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Confessions of a Boss Chick
by guest columnist Debra Bouchegnies
ALL THROUGH JUNIOR HIGH, Kathy liked to get drunk and fuck.
She was, as you can imagine, pretty popular with the guys. Especially Raymond, the boy I had a crush on.
As unlikely as one would expect, Kathy and I found a common bond and became inseperable in the summer of ’76.
Understandably, Kathy didn’t have alot of girlfriends. She lived around the corner from me but went to Catholic school; so the only time I ever really saw her was on summer nights after dinner when I would be out walking my sister’s ugly dog Fluffy so I could sneak a smoke.
One night, early into the summer, while I was out with Fluffy, I discovered the pack of Marlboros I had stashed in my sock was empty. I figured I’d bum a smoke from the first one in the neighborhood I saw.
And there was Kathy, sitting on her steps, smoking a Salem 100 and drinking an iced tea. She was so girly—red, white and blue pinstriped polyester hot pants and a pale yellow halter top. Painted toes. A charm bracelet and an ankle bracelet and a cross around her neck.
Somehow, through some mysterious unspoken connection, we knew we needed each other. Somehow, Kathy knew I had entered the summer friendless.
She didn’t know the details; that I had been cruelly ostracized during spring break from my group of do-gooder straight-A students who fell in love with a water bong in Ocean Shores, NJ. Having been a stoner at 11, by now I was cleaned up and getting serious about school and my future.
So, having refused to get high, I found myself a lonely 16-year-old girl with dreams and braces and a long hot bicen-fucking-tennial east coast summer ahead of me.
And, somehow, I knew Kathy had been through some adolescent trauma; though I didn’t know her mother’s boyfriend was fucking her.
By the end of that ciggarette she was offering me a friendship ring, which was this gaudy cluster of rhinestones that obscured half her finger. And from that day on you couldn’t pull us apart.
Well, at least not until the “Boss Chick” incident.
I had decided to try to get a summer job at a local radio station, WFIL. 540 on the dial. The number one Top 40 bubblegum radio station in Philly. Their catch phrase was “Boss Radio.”
When I told Kathy my plans, of course she begged to tag along. I knew it was going to be hard enough to get my foot in the door; now I was having to get in two.
The receptionist was kind enough to get some guy to come out and speak to us. Between Kathy’s looks and my determination, a half hour later we found ourselves sitting in a room filled with boxes of promotional LPs around us. Our job: To cut one corner from the jacket of each record, turning them into official “giveaways.”
Kathy was starstruck. She was thrilled to rub elbows with Captain Noah (the star of WFIL-TV’s local children’s program) or the weatherman or news anchors in the hallway. None of this impressed me, as I somehow placed myself in the same league. By mid-day, Kathy was spending more time “star-searching” than in with me and our scissors and pile of vinyl.
They asked us to come back the next day. After about an hour, the guy who’d hired us came into the room and asked Kathy to come with him. He said he’d be back for me later.
I got home that night and called Kathy. “Debra! You won’t believe it! They made me a Boss Chick!”
“Boss Chicks,” for those of you who don’t know, were the gals they’d send out to promotional events. They wore hot pants and white knee-high crushed leather boots and Boss Chick T-shirts.
And they got a really cool WFIL handbag–the only part of Boss-Chickdom that interested me.
The next day I was back at WFIL. They were finding all kinds of work around the office for me. I learned how to use the Addressograph, and helped compile survey information brought in from the local record stores.
I didn’t see much of Kathy. She worked at night mostly now. A lot of Phillies games and WFIL nights at local clubs.
I ran into her one afternoon. “Debra! Oh my God! This is the best job I ever had! And I’m making twice what they were paying us when we started!”
Of course, my salary hadn’t budged.
Needless to say, I didn’t see much of Kathy the rest of the summer.
MONDAY: More of this, as our guest columnist goes from being the pal of a Boss Chick to becoming one herself.
ELSEWHERE:
Who Wants to Get Laid?
by guest columnist Scott Johnston
HAVE YA HAD CASUAL SEX LATELY? If you’re in the market, you should really head down to the Fenix in historic Pioneer Square. It offers an unbeatable combination of just-turned-21-year-olds, alcohol, and dim lighting guaranteed to make the night a sure thing.
I’d been to the Fenix plenty of times as a single 20-something, but this time I was newly thirty and actually brought a girl instead of trying to just leave with one.
The reason? We wanted to see our favorite local band, a great lounge act called The Dudley Manlove Quartet. Covers of one-hit wonders from the ’70s and ’80s are a Dudley specialty; and if you know another place I can hear “Copacabana” (the hottest spot north of Havana), a Neil Diamond medley, and the theme to Shaft in the same night, let me know right away.
Not many people admit to liking the Dudley Manlove Quartet, but their shows are always packed and they now play regular gigs as far as San Francisco. They’re not trying to change the music world; they’ve just got a steady flashback of great songs you had long since forgotten. It’s the kind of fun you want to have on a Saturday night with your girl and a few friends.
What I realized on this particular Saturday night soon after our group arrived is that the Fenix is now the official frat boy headquarters of Seattle. My friends and I have a serious aversion to the frat-boy mentality, avoiding them at all costs. When I am forced to talk with one, in line for drinks or the bathroom, the conversations enviably go like this:
Frat boy: “Hey.”
Me: “Hey.”
Frat boy: “I WANT SOME PUSSY!”
Me: “Good luck with that.”
The Fenix is the kind of place wherehalf the crowd is trying to get laid–and I don’t mean just the male half.
The last time I tried to see a band there on a Saturday night (back in my 20-something days), my buddy and I had a fascinating conversation with a woman who introduced herself by walking over and running her finger up and down my friend’s chest.
Woman: “Hi handsome, what’s your name?”
Buddy (feebly pointing to his wedding band): “Uhh…I’m married.” (My friend has been with the same woman for 10 years and has very little experience fending off such aggressive advances.)
Woman: “Oh that’s okay, so am I.”
Buddy (squirming): “Uhh…talk to him, he’s not married.”
Woman (turning to me): “Hi handsome, what’s your name?”
You get the idea.
Our party made it past the ex-Marine bouncer who checks ID and table-hopped our way to a spot with a view as Dudley got underway.
I attempted to purchase drinks from our heroin-chic cocktail waitress, but apparently the bleach job had affected more than just her hair because she kept forgetting to bring our beverages. After she brought someone in our party a margarita with sugar around the rim instead of salt, we just started going to the bar ourselves.
However, the music was good, we all had comfortable seating and there had already been one small fight.
As Dudley ended their first set, it was time for the big contest sponsored by everybody’s favorite local alternative radio station that is owned by a huge nameless, faceless cooperation: The End (now featuring acoustic versions of the songs you’ve been hearing every hour for the last six months).
