ONE OF THIS COLUMN’S TRADITIONS has been the almost-annual defense of Seafair. We’re resuming it this year, as a vehicle for asserting a few points I strongly believe.
1. Corny is just all right with me. And I don’t mean self-conscious, wink-wink-nudge-nudge parody corny either. That’s for people who can’t handle real corny.
2. Everything in Seattle doesn’t have to be World-Fucking-Class. We can have a big parade (albeit not as big or as respected as Portland’s) and a beauty pageant (ditto) and it’s still OK because it’s ours.
3. Working-class people, and their cultural expressions, are not necessarily fascist. Every year I get the same sneers from hipsters who either are unaware of the Seafair parade (you know, the folk who only read the New York fucking Times and only listen to NP fucking R), or consider the parade’s only worthy purpose to be as an excuse to scornfully chortle at square people. (This year, I had an invite to work on a float. The writer of the invite thought I’d be turned on by his description of the parade as “a trip into the heart of darkness of America.”)
To me, the parade’s an important legacy of an older Seattle in which such pretentious elitism was simply not done.
4. Hydroplanes are all-time cool. The roar of the thunderboats, the sunburnt noses on the Miller-drunk dads, the waterborne tailgate parties on the log boom, the pin traders, the way the boats have only two speeds (140 m.p.h. or dead in the water), the sympathies of the underfunded racing teams trying to cobble enough spare parts together to last the day.
The only problem with the race is the same problem it’s had for over a decade: Its monopolization most years by the Budweiser-sponsored Bernie Little crew. The Unlimited Racing Association is afraid to impose any parity rules (of budgets or equipment stock) that would seriously impair the Bud, and has been unable to attract, for more than a one- or two-season stint, other big-bucks sponsors willing to compete against the Bud squad at its budget level.
(Now, management of the whole sport’s been bought out by a partnership of Little and Formula One promoter Don Garbrecht. How, and whether, Little will deal with his own dominance, in order to restore competitiveness to the sport, remains to be seen.)
Ignorance of your culture is not considered cool. Seattle, and America, is a huge and diverse place, much more complicated and chaotic than any oversimplistic hip-vs.-square duality. You have as much to learn (if not more) from people of other cultures in your own town than from the N.Y./Calif. gatekeepers of your own particular subculture.
Go to the parade (and one or more of the auxiliary neighborhood parades) next year. Go to the hydros this year. Observe the families (screeching kids, bored teens, grumpy grownups), the ethnic dance troupes, the bands, the floats, the vendors. Don’t treat them like your inferiors, because they’re not.
Become part of the celebration.
Even come to enjoy it.
You’ll be a better person for it. Really.
TOMORROW: The He-Man Woman Lover’s Club.
ELSEWHERE:
