscal black hole of Orion Pictures.

KEEP ON YOU-KNOW-WHAT DEPT.: This year, it’s Seattle’s turn to get acknowledged on a nameplate with the Olds Aurora. Next year, according to automotive trade mags, there’ll be a light-duty pickup called the Toyota Tacoma! Besides falling trippingly off the tongue, the name implies a tuff, no-nonsense truck for a tuff, no-nonsense town. My suggested options: Super Big Gulp-size cupholders, Tasmanian Devil mudflaps, half-disconnected mufflers. My suggested color: Rust.

GETTING CRAFTY: Regular Misc. readers know I write lots about the aesthetic of community life, about how architecture, urban planning and the “everyday” arts affect life and health. These things have been thought about for a long time. One proof of this was the NW Arts & Crafts Expo, a collection of sales- and info-display booths earlier this month at the Scottish Rite Temple. This wasn’t street fair art, but work of the early-20th-century Arts & Crafts Movement. At its widest definition, this movement ranged from back-to-simplicity purists like Thoreau and UK philosopher William Morris to unabashed capitalists like author-entrepreneur Elbert Hubbardand furniture manufacturer Gustave Stickley. They believed an aesthetically pleasing environment enhanced life, and such an environment should be available to of all income brackets.

The movement’s influenced peaked between 1900 and 1930–the years of Seattle’s chief residential development. It’s no coincidence that the lo-density “single family neighborhoods” Seattle patricians strive to defend are largely built around the lo-rise bungalow, the A&C people’s favorite housing style. The movement died out with the postwar obsession for the cheap and/ or big–for the world of freeways, malls, office parks, domed stadia, subdivisions and condos. Our allegedly-feminist modern era disdained many traditionally feminine arts, including home design and furnishing. The beats and hippies knew the fabric of daily life had gone dreadfully wrong but couldn’t implement enough wide-ranging solutions. You don’t have to follow all the A&C movement’s specific styles to appreciate its sensibility. We haven’t just been killing the natural environment but also the human-made environment. As shown by the Kingdome and other collapsing new buildings (Seattle’s real-life Einzürzende Neubauten), many of these sprawling brutalities aren’t forever. The next generation of artistic people will have the task of replacing the sprawl with real abodes, real streets, real neighborhoods, and (yes) real ballparks.

ANOTHER YR. OLDER DEPT.: The Stranger, the local arts and whatever tabloid I do some writing for, recently finished its third year. (Misc. didn’t show up in the Stranger ’til Vol. 1 No. 9 in November ’91.)

I was reminded how far the local weekly of choice had come when the public access channel reran a Bongo Corral variety show from early ’92, featuring an interview with the paper’s first editor and future Bald Spokesmodel At Sea Matt Cook, talking of big plans for it to become the best real alternative rag this town’s seen. Big boasts for a paper that then was a raggedy 12-page collection of cartoons, entertainment listings, essays, satire and Savage Love. Now it’s a substantial assemblage of info, fun and ads with over 36,000 copies picked up each week (twice the highest figure of the local ’60s paper Helix, three times the peak of the ’70s Seattle Sun, and as of this month higher than the Weekly if you don’t count its Eastside edition).

The Stranger‘s still a tightly-budgeted operation, with an overworked/ underpaid staff and too few phone lines, but it’s paying its way. It’s become a forum for great cartooning, unabashed arts criticism, investigative reporting, and essays on matters great and small. And while never claiming to be anybody’s “voice,” it’s become a popular reading choice among post-boomers, the people the print-media business long ago wrote off as unworthy of anything but snide condescension.

It’s no big secret how the Stranger did it. It prints things it thinks curious members of the urban community would like to read. It doesn’t treat its readers as idiots or as market-research statistics. It’s been damned w/faint praise as “trendy” and superficial by publications that run cover stories about romantic getaways and Euro bistros. It’s slight on the fancy graphics and doesn’t do many clever white-space layouts. It runs long articles in small type with small headlines and small pictures. In an age of homogenized hype and celebrity fluff, it publishes interesting things about people who say and do interesting things whether they be bestselling authors or crumpet toasters. The closest it gets to consumer-oriented “service publishing” is the Quarterly Film Guide. In keeping with a generation desperate for a sense of historical continuity, its covers comprise a modern revival of the great humor-magazine cover art of the past. In a media universe saturated with shrill self-promotion, it’s a paper of content.

‘TIL NEXT TIME, look up Earl Emerson’s new thriller The Portland Laugher (probably the first novel ever titled after a regular crank caller on the old Larry King radio show), check out the McDonald’s Barbie play set (at last, she’s got a job most kids can expect to get in real life!), and note these words Mike Mailway found in the writings of Wm. Burroughs: “A functioning police state needs no police.”

PASSAGE

Computer visionary Ted Nelson (inventor of the term “hypertext”) in New Media magazine: “Power corrupts; obsolete power corrupts obsoletely.”

REPORT

You might like to look up some small excerpts of my collaborative fiction in the new book Invisible Rendezvous by Rob Wittig (Wesleyan U. Press), and a small excerpt from my forthcoming Seattle-music book in issue #2 of Mark Campos’s comic Places That Are Gone (Aeon/MU Press).

Copies of Misc. #92 (May) are sold out; as are proof copies of my Seattle music-history book. The trade paperback edition of the book will be out next spring (still looking for pictures and reminiscences).

With subs dwindling, I’m having to consider whether to discontinue the newsletter and concentrate on my Stranger writing and my book. Your advice would be most welcome. If I do end the newsletter (which wouldn’t happen until after issue #100), current subscribers will receive alternate collections of my work.

WORD-O-MONTH

“Oogonium”