Up on stage was DJ Brian Beck to give away a brand new snowboard. Not into snowboarding? No problem; according to Mr. Beck, you can “sell the shit and make some extra bank.” These alternative DJs are so cool. “WHAT DOES ‘EXTRA BANK’ MEAN?” I yelled out.
Now that the place was packed, people had surrounded our table and kept invading our personal space. Since we had a couple of all-girl groups around us, the frat-boys kept trying to muscle their way closer and closer.
“What’s the difference between a frat boy and a gay man?” queried a female member of our party loudly “About six beers” was the punch line.
Suddenly all the guys gasped and pointed to the crowd below. Another fight? Someone puking on Brian Beck?
No. It was two beautiful women making out!
Would you believe me if I told you this happens to me all the time? Well it does. Whenever I go to parties or out clubs, women make out in front of me.
I’m not saying I approach them and make any of the moronic comments a straight guy could say to women kissing, or that after getting really hot they slither over and invite me back to their secret make-out headquarters or anything. “Did you get a good look?” chimed my girlfriend as my glance turned to a look and then a stare.
While the guys may have all looked like frat boys, the women were a different matter. As I made my way to and from the bathrooms (complete with DWI legal defense advertisements above the urinals) I spotted enough leather minis, fishnets, and bright red lipstick to give me flashbacks of my high-school heavy metal concert days.
Here’s a tip for the girls at the Fenix: Try selling the sizzle, not the steak.
We finally left just after midnight; and, despite the minor annoyances, had a great time. Of course, pretty much everyone in our party knew who they were going to bed with later, which no doubt accounted for our relaxed attitude during the festivities.
Watching everybody at the Fenix get wasted and try to hook-up was fun for a while, but I’ve got more important things to do.
Like make some extra bank.
TOMORROW: Memories of misogyny past.
SOME SHORTS TODAY, starting with that other monopolistic operation Paul Allen used to partly own.
IF I WERE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST, which I’m still not, I’d ponder the following scenario with a furrowed brow:
1. A company called TicketWeb proclaims itself to be a new, valiant challenger to the Ticketmaster monopoly. 2. It quickly snaps up contracts for alterna-rock and DJ venues and other places and bands whose “indie street cred” means they’ve been reluctant to join the Ticketmaster fold. 3. TicketWeb then promptly sells out to Ticketmaster, leaving the ticketing monopoly even further entrenched.
1. A company called TicketWeb proclaims itself to be a new, valiant challenger to the Ticketmaster monopoly.
2. It quickly snaps up contracts for alterna-rock and DJ venues and other places and bands whose “indie street cred” means they’ve been reluctant to join the Ticketmaster fold.
3. TicketWeb then promptly sells out to Ticketmaster, leaving the ticketing monopoly even further entrenched.
ELSEWHERE IN CONSOLIDATION-LAND, the Feds apparently believe the big media conglomerates still aren’t big enough. They want to let big broadcasting chains control even more TV/radio stations and networks. This latest proposed deregulation was entered into Congress on behalf of Viacom, which wants to buy CBS but keep the (practically worthless to any other potential buyer) UPN network.
MORE RAPSTERMANIA!: One of those media-consolidators, Seagram/Universal boss Edgar Bronfman, comes from a family that originally got rich smuggling booze across the Canada/U.S. border during the U.S. Prohibition era.
Now, he’s quoted as saying MP3 bootlegging represents such a major threat to the intellectual-property trust that he wants massive, Big Brother-esque legal maneuvers to stop it–even at the expense of online anonymity and privacy.
Meanwhile, the whole Net-based-home-taping controversy has caused Courtney Love to finally say some things I agree with, for once. She’s suing to get out of what she considers a crummy contract with one of Bronfman’s record labels. As such, Love (formerly one of the harshest critics of the Olympia-style anti-major-label ideology) has suddenly turned into an even harsher critic of major-label machinations and corruption:
“I’m leaving the major-label system. It’s … a really revolutionary time (for musicians), and I believe revolutions are a lot more fun than cash, which by the way we don’t have at major labels anyway. So we might as well get with it and get in the game.”
RE-TALES: Downtown Seattle’s Warner Bros. Studio Store has shuttered its doors. Apparently the location, across from the ex-Nordstrom in the middle of the Fifth-Pine-Pike block, isn’t the hi-traffic retail site big touristy chain stores like. (An omen for Urban Outfitters, now also in that stretch of the block?)
In more positive out-of-state retail-invasion news, you no longer have to go to Tacoma to buy your chains at a chain store. Seattle’s now got its own branch of Castle Superstores, “America’s Safer Sex Superstore.” It sells teddies, mild S/M gear, condoms, vibes, XXX videos, naughty party games, edible body paints, and related novelties. It’s in an accessible but low-foot-traffic location on Fairview Ave., right between the Seattle Times and Hooters.
TOMORROW: Some differences between the real world and the world of the movies.
ANOTHER YEAR, another MISCmedia anniversary party, another in-person questionnaire.
Here, in no particular order, are a few highlights of the two dozen or so responses filled in by attendees at last Thursday night’s big event at the Ditto Tavern:
Favorite food/drink:
Favorite store:
Favorite website:
Favorite catch phrase:
What I’d like on the MISCmedia website:
What I’d like in MISCmedia magazine:
The chief legacy of the WTO protests:
What should happen to Microsoft:
The Experience Music Project building books like:
What this town needs (other than construction projects):
If this region has so much wealth, why can’t we…:
TOMORROW: Short stuff, including that other monopolistic company Paul Allen used to be involved in.
Wine Dark Sea
by guest columnist Doug Nufer
GENERAL INTEREST MAGAZINES like Time are nice barometers of what a culture is supposed to be like, but give me an industrial trade magazine, any day. Who wouldn’t rather read Blackstockings than Playboy?
When it comes to my own trade, selling wine, I read the two main consumer mags, the glossy Wine Spectator with its fondness for California chardonnay and the fussy Wine Advocate with its preference for wine you can’t find (let alone afford), as well as an assortment of crass rags (Market Watch, Beverage Retailer) geared for managers of chain stores.
But the best publication for anyone who wants info on the wine industry is Wine Business Monthly.
It also happens to be very entertaining and, if you pass for an insider, free.
The seven-year-old monthly has the look and heft of Barrons, running about 80 legal-size pages of better-than-newsprint black and white articles illustrated by charts, graphs, and photos. Advertisements provide color as well as information about bottles, corks, fake corks, industrial machinery, and farm equipment.
The news can come across as the kind of no-bullshit approach you get in the Wall Street Journal news section (not to be confused with the editorial blather), although some pieces rely on too few sources. A recent story on Best Cellars failed to point out that these “bargain” boutiques actually sell the most expensive cheap wine around (in Seattle, at any rate, the same bottles can often be had across the parking lot at the U. Village QFC, for a buck less).
Much of the March 2000 issue is devoted to the theme of packaging, focusing on bottle and label designs; but two pieces leap out and grab casual reader/ drinkers and political activists: an op/ed primer on media relations and an article on the wine industry and the WTO.
