7/88 ArtsFocus Misc.

The Reds Will Never Get Our Military Secrets —

They Can’t Outbid the Private Sector

Ahh, what better reading for the Age of the Greenhouse Effect than Misc., the column that always keeps its cool?

STUFF: Now that we’re through booing the Lucking Fakers for another year, we can examine Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s purchase of the Portland TrailBlazers. Will fancy computer analysis come to basketball? Will it result in increased throughput?

THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE continues, with Union St.’s beautiful Post Office Grocery and the legendary Market Theater the latest victims (of development and Reaganomic monopolization, respectively). The next front is the Music Hall Theater. Allied Arts is striving to keep the Clise Agency from razing the ornate movie palace for yet another cheap “luxury” hotel. Other interests are trying schemes to keep the Paramount standing. But don’t look to Royer Roi for any help; the onetime “people’s mayor” now acts as a stooge for those who would destroy Seattle in order to save it. (Speaking of hotels, the finally-done Convention Center won’t rent space to local people unless they’ll bring at least 1,000 out-of-towners to area hotels.)

MODULATIONS: The local airwaves are now safe for cool music. KJET is apparently sticking around for a while, and has added more hours of live programming. And the FCC declined to let the Jack Straw Foundation knock KNHC off the air. Straw, whose old KRAB devolved from beatnik eclecticism to hippie senility before it made a quick buck selling its frequency, will now start a small station in Everett, where people talk almost as slowly as the old KRAB announcers did.

CATHODE CORNER: The CBS special on the plight of local Vietnam vets was a great piece of filmmaking, marred at the end by an obscene promo for the network’s newest Joy-of-Violence cop show…. The long-announced Boris & Natasha movie is now in production, with #1 hoser Dave Thomas recently cast opposite Sally Kellerman. Variety ads, made to lure investors while only Kellerman was signed, show a male model in a Boris suit with a hat over his face…. MTV’s Museum of Unnatural History was an amazing lesson in the contradictions of commercial surrealism, even more bizarre by being in the recursive maze that is Bellevue Square. The exhibits scattered along the mall (and decorated in Late Pee-wee) included two banks of 24 video screens each. One had Pontiac ads, the other a montage of MTV promo spots including a shot of singer Mojo Nixon (but, alas, not his great song “Burn Down the Malls”).

UPDATES: The end of the ’80s (discussed in a prior column) was celebrated in a mock funeral by NYC performance artists The Blue Man Group, cremating a deconstructivist print, a model of a postmodern office building, and a yuppie doll…. The ’70s revival continues, as dinosaur rock and neo-disco race up the charts while several late-’70s celebs stage publicized comebacks (Devo, Patti Smith, Jimmy Carter)…. The Monthly, a local ad trade paper, asked 10 ad-biz experts about the new Rainier Beer ads. The only guy who liked them works for the brewery.

NEWS ITEM OF THE MONTH (USA Today, 6/21): “Wives of economic summit leaders wave as they leave on a boat tour Monday… Absent: Denis Thatcher.” Runner-up (P-I “Correction,” 6/10): “The relish tray (at Le Petit Prince) comes with an original dip made on the premises, not a sort of Green Goddess dip as suggested by the reviewer.”

LOCAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE MONTH: Hardball, best of the many local sports rags, takes the familiar “literary fan” approach to baseball, covering the three local pro teams and assorted other aspects of the game…. Pacific Northwest’s cover on films made and/or set in the Northwest is astounding. Richard Jameson included many memorable NW movies but did neglect my favorite, Ring of Fire (1961). Long unavailable, it featured Mason County deputy David Janssen abducted by three teen hoodlums led by Frank Gorshin. They wander the woods and inadvertently start a raging forest fire, but not before Janssen and seductive hoodette Joyce Taylor share a quiet embrace, followed by shots of a tall tree and rolling hills.

JUNK FOODS OF THE MONTH: Linda’s Lollies are “hand made lollipops” in many sophisticated flavors, including Samduca (a licorice taste with three real coffee beans inside). At Paper Moon in the Market…. Godfather’s now has a “Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza,” complete with pickles.