“Winery Public Relations Is Changing,” by p.r. exec Judy Kimsey, presents a peppy mixture of common sense and stupefying bromides to inform as well as entertain. Unfortunately, Kimsey for the most part minds her diction, primly shielding readers from the array of argot neologisms that often make business writing more dazzling than language poetry.
She does, however, advocate exploring long-term pro-active strategies and maintaining an effective Internet presence by having a “sticky” website (i.e., a site people who don’t have a life in meat world will keep coming back to out of sheer boredom). A “sticky” website is, after all, “a vital part of your public relations arsenal.”
Rather than hold up a mirror to see ourselves as others see us, op-ed pieces like this let you see them as they see themselves.
Nothing against Gina Gallo (or against whatever data may indicate that Gallo sales are up), but how strange it is to read of the “Gina Phenomenon,” where the pretty celebrity/ heir/ winemaker drives sales by providing a “personality-driven image!”
And while the wine industry plunges into organic viticulture, there’s a “misperception” that it’s “the environmental bad guy” because it’s a monoculture and because of “novice owners whose vineyards slide off the hillside into the local creek.”
If that isn’t enough of a trip to Never Never Land, get this:
“Return press calls promptly. In most industries, not returning a press call within the day, if not the hour, is a firing offense.”
In the real world, as in prevalent practice in the wine world Kimsey chastises, p.r. flacks must get bonuses for not returning press calls; and when they do call back, the reporter is in for hours of happy talk in lieu of concise information.
“Wine Still Swirls as a Trade Issue,” by Lisa Shara Hall, came at an ideal time for me: en route to have dinner with some visiting Italian wine execs at a restaurant along the trail of tear gas that police blazed to drive protesters out of downtown and into the neighborhoods of lower Capitol Hill.
Simon Siegl, ex-Washington Wine Commission czar and current head of the American Vintners Association, was the only quoted source for the article. His message to winemakers? Shut up and join an organization like his. “This is an area where horizontal expansion of communications merely adds confusion,” he says.
As a WTO protester and a co-owner of a small wine shop, I remain skeptical of the WTO having any say in my industry. But thanks to this article, I was able to relate my skepticism to the Italians in a way that hit home.
The main enemies of people who drink, sell, and make wine that’s imported to the U.S. are tariffs and pressures to remove “subsidies.” Fortunately for us, the U.S. has the lowest tariffs on wine; and European farmers and vintners have resisted attempts to change the way they do business. So, as things stand, a good bottle of Chianti Classico is still $12-$15 and plenty of good Italian wine is still under $10 a bottle.
In other words, I said, the protesters in the streets of Seattle were not destroying property; we were defending our right to purchase Italian wine at fair prices.
The big U.S. wine interests may be too sophisticated to behave like hicks and demand an end to all, say, tax breaks that foreign wineries enjoy. After all, their main concerns involve exports: getting other countries to lower tariffs and to accept some kind of label standardization.
But, “Next on the list is the elimination of subsidies,” which is complicated because “The EU wants to protect its historical and culturally based subsidies.”
Make that, the EU, American consumers, American importers and dealers, and everybody else.
The only ones who don’t like this arrangement are outfits like Gallo, whose Gina Phenomenon doesn’t change a legacy of farm-worker exploitation and a line of rotgut sold under names swiped from Europe and then trademarked so the world could come to know Hearty Burgundy and Chablis.
(To receive Wine Business Monthly, pick up a sub form at a local wine shop or write to them at 867 W. Napa St., Sonoma, CA 95476. Make up an industrial position for yourself (retailer, grower, restaurateur, etc.) and don’t tell them I sent you.)
TOMORROW: Dave Eggers, Threat or Menace?
FIRST OF ALL, a huge thanks to all who attended the group lit-fest I participated in last Sunday at Titlewave Books.
Whenever I do something like that, I pass out little questionnaires to the audience. Here are some of the responses to this most recent survey:
Favorite historical era:
Favorite Pokemon character:
Favorite word:
What this decade should be called:
My biggest (non-money) wish for the year:
I think the Experience Music Project building looks like:
Favorite local band/musician:
The Seattle music scene’s biggest legacy/lesson?:
How I’d preserve artist and low-income housing:
What This Town Needs (other than construction projects):
MULTIPLE CHOICE PORTION
What should be done with Schell:
What should be done with Microsoft:
What should be done with Ken Griffey Jr.:
I’d pay for MISCmedia magazine:
TOMORROW: Confessions of a Microsoft refugee.
OUR NEXT LIVE EVENT will be a reading Sunday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. at Titlewave Books on lower Queen Anne. It’s part of a free, all-ages group lit-event including, among others, the fantastic Farm Pulp zine editor Gregory Hischack.
THE HOMOGENIZATION OF URBAN AMERICA is sure not something going on just in Seattle–even though Seattleites, who typically try to maintain their collective ignorance about any other U.S. cities besides N.Y./L.A./S.F., might choose not to realize it.
The Brooklyn, N.Y. band Babe the Blue Ox has a song called “T.G.I.F.U.” about the proliferation of the same chain restaurants in town after town across the continent:
“Every city I get lost in Charlotte, Boston, even Austin Has a four-lane boulevard With the same damn grill and bar Every meal will be familiar Rest assured.”
“Every city I get lost in
Charlotte, Boston, even Austin
Has a four-lane boulevard
With the same damn grill and bar
Every meal will be familiar
Rest assured.”
In Seattle’s downtown core, the problem’s only partly the proliferation of the likes of Planet Hollywood and Gordon Biersch, as deplorable as that in itself might be.
There’s also the more pervasive and immediate threat posed by establishments that might be individually owned but with a common (all too common) theme of upscale blandness.
It’s getting so you can’t find any grub in this town anymore. Just “cuisine.” Hummus, penne pollo, “Market Price” trout almondine, etc. etc.; served up at joints with valet parking, “celebrity” executive chefs, and appetizer prices alone that would feed a normal bloke for a month. Joints that scream about how “unique” each of them’s supposed to be, yet are really just about all alike.
Every month, one more of the few remaining real-people places in Seattle gets destroyed for some overpriced “foodie” joint and/or luxury condos. Among the currently threatened: The Jem art studios, the Greyhound station, the Bethel Temple.
Now joining the ranks of the apparently doomed: the legendary, infamous Frontier Room.
It’s a classic dive bar, of the kind they not only don’t make anymore but couldn’t if they tried. It’s a place where, for decades, old-age pensioners and crusty punk rockers have shared the enjoyment of strong drinks, noise, smoke, dark red lighting, crummy yet cozy seats, and a well-lived-in atmosphere.
Up in the front restaurant room, they serve up real food for real folk: Burgers, fresh-cut fries, real ice cream shakes, soup, chowder, sandwiches, omelettes, and blue plate specials.
But the guy who ran the place with an iron hand for seemingly ever died a few years back. His daughter’s apparently tiring of the grind. (Neither she nor anyone else associated with the place will speak on the record.)
A real estate agent’s putting the business up for sale as an ongoing concern (10-year lease, liquor license, and all). His flyer lists a monthly rent of $3700 plus a mysterious added expense listed only as “NNN” (anybody out there know what that means?).
There ought to be enough present and former Frontier Room barflies who’ve made a buck or two in music and/or software. Let’s get some of these folks together to buy the Frontier and keep it just the way it is.
Maybe we could add some menu items to increase the daytime trade, and put a newsstand or espresso machine in the currently-unused portion of the Frontier’s storefront. But nothing the place currently sells should be dropped; and none of its current patronage should be made unwelcome.
We must save this piece of our civic soul. We must keep it from becoming another “cuisine” stand.
If we don’t do this, it would be just like raising the flag of surrender to the armies of gentrification.
TOMORROW: More of this line, concerning artist space.
IN OTHER NEWS: Chief artistic lesson of HBO’s recent Porky’s trilogy marathon: Female nudity is drama; male nudity is farce.
LAST FRIDAY, we discussed Beloit University’s second annual list of pop-cult references incoming college students know about that their profs might not, and vice versa.
Never one to let a good shtick go uncopied, I asked for your recommendations in this regard.
While the ever-voracious nostalgia industry keeps bringing back old songs, fashions, movies, cars, and foods, many important aspects of bygone life remain bygone.
Thus, based partly on some of your suggestions, this list of cultural reference points distinguishing today’s fake-ID bearers from pathetic fogeys such as myself:
As late as the early ’70s, college English profs could assign their students as many as 100 books for one semester; thanks to cheap paperback editions, the kids could afford to buy ’em all.
Now, only fogeys remember that comic books had ever been for kids.
Newspapers were also a lot more popular back when they were more populist, something the entire industry’s forgotten.
IN OTHER NEWS: Who needs freakin’ ideological “battles of the sexes”? Let’s get on with the real thing!
TOMORROW: Concluding this series, some things young adults know that fogeys probably don’t.
IT’S ‘STAY AWAY FROM SEATTLE DAY,’ according to a promotion at the downtown Borders Books. According to the in-store flyer:
“Today, the rest of the world gives our city a break from the influx of people moving to the ‘Best Place to Live’ by celebrating and honoring ‘Stay Away From Seattle Day.’ Memo to out-of-state web-masters, high-tech wizards, writers and musicians: Reschedule the U-Haul and let Seattle’s siren song tempt you another day–today the city is for those of us who are already here. Present your Washington State driver license between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and receive a free tall latte on Borders (limit one per customer, no substitution.)”
SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO STAYED AWAY FROM SEATTLE: Yesterday, we had some music-related fun links. Today, something only slightly more serious, involving a local guy who split town at age 18 and only came back as an occasional visitor.
Boomer-nostalgia compulsives continue to rant on about the “revolutionary” aspects of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, as this recent news feature shows.
I was to have appeared last year at a “Northwest Music” conference (canceled at the last moment), to discuss the so-called “grunge era,” right after a panel discussion that would have discussed Hendrix’s national-anthem rendition.
(Never mind the fact that Hendrix never lived in the Northwest as an adult; to the boomers he’s still Seattle’s one true claim to rock fame.)
The boomer-nostalgists apparently never learned that the tune originally was an English drinking song. “To Anacreon in Heaven” was the official song of the Sons of Anacreon, a London private club named after an eighth-century Greek poet who, in turn, wrote bawdy verses about the larger-than-life carousing of Zeus and his mythical pals.
And so, as one of the song’s original verses ended,
“While thus we agree, Our toast let it be. May our club flourish happy, united and free! And long may the sons of Anacreon entwine, The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.”
Our toast let it be.
May our club flourish happy, united and free!
And long may the sons of Anacreon entwine,
The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.”
Hendrix had simply re-inserted the boistrous, Bacchanalian revelry the tune had originally expressed, and did so with gusto.
Francis Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner” lyrics were apparently specifically written to go with the tune of “To Anacreon In Heaven,” which shows the song had become popular well beyond the private club which had originally commissioned it.
But Key’s words (the official “National Anthem”) could theoretically go with any workable melody, even one amateur singers could better execute.
The theme song from Valley of the Dolls meters almost perfectly with Key’s words. I’ve tried it. Go ahead and try it yourself, in the privacy of your own homes if you must.
Then go back and read the original lyrics for “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Then sing them (you know the tune). If you’re like me, the tune sounds a helluva lot better when it’s used in the service of images of drinking, lovemaking, and other merriments than it sounds when recounting the Battle of Fort McHenry.
It’s almost enough to make you feel good about being an American again.
At least if you’re an American of British descent like me.
IN OTHER NEWS: Fortune’s list of North America’s “40 Richest Under 40” (excluding those with all-inherited wealth) includes two Seattleites, no women, and only three names not connected to the computer or Net industries (including the list’s only two Af-Ams, Michael Jordan and record producer Master P).
TOMORROW: Who’s afraid of digital movies?
AMERICANS LOVE stuff, particularly if it’s new and/or wacky and/or ingeniously-thought-up stuff.
Here’s some of the funnest stuff I’ve found lately.
IF YOU MISSED last week’s wonderful live reading/event, there’s another promo for The Big Book of MISC. this Thursday, Aug. 26, 7:30 p.m., at the venerable Elliott Bay Book Co. Be there or be isogonal.
IN OTHER NEWS: After 17 years as the virtual living room of the Belltown arts community, the beloved Two Bells Tavern, where some of our live Misc.-O-Rama events have been held, is in the process of being sold to ex-NYU prof Tina Morelli-Lee and hubby Jeffrey Lee. So far, the new mgmt. promises to keep everything the same (i.e., no hard alcohol and no Bud Light; and it’ll still serve some of the city’s best burgers but won’t serve French fries).
TOMORROW: The return of bad-white-boy rock; just as stoopid as ever.
ELSEWHERE: Zero Population Growth claims Seattle’s America’s most kid-friendly city. (As long as you’re not a kid who wants to see live music or put up street posters)… Surreal, haunting, quasi-Goth–who doesn’t love dream stories?…
LAST FRIDAY, we mentioned the recent explosion in “Weblogs,” sites that contain little or no original content but instead provide highly selective links to articles and stories on other sites.
MISC. World isn’t turning into a pure Weblog. Don’t worry; there’ll still be all-new stuff here all the time.