ON A ROLL: By the time this comes out the Suzuki Samurai jokes may have come and gone (dealers with high turnover, the teal-blue car it takes a real man to drive, etc.). The best and most real comment is that Univ. Village uses a Samurai with “Security” boldly painted on the side. Just don’t ask me to go after shoplifters across speed bumps in it.

LEFTOVERS: As usual, there’s just too much going on in Our Wacky World to fit the column, so we can’t talk much about Reagan vs. the Native Americans (only a movie cowboy with a mistaken sense of reality could call massacres and the reservation system “humoring”); George Bush (sez he’s less elitist ‘cuz he only went to Yale, not Harvard); the plan to put casinos in Detroit (buying their cars is a gamble enough); the censoring by US West and the state of phone sex and porn books, respectively (threatening all expressions of politically incorrect lifestyles); and the Mariners’ latest woes (why couldn’t they at least be lovable losers?).

‘TIL OUR AUGUST EDITION (our first ever), see Baghdad Cafe and the Burke Museum’s Far Side of Science, don’t see The Morton Downey Jr. Show (not even to “love to hate it”), see the Ivar’s fireworks (accept no substitutes), and register to vote. See ya.

6/88 ArtsFocus Misc.

IT’S THE DAWS BUTLER MEMORIAL EDITION,

AND DON’T YOU FOR-GIT IT!

Welcome to the second-anniversary edition of Misc. This ragtag collection of little notices from all over does have some goals. I want to celebrate the chaotic, post-postmodern world of ours, and call for a world much like we have now but with more love and less attitude. I want to exalt English as a living, growing language. I want to separate political liberalism from the cultural conservatism that led so many post-’60s youth to view liberals as old fuddyduddies. I want to proclaim that you can be intellectually aware and still like TV.

Why the New Rainier Beer Ads Suck: They’re a Frisco ad agency’s idea of what us Northwest hicks’ll fall for: Pavlov/Spielberg stimulus-response images, based on tourist attractions and phony regional pride. They’re as awful as the big beers’ ads, without the media budget to pull it off. The new “small-capitals” logotype looks too much like that of Rainier Bank. It’s all because the brewery was sold to Australian mogul Alan Bond, who more recently bought out fellow Aussie Robert Holmes a Court (the man who sold the Beatles’ songs to Michael Jackson). Bond also has large business ties with Chilean dictator Pinochet (gold mines, a phone company). Response to the ads has been underwhelming, while old Rainier posters sold briskly at the U-District Street Fair.

A Permanent Underground Tour: Bill Speidel, who died this month, was one of the first to write seriously about Seattle as a real city, with its own brief but vital history. Too few have followed his lead; “Northwest Writers” are still expected to do free verse about scenery, not narratives about people. Yet he’ll be remembered whenever Northwesterners seek an honest regional identity from holding on to one’s past: Not nostalgia for a nonexistent “simpler time” or the old west of movies, but a raucous cavalcade of pioneers and profiteers, matrons and whores, all trying to muddle through life much as we try now.

Local Publications of the Month: First, the fine mag misidentified here last time as Ground Zero is really Zero Hour. The temporal-spatial discord resolved, let’s discuss newspapers ashamed of their own towns. The Herald and The Morning News-Tribune no longer carry any front-page clue to their origins (Everett and Tacoma). The Daily Journal-American never had Bellevue in its name. Each wants to be identified not with real cities but with its own mapped-out segment of Suburbia USA, the everywhere/nowhere.

Junk Food of the Month: The experimental no-melt chocolate invented by our pals, the Battelle Memorial Institute. Since it stays solid at temperatures below 98.6 F, will the makers of car seats and kids’ clothes conspire to keep it off the market?

One More Time: Sequels, those efficient re-uses of pre-sold titles, have become vital parts of conglomerate-owned film studios. The trend has grown to the literary classics with the announced book project Gone With the Wind II. But I’m waiting for the Romeo and Juliet follow-up being written by ’68 movie Romeo Leonard Whiting. I want to know how they manage to be alive after part 1, but also whether they can keep their relationship growing amidst the problems of everyday life.