But, from time to time, we like to mention some fun and/or serious stuff being written elsewhere in Netland. Such as these pieces:
For everybody who loves/hates the inanity of misspellings on huge public signage, it’s the Gallery of “Misused” Quotation Marks. A recent item: “A billboard for a bank in Idaho Falls reads: ‘We believe that “PEOPLE” should answer our phones.’ ‘PEOPLE’ are about the same things as ‘robots with Gap clothing,’ right?” Speaking of inanities…
Rocket writer Jason Josephes has a hilarious listing of “The Top 20 LPs Among People Who Hate Music,” as determined by what he sees most in thrift-store record bins. (I personally disagree with Josephes’ #1 choice, Abba’s Gold. I recently listened to a cassette somebody in Belgium had made, collecting every known cover version of “Dancing Queen,” from elevator to punk, and was blown away by the tune’s sheer endurance capability.) Speaking of hatreds…
Now that press coverage of the delayed Buffy the Vampire Slayer season finale’s allowed journalists to revisit their post-Littleton pontifications, Philip Michaels has something called “Your Guide to High School Hate,” showing once again that the pontificators had it all wrong and Buffy has it metaphorically right–high school, too often, really is a Hellmouth. Speaking of teen insecurities…
Understanding Comics author-illustrator Scott McCloud is back with a wistful, beautiful reminiscence of his adolescent retreat from peer pressure into the ordered, rational universe of gaming, in “My Obsession With Chess.” It’s a comic strip meant to be read online, with panels arranged in the sequence of chess moves along a “board” that would be about 16 feet long in real life. Simply gorgeous.
TOMORROW: Continuing in this vein, some wacky search-engine keywords that brought people, perhaps mistakenly, to this site.
UPDATE #1: “Oh oh, must have been another Bite of Seattle riot!” That’s what certain Belltown bystanders muttered when they saw throngs of teens, about half of them Af-Am teens, streaming out of Seattle Center toward the surrounding sidewalks around 9:30 p.m. last Saturday night. But it wasn’t a riot. Center authorities had simply brought in cops to empty the grounds, including the Fun Forest amusement area, after the Bite’s scheduled 9 p.m. closing time. (The incident last year wasn’t really a “riot” either. Somebody made a noise in a crowded Fun Forest that sounded like gunfire but might have just been a leftover fireworks noisemaker, and a few dozen kids started running in panic.) Ah, the “enlightened, liberal, diversity-celebrating” city that still can’t grasp that dark-skinned teenagers are not necessarily gangstas… (sigh)…
UPDATE #2: In happier news, the Washington State Liquor Control Board, which previously was stripped of much of its entertainment-licensing authority by a federal judge, is now proposing rules that would allow afternoon or early-evening all-ages music shows in the dining areas of restaurant-lounge spots. The proposed rules would still be stricter than those in Oregon, but it’s a step.
FOR A RELATIVELY-SHORT but seemingly-endless time, the innocent citizenry of a once-remote place were under seige.
A would-be dictator, operating under the barest semblance of lip-service to democracy, fought with every means available to impose his personally-defined concept of civil order upon the populace. In motion after motion, he declared one specific segment of the population to be the only true and deserving citizens, and classified all the others to second-class status, to be harassed and “persuaded” to get out.
But then, a glimmer of hope appeared. The long-trod-upon people began to cautiously rejoice.
Mark Sidran’s reign might finally be ending.
Yeah, so this joke-comparison between overseas horrors and the machinations of Seattle’s city attorney are grossly distasteful.
But that’s the best way to describe what happened last Tuesday.
Here’s what happened. Essentially, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that a state law dating back to the post-Prohibition years, directing the Washington State Liquor Control Board to regulate “Added Activities” such as live entertainment at bars and nightclubs, was unconstitutional.
So now, the Liquor Board and local governments can’t tell bars what entertainments they can or can’t offer their customers.
Immediately, it means no more telling bars to stop playing music that might attract black people.
Sidran, who can’t stand the existence within the city limits of anybody who’s not an upscale, lily-white, professional-caste baby boomer such as himself, won’t get to use “Added Activities” to shut down black clubs or “persuade” them to move to white-oriented fare.
This also means no more liquor-board crackdowns on nudie art-pix at the Virginia Inn, no more worries about bad-word censorship at comedy clubs (as if anybody still goes to those places), and maybe, just maybe, looser dress codes at fetish nights and leather bars.
It doesn’t mean bars can start regular stripper formats, however; that’s still covered under those increasingly-draconian “adult entertainment” laws in Seattle and other localities. See the current issue of the journal Gauntlet for many tales of anti-strip-joint crackdowns across the country.
What will happen next? The Liquor Board apparently isn’t interested in promoting new legislation to replace the overturned “Added Activities” rules.
Sidran’s own, even-more-draconian “Added Activities” proposal (which, in its current draft, had depended upon regulatory precedents in the now-overturned state law) will probably die in the Seattle City Council; though he might still try other means to enforce Mandatory Mellowness via stricter noise and public-nuisance ordinances.
So the Sidran menace ain’t really over yet. But, between the end of “Added Activities” and a council increasingly fed up with his continuing attempts to be a de facto municipal head of state, he might find himself stuck in the uncomfortable position of having to work for the city rather than trying to run it.
The city attorney’s job is an elected position. Nobody ran against Sidran last time. Let’s get someone to run against him next year. Someone who’ll be a good government lawyer, and not some strong-arm enforcer of “civil society.”
TOMORROW: If we can’t have fewer cars, let’s at least have more smaller ones.
MISC. WORLD, the online column that still hasn’t seen the new Star Wars, has read the hereby-linked, viciously beautiful review of the movie by that much-acclaimed, recently-crashed, Time art critic Robt. Hughes (Time wouldn’t run it, so the NY Daily News picked it up).
UPDATE: The Big Book of MISC. is now in the heat of production. By the time you read this, the covers should be printed and the insides should be ready to roll. Online ordering’s now available at this link.
Actual copies of the book should be ready for the big pre-release party and annual Misc.-O-Rama, the evening of Tuesday, June 8 at the new Ditto Tavern, 2303 5th Avenue near Bell Street (across from the back of the Cadillac lot). There’ll be outrageous snack treats, videos, strange DJ music, games, surveys, a live demonstration, and lots lots more. Free admission; 21 and over. Be there. Aloha.
RIDDLE: What do you call the last pint of Hefeweizen that causes a yuppie to total her fancy-ass luxury car? (Answer next week.)
TIMES OF THE SIGNS: There actually is one and only one piece of signage at the Broadway and U District Taco Bell outlets that’s in Spanish–the bottom half of the front-door warning sticker boasting of the joint’s anti-robbery systems.
SAY WHAT?: US West TV spots are currently promoting Caller ID boxes as ways to avoid those annoying life interruptions from pesky telemarketing calls. Besides the commercials, can you guess one other method the company’s using to try and sell the service? That’s right.
ON THE EDGE: Hope some of you noticed the name of the apartment-redevelopment company charged (as shown on both KIRO’s and KING’s late news Wednesday) with violating even Seattle’s wimpy tenant-rights laws: “No Boundaries.” The logo on the company’s possibly-illegal notices of eviction and attempted rate-hike retaliations against protesting tenants, as seen on the newscasts, looks just like the letterhead of some sci-fi video-game company. There’s some lesson somewhere here about today’s money-and-power mentality, in which strong-arm business tactics are mistaken for acts of daring rebellion by self-worshipping hotshots who can’t stand the idea of having to do anything they don’t want to.
(“No Boundaries” also happens to be the title of a new benefit CD for Kosovo refugees, with two Pearl Jam tracks.)
ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES, AND OTHER EXPANSIONS: An LA Times story claims the latest thing in La-La land is affluent high-school girls asking for breast implants as graduation gifts, or paying themsleves for the procedure as soon as (or even a few months before) they reach legal adulthood. The article quoted a couple of doctors who noted some women are still well within the developmental process at age 17 or even 18, but an increasing number are just so darned vain and body-conscious as to want to immediately achieve the ol’ top-heavy look.
If I were still working in the realm of “alternative” weekly urban tabloids, I’d probably be expected to sneer at these women–or, even worse, condescendingly treat them as mindless victims of the fashion industry (the same fashion industry that’s recently been enamored of unbusty petite model looks, not that the industry’s critics ever notice).
The same urban-tribal folks who most loudly scoff at implants might themselves have tattoos, piercings, even (as a particularly exploitive KING-TV piece last Monday noted) brandings. Some of these critics might seem hypocrites on at least some level; but on another level, it’s perfectly OK to believe in the general concept of body-modification while having well-defined personal tastes about which modifications one prefers to have or to see on others.
I personally don’t viscerally care for the over-augmented look, but I can understand that certain women might wish it. A big bust projects you out and demands attention (along with the sneers from other women you can interpret as jealousy). But a large fake bust is also a shield, a kind of permanent garment keeping all others firmly away from your heart (and other vital organs).
LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK: Instant Planet isn’t just another new age tabloid. For one thing, it promises regular coverage of issues facing some of those indigenous peoples that the white new-agers love to take inspiration from. For another, it’s got some first-rate contributors, including master collage-illustrator James Koehnline and my former yoga trainer Kirby Jacobsen. Free at the usual dropoff spots, or $16/4 issues from P.O. Box 85777, Seattle 98145.
JUNK FOOD OF THE WEEK: The Seattle-based New Athens Corp. has jumped on the herbal-beverage bandwagon with two odd-tasting concoctions. “Kick Start” promises to help you get “a robust, active feeling” with Gotu Kola, Ginkgo Bilboa, Guarana, Kava Kava, and ginseng, There’s also “No Worries,” a drink that’s supposed to “produce a relaxing effect that soothes and quiets your mood.” Both taste like Coke’s old OK Soda with a touch of peach flavoring. But unlike other pops marketed as all-ages treats, these have a label disclaimer: “Not intended for children under 6 or pregnant or nursing mothers.” Elsewhere in foodland…
Q BALLS: While small indie supermarkets in other neighborhoods have fallen with little more than a shrug of inevitability from area residents, the citizens of Wedgwood have rallied ’round to valiantly (and, apparently, futilely) defend Matthew’s Red Apple Market, set to close in less than two weeks after its landlord struck a deal to let the Kroger-owned QFC circuit take over the site.
At first peep, a media observer used to the recent unwritten rule that everything in Seattle had to be “unique” (in exactly the same way, of course) might not see what all the fuss is supposed to be about.
Matthew’s doesn’t have the fun neon of the old Wallingford Food Giant or the odd mix of food and variety departments of the old Holman Road Art’s Family Center (both of which were QFC bought up directly, rather than arranging for their eviction like it’s doing with Matthew’s).
Matthew’s doesn’t make a big fuss about a lot of those higher-profit-margin items and departments QFC and Larry’s lavish attention on (salad bars, hot take-out items, wine, cell phones, live lobster, “health” foods, etc. etc.)
It’s just a plain-looking, small supermarket in a slightly-run-down building, with a fried-chicken deli counter and fresh flowers and a Lotto machine.
But that’s the whole point. In a town increasingly weighted down by the expectation of pretentious “uniqueness,” and in a national retail landscape increasingly overrun by big-chain consolidations, Matthew’s is loved by its customers precisely because it’s just a good ol’ fashioned neighborhood indie grocery.
(“Red Apple,” by the way, is merely a franchised name belonging to Associated Grocers, the wholesale consortium to which Matthew’s and 200 or so other Northwest stores belong, including, at least for the time being, QFC.)
Matthew’s might not stock 17 different kinds of cilantro, but it more than makes up for that in that unstockable, uncatalogable quality known as community spirit. It’s different precisely because it’s refused to conform to the current-day standards of “uniqueness.”
The Wedgwood area’s well-stocked with well-off folks, some of whom offered to outbid QFC for the lease on the Matthew’s block. When that initially failed, the store’s supporters then offered to help Matthew’s find a new site. But usable commercial blocks are scarce in that dense residential area.
(One of the few supermarket-sized tracts in the area not currently used for retail is the Samuel Stroum Jewish Community Center, co-funded by and named for a longtime QFC exec.)
So this particular battle against the Forces of Consolidation may be lost–unless someone could design a Matthew’s-like store on a smaller real-estate footprint, a la Ken’s Markets or Trader Joe’s.
(Current status: Matthew’s management sez it stands a good chance of winning at least a little more time in court. It’s asking friends and neighbors to keep signing the petitions and engaging in nonviolent protests, while asking customers to bear with spot shortages of stuff on some of the shelves (it held off on ordering new stock while waiting for the legal action to progress.)
WE’RE STILL LOOKING for your ideas on What This Town Needs. Suggest yours at our fantabulous Misc. Talk discussion boards. Until then, check out my page in the June Seattle magazine, work for peace, and consider the words of Marshall McLuhan: “I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say.”
MISC. WORLD, the online column that still hasn’t seen the new Star Wars, is proud to announce The Big Book of MISC. has now gone to press. Even better, online ordering is now up, at this link! The prerelease party’s Tuesday, June 8 at the new Ditto Tavern, 2303 5th Ave. near Bell Street in Seattle’s glorious Belltown. Be there.
FAST FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The Denny’s Diner concept, first mentioned in Misc. about a year ago, will now be phased in at all U.S. Denny’s restaurants. From the looks of the prototype restaurant out by Sea-Tac Mall, it won’t be as big a revamp as the newspaper stories promise. The one I saw looks largely like a regular ol’ Denny’s. The interior’s done up in muted greens instead of garish orange shades, with a few touches of aluminum trim. Aside from a few soda-fountain items, there’s not much on the menu that’s not on the regular Denny’s menu. And there’s a reproduction juke box playing some oldies-rock CDs, along with many “hot country” and easy-listening stars.