The Big Lie Indeed: Drugs continue to be used as the Red Scare of the Late ’80s, an excuse for anti-democratic actions of many kinds. Locally, Doug Jewett uses it to promote the destruction of low-income housing, and the Blaine feds are seizing vehicles for just an ash of pot (not the most enlightened way to reduce the budget deficit). Nationally, the Army’s being brought into domestic law enforcement (just like in drug-exporting states such as Panama). Some would prefer that the anti-drug cause remain associated with fascist tactics, so that non-fascists will keep getting hooked and killed in the name of rebellion. But there are better ways to approach the issue, such as shown on a new bumper sticker: “Stop Contra Aid — Boycott Cocaine.”

Goin’ to Jackson: It’s no wonder some have tried, and others may try, to kill Jesse Jackson, for he’s more than a soon-to-be-ex-candidate. He’s overseen a realignment of American politics, away from of the era of the Gilded Right and the Gelded Left. No longer can liberals bask in smug defeatism, readily accepting conservatives’ portrayal of things. (Most Americans never were flaming Falwellians, but the anti-Falwell set bought Falwell’s claim that they were.) Jackson’s shown that a universal movement for change can happen, whether party regulars are involved or not.

Cathode Corner: Johnny Carson may be writing his own bad jokes during the writers’ strike, but you won’t hear any gags about his financial advisor, “Bombastic Bushkin.” Johnny and the real Henry Bushkin have broken their long partnership. Some of Bushkin’s deals, such as investing in Houston real estate just before the oil bust, have come too close to the ones in old Carson monologues.

Loco Affairs: Martin Selig sez he wants a more beautiful downtown. He’s offered to pay the city to let him tear down the homely Public Safety Bldg. We could think of a few other buildings worthy of removal, ones for which he already owns all rights….The Westlake Center nears completion, and the developers’ intentions for the land the city gave them are appearing. The Puget Sound Business Journal reports local merchants as essentially fainting or laughing at the center’s proposed rents. Most tenants, the Journal sez, “are expected to be national chains.”

Ad Copy of the Month (by CBS Records for UK band Raymonde): “Let’s just say it falls someplace between Joy Division and the Beach Boys.”

Ride ‘Em: Metro’s losing passengers while Snohomish County Community Transit can’t stuff folks on board fast enough. To learn why, just ride a CT bus to Everett some night. It’s a nice, big, comfy bus, in pleasant colors. It’s a bus people can actually want to ride, and they do. But the folks at Metro were too busy to notice one of their own officials skimming the cash boxes, so we can’t expect ’em to learn from their neighbors’ success.

Close: ‘Til next time, petition KIRO to bring back Mighty Mouse, visit the 6 Star Factory Outlet store in W. Seattle, and heed the words of gambler-lawman Bat Masterson: “There are many in this old world of ours who hold that things break about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get about the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summertime and the poor get it in winter.”

2/88 ArtsFocus Misc.

MAKE LOVE NOT WARHOL

Welcome to Misc., the column that loved seeing all the Martin Luther King Day signs at banks accused of redlining. We’re also not the official column of Family TV Viewing Month, a recent publicity stunt that involved two households going tubeless for a week. I can’t imagine what’d be worse: another Cagney & Lacey rerun or following the advice of state first lady Jean Gardner.

Aural Threat: For five and a half years, on a tiny budget and a tinny frequency, KJET has been one of the few commercial radio stations in town doing anything worthy of criticism (the best in progressive pop played announcers who dare to assume that their listeners have brains). Now that owner SRO has a few bucks to spend, it’s pondering the removal of this proven format. KJET has extremely loyal listeners. It could have more of them with better equipment and more promotion. The station’s outspokenly asking us to plead with them to let the Jet live. Do it. They’re at 200 W. Mercer, 98119.