The chain’s officially doing this because its research found younger eaters don’t identify with its established suburban-bland image, and thinks this way it can become perceived as slightly hipper without turning off the older crowd. Of course, Denny’s has had a bigger image problem than that in recent years. Amid allegations of racial discrimination in both employment and customer service, the company’s had to pull out all the PR-spin stops to proclaim it now welcomes everybody, and has put managers and franchisees thru sensitivity classes. So why, one might ask, is the chain re-imaging itself around nostalgia for those bad-old-days white-lower-middle-class hash houses where African Americans felt particularly unwelcome back in the day? (Remember, the first major sit-in of the civil rights movement occurred at a Woolworth lunch counter.) Elsewhere in bobbysoxer-land…
THE SOUND OF SILENCE: The Velvet Elvis Arts Lounge (which has hosted all-ages music shows these past six years in the former home of the punk-parody musical Angry Housewives) and the Colourbox (the rock venue that stuck with local bands after bigger bars turned their emphasis to touring acts) are closing in June, due (indirectly in the former case, directly in the latter) to Pioneer Square gentrification. RKCNDY will be demolished for a hotel sometime later this year. Nothing much could’ve been done to save the Colourbox (and, anyway, the nearby Rupert’s has been serving much the same function). But the VE’s another story. Its pretty-much-all-volunteer staff has every right to feel burned out and to move on, now that its recent sold-out Annie Sprinkle performances have paid off its debts. But there should’ve been some way they could’ve passed the torch onto a fresher crew, to keep the space going as long as it still had the lease. If someone can get such a crew together to assume the space, they’d better do so soon.
(Both the Colourbox and the Velvet Elvis got front-page pictures in the P-I‘s Saturday item about the city’s tuff new anti-noise law and schemes by some city councilmembers to relax those limits in designated “entertainment zones,” a little too late to save either club.)
BESIDES A DECENT ALL-AGES SPACE and zoned relief from anti-nightlife legal putsches, what does Seattle need? That’s your next question at the luscious Misc. Talk discussion boards. And we’re still seeking your nominations about which 1995-99 Seattle bands oughta be mentioned in the forthcoming update of Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story. Elsewhere in new-addition-land…
WATCH D.T.S., GET THE D.T.s: The Casbah Cinema, that beuatifully-designed but poorly-marketed boutique theater in Belltown, has been revamped by new owners as the Big Picture. It’s now a beer-and-wine bar with a fancy-schmancy digital video projection system in the old Casbah auditorium room. The owners believe, as I wrote here some time back, that theaters shouldn’t just be for feature films and tavern TVs shouldn’t just be for sports. They plan to have a whole schedule of fun programming events, ranging from cult movies and sports to X-Files episode screenings and music-video nights. It’s also available for private parties, software-company demonstrations, anime fan-club meetings, movie-studio sneak previews, etc.
I probably will continue seeing most of my movies-on-projection-video-with-beer at 2nd Avenue Pizza, but the Big Picture’s HDTV setup is truly awesome. It’s much sharper than the analog HDTV system I saw a couple years back at the old UA Cinemas; even a basketball game (live sports are the ultimate test of digital video) looked clean and crisp. Elsewhere in visual-entertainment-land…
CONJUNCTION JUNCTION: After years of the sleaze-sex mags getting closer and closer to The Act, Penthouse has finally started running apparent actual hardcore pix as of its June issue (in a sword-and-sorcery fantasy pictorial), and (along with its almost-as-explicit competitors) has faced the expected legal challenges in the expected southern and midwestern states. Either the publishers seem to think they can win the court cases and vend images of actual coitus thru mainstream magazine outlets, or the competition for wankers’ bucks has gotten so intense the publishers believe they have to do this to compete with hardcore videos, websites, CD-ROMS, etc.
The demand for explicitness in sex-entertainment has increased steadily in the three decades since hardcore films and images first went above-ground. Today, hardcore tapes can be rented in almost every non-chain video store (and can be purchased in non-chain convenience stores); while softcore tapes (other than those depressing , anti-intimacy “erotic thrillers”) are in far fewer outlets and often for sale only. Of all the new girlie mags in recent years, only Perfect 10 (and retro-zines like Kutie) appeal to a classic pin-up aesthetic instead of simply piling on as much raunch as the distribution channel will bear.
Some observers claim this trend signifies a failure of imagination, of good taste, or even of respect for women. I think it means something else–that smut consumers are, on the average, moving away from passive “pedastel” female ideals and instead prefer to fantasize about women who are active, enthusiastic participants in The Act.
Then, of course, there’s the little matter of what makes hardcore hardcore. It’s not how much you see of the women, but how much you see of the men. The triumph of hardcore means more and more straight-identifying men want to look at other men’s sex parts in action, photographed as sharply and clearly as possible. One recently-notorious subgenre, the “gangbang” video, shows its straight-male audiences dozens of male bodies surrounding just one woman.
But gangbang videos are ugly, as is hardcore in general. As I’ve previously mentioned, the hardcore anti-aesthetic literalizes the phrase “ugly as sin.” While the action scenes in Penthouse are at least competently lit and photographed, they still adhere to a formula of garish colors, contorted expressions, and grotesquely obvious implants. Historically, the formula leads out from the old days of underground smut, all dangerous and anti-propriety. Today, it leads from the porn-video industry’s ruthless combination of tiny budgets and strict requirements. But it’s also a look its target audience seems to prefer. Perhaps these men have such poor self body-images, they can only comfortably look at other men’s bodies when they’re depicted among ugly surroundings.
Will this ugliness change as coitus imagery goes further beyond porn-specialty stores and into your local beer-and-cigarette shop? Many cultures around the world have found beautiful ways to depict coitus via the arts of painting, drawing, and sculpture. Contemporary erotic photography has produced many beautiful works, but almost all of them (even Robert Mapplethorpe’s) are predicated on The Pose, not The Act. Posing involves a person or persons openly displaying their personas out toward the viewer; actual sex (if it’s any good) constitutes two people becoming all caught up in one another and themselves, ignoring the rest of the world. I’ll still prefer softcore images, even if hardcore becomes less icky-looking, for this reason. I don’t want to vicariously imagine myself in some other man’s body, feeling what that other man gets to feel; I want to imagine my (real) self in the woman’s body.
‘TIL NEXT TIME, when we hope to have topics less prone to too-obvious puns, embrace the warmth, question the war, and consider this by Jane Austen: “I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”
MISC., the column that likes to think it knew better than to plant delicate little outdoor plants just before last Saturday’s overnight near-freeze, is proud as heck that ex-Steelhead zine editor Alex Steffen has not only taken the helm of the once-moribund local advocacy group Allied Arts, but has, along with his colleagues in the agency’s new leadership, issued a strong call for Seattle to become a city that actually supports the arts and artists, instead of merely coasting on its decaying “liberal” reputation as an excuse to subsidize construction projects and rich people’s formula entertainments. Speaking of which…
BOARD GAMES: A few nay-sayers in the performance-art community have privately suggested that the board members of On the Boards fired artistic director Mark Murphy, who led the production and theater-management outfit to national prominence, because those board members supposedly wanted to turn OTB away from art-for-art’s-sake presentations and closer toward yupscale commercial crowd pleasers, whatever those might be in the realms of modern dance and post-jazz music. (Mellow acoustic folkies? Lord of the Dance clone acts?) Anyhoo, I don’t quite believe the story. I have no proof either way, but I can imagine the board firing Murphy out of little more than personal spite. It’s still a shameful situation that shouldn’t have happened. Murphy’s possibly the best arts promoter this town’s seen (outside of the rock and DJ-music realms) since COCA’s heyday. Part-time board members can come and go, but an artistic director like Murphy’s someone you oughta try to keep under most any circumstances.
UPDATE #1: The Big Book of Misc. goes to press this week! Everything’s on schedule for the Tues., 6/8 release party, now tentatively scheduled for the new Ditto Tavern at 5th & Bell. Mail orders are now being accepted; online ordering’s still in the process of being set up. The updated version of my older book, Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story, also continues apace, with that publication date still more-or-less set for late Sept. or early Oct. I still wanna know which 1995-99 local acts ought to be mentioned in it; make your nominations at our splendido Misc. Talk discussion boards.
UPDATE #2: Summit Cable has resumed transmitting the public access channel 29 after one week in which it claimed TCI had ceased feeding the channel to it and TCI claimed Summit was simply not receiving the feed properly due to an engineering glitch of some sort.
UPDATE #3: The Speakeasy Cafe will remain open! And, as I’d recommended (not that they deliberately followed my advice or anything), its post-June 1 format will reiterate its core identity as an Internet cafe and low-key Belltown neighborhood hangout joint. The money-losing food-service side of the operation (soups, salads, sandwiches, hummus) has already been cut back. Within three weeks, there’ll be no more cover-charge music shows in the front room (which, besides drawing negative attention from the Liquor Board and the pool hall upstairs, detracted from the drop-in atmosphere an Internet cafe needs). While some music events may continue in the Speakeasy’s back room, the end of front-room shows means the loss of what had become a premier venue for Seattle’s vibrant avant-improv scene. Elsewhere in clubland…
DANCING TO THE TUNE OF $$: 700 Club/Last Supper Club entrepreneur Bill Wheeler says he loves being the target of that hate poster some anonymous Judas has pasted all over Pioneer Square, headlined “The Last Supper Club: All Hype” and berating it as a cash-grubbing nouveau riche hangout, a traitor to the supposed “tribal” spirit of the dance-music community. Wheeler says he couldn’t have generated better publicity had he made the poster himself (which he insists he didn’t).
Wheeler’s also quite proud of the expensive, elitist reputation his new club has so far succeeded in creating, and which the poster-creator loathed: “Can you believe it? People are paying $50 to get into the place! This is what Seattle’s needed.” Well, loyal Misc. readers already know what I think about headstrong San Franciscans (which Wheeler would freely admit to being) unilaterally proclaiming what Seattle needs, so I won’t persue that remark any further. As for paying that kind of money as a cover charge for entree to DJ music and a no-host bar (and suffering, on heavy nights, from a disco-era “selective door” policy), I’m fairly confident true Seattle hipsters can discern whether it’s worthy of their bother and their $$ or not. If not, I’m sure the savvy Wheeler can keep the business going by remarketing it to certain cyber-wealthy squares who think they can buy their way into hipness. Speaking of dance-club goers and notions of what’s hip…
HET-SETTERS: Entrepreneurs in the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. area (you know, home of the nation’s raunchiest strip-club scene and the region that tried to take away our baseball team) have launched a line of T-shirts and other logo apparel called “Str8 Wear,” purporting to announce heterosexual pride. Of course, that’s the sort of thing that stands to easily get misconstrued as gay-hatred. The designers insist in interviews and on their website that “We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro-heterosexual,” and merely want to offer “your chance to let everyone know you are proud of your sexuality,” via “an emblem that will identify you as a person who is available to the opposite sex.” It’s especially intended, the designers claim, for patrons of certain dance-music clubs and other urban-nightlife scenes where anyone who’s not gay might feel themselves branded as total out-of-it squares.
There are other problems with the Str8 Wear concept. It invites its wearers to see themselves as a tight li’l subculture via a term that merely indicates belonging to a vast, undifferentiated majority (except when referring to that punk-rock subsector, “str8 edge”). (But then again, merchandisers have long tried to persuade customers they’re expressing their invididuality by being just like most everybody else.)
A more positive, even more provocative, alternative might be the models at that T-shirt store on University Way, “I (heart) Men,” “I (heart) Women,” “I (heart) Cock,” and “I (heart) Pussy.” These come closer to provoking some of the anti-hetero biases that still exist in an urban-hipster culture where, too often, “sex positive attitudes” are permitted only to gay men, lesbians, and female-dominant fetishists.
In the square/conservative realm, sexually active straight men are often denounced as selfish rogues (or, more clinically, as “sex addicts”); and sexually active straight women are still often disdained as sluts (or, more clinically, as suffering from “self esteem issues”).
In the so-called “alternative” realm, straight men are often viciously stereotyped as misogynistic rapist-wannabes; and straight women are often condescendingly treated as either the passive victims of Evil Manhood or as really lesbians who just don’t know it yet.
As I’ve said from time to time, we need to rediscover a positive vision of heterosexuality, one that goes beyond the whitebread notion of “straight” and toward a more enthusiastic affirmation of one’s craving to connect with other-gendered bodies and souls. Hets don’t need to differentiate themselves from gays as much as they need to learn from them. To learn to take pride in one’s body and one’s desires, no matter what the pesky stereotypers say about you. Elsewhere in gender-identity-land…
BEATING AROUND THE BUSCH: The big beer companies, seeing the money to be made in gay bars, have for some time now tried to position themselves as at least tacit supporters of the gay-rights cause. Miller (owned by Jesse Helms’s pals at Phillip Morris) has cosponsored the Gay Pride Parade in Seattle for several years. Coors (owned by Orrin Hatch’s pal Pete Coors) has run ads in gay magazines claiming the company’s a lot queer-friendlier than popular rumor has sometimes alleged. And Anheuser-Busch has placed huge ad banners inside gay bars reviving (and repurposing) the Bud Light ad-tagline from a few years ago, “Yes, I Am.” Now, the company’s devised an ad for mainstream magazines depicting two men holding hands; quite possibly the first time this has been shown in any big company’s product ad (even the Chivas Regal ad from a few years ago had its gay couple maintaining proper distance while they jogged along a beach). The slogan: “Be yourself, and make it a Bud Light.” Apparently, the company’s got hundreds of homophobic phone callers denouncing the ad. If you want to show your support, you can dial the same number (1-800-DIAL-BUD). Remember, you can approve of this modest symbol of inclusiveness even if you never drink the beer.
‘TIL NEXT WEEK AT THIS SAME TIME (or whatever time you choose to read the column), pray for warmth, root for the Seattle-owned TrailBlazers in the basketball playoffs, and ponder these still-ahead-of-their-time words attributed to JFK: “I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.”