No reprieve, however, is apparently possible for the beloved Rainier Beer ads. For 12 years, Heckler & Associates’ campaign (always “zany,” sometimes truly witty) has made Rainier #1 in Washington by distinguishing it from the majors and their cloying, zillion-dollar ads. The brewery’s new Australian owner’s hiring an Australian agency to make Rainier’s ads more like Bud’s and Miller’s –certain doom for a regional brand. Before Heckler, Rainier was sinking in the market. It tried a light beer and a draft beer years before Miller, a dark beer years before Michelob, fancy bottles, fictional spokesmen, outdoorsy jingles — nothing worked until it made commercials people wanted to watch. The campaign also helped put the Seattle production community on the map. It proved that local people can top the LA gold-chain crowd (though some local advertisers, like Bell and the Lottery, still send their customers’ money south).

Sunken Treasures?: Another endangered landmark is Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Seattle’s second oldest retail business (after L&H Engraving on Elliot). The pier on which the venerable souvenir stand is situated is in danger of collapsing, under the strain of drywall construction further up the waterfront. The contractor won’t ease up on the heavy vibrations until April, when the shop’ll move next to Ivar’s. If Sylvester the mummy sinks, he’ll become the eternal martyr to Seattle’s construction mania.

Philm Phacts: Housekeeping is a great film with great characters, set in a believably matriarchal Northwest town. Its only flaw is easily attributed to a Scottish director filming in Canada: The heroines as girls, being driven across Washington, stop at an Esso station. Standard Oil of N.J. never had rights to the name (an acronym of “S.O.”) in the western U.S., and so used Carter and then Enco before switching nationwide to Exxon. More fascinating info on the gas biz is at the General Petroleum Museum, which sells old pumps, signs, and memorabilia to collectors and rents a hall filled with the stuff for banquets and meetings.

Tunnel Woes: Wouldn’t it’ve been nice if Metro’d kept boring through the soft ground? They could do it at night with advance notice, so nobody’d be hurt when the Century Square building drops to a more reasonable height. If some of the Sharper Image merchandise gets damaged in the process, so much for the better.

Truth is Stranger Dept.: A while back, some clever folks published a parody of the Seattle Arts Commission newsletter. In the fictional lead story friends of commission members were being hired as “Art Buddies” to inspire local artists. It was a slap at programs to “support the arts” without giving a dime to artists. Now the real commission wants to hire three “nationally known” (your tax $$ going to NYC) art critics to advise artists with commission grants. Even Regina Hackett (the William Arnold of art writers) questions the idea (“Artists who want advice should ask artists whose work is in sympathy with their own”).

Wet Dreams: The recent Boat Show was a spectacle of American grandiosity at its finest. Best was the seemingly endless series of interconnected tents outside the Dome, just dying to become the site of a movie chase scene. The boats themselves generally got uglier as they got costlier. By $300G you had Joan Collins beds and blue plush carpeting on the walls. Still, there’s a lot to be said for living on a boat, with its split levels and cozy quarters. If you could only get a moorage with cable TV….

Local Publication of the Month: Columbia, the Magazine of Northwest History. Read, in lovely type with by quaint picures, of the early years of our remote corner of the world — but remember that “early history” here is “modern history” most anywhere else.

Headline of the month (Times, 1/25): “Two hospitals weigh liver transplants.” Lessee, at $1.87 a pound….

Cathode Corner: Some of the best TV entertainment is in commercials on obscure cable channels. Financial News Network has five-minute “paid programs” twice an hour. Gruff-voiced brokers insist that their option-futures-ratio-index packages are still sound investments. Sometimes they appear in phony “interviews” with actors hired to say “Sounds very impressive, Mr. Goldman.” Their heads are electronically squeezed into the top three-quarters of the screen, with stock prices swimming on the bottom.

‘Til March, visit the Old Firehouse second-hand mall at 110 Alaskan Way, watch Bombshelter Videos 1 a.m. Thurs. night/Fri. morn on KSTW, and remember the Valentine’s Day greeting on Pine Street: “Do Not Enter Except Metro Busses” (Look it up).