“A smart heroin addict is still a heroin addict.”

A Facebook correspondent said that to me, after I rebutted his anti-television screed.

But that’s not what I’m writing about today.

I’m writing to confess something.

Yes, I am an addict.

Specifically, I am addicted to what members of certain online message boards call “stim.”

That’s short for “stimuli.”

In my case, for a broad array of mental/emotional stimuli.

Among many other things, I am addicted to:

• The beat and the chords and the melody of a great pop song.
• The urgency of news headlines, as delivered in any medium.
• The telegraph-inspired urgency of old network radio “news on the hour” themes.
• The scrolling headlines and stock tickers on cable news channels.
• The wild juxtapositions of time/space/narrative in an old newspaper.
• The similar juxtapositions in a well-curated blog.
• The sound of a phonograph needle hitting the scratchy outer groove of a vinyl record.
• The frenetic beauty of a Merrie Melodies cartoon.
• The typography and design of old magazines and newspapers.
• The look and build of an old building, even one that was considered ordinary in its time.
• The all-out attempts at persuasion seen in old advertisements, pamphlets, political badges, and printed pop ephemera of all types.
• The glow of a neon sign; the stasis of its daylight background base.
• The noise, beats, sights, and smells of many industrial processes (including those that were sampled in the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack).
• The poignancy of urban decay, of streets and structures whose once-noble aspirations have faded with time.
• The “instant insight” of a well turned phrase.
• The “gotcha” moment of a particularly awful pun.
• The sight of a female figure, revealed in artistic, alluring, and/or fun ways.
• All of the sounds, touches, tastes, and scents associated with heterosexual pleasure.
• A sugar rush.
• A caffeine rush.
• The sated feeling after a big meal.
• The exotic thrill of a foreign film, particularly a foreign mass-entertainment film. The song-and-dance spectacles of Bollywood, in which generalized sensuality triumphs over sexual prudery. The audacious blare of an Italian “giallo” soundtrack. The milieu of early British Hitchcock films, just foreign enough to unsettle.

Strangely enough, several genres and industries designed wholly around “stim” don’t particularly enthrall me. Casino gambling; modern video games; big budget special effects movies—I just don’t respond to ’em.

A Pew Resarsch Center survey claims “Americans Consuming More News, Thanks to the Internet.”

The study says online reading “supplements, rather than replaces” traditional media. Yet it also notes that “a mere 8 percent of adults under the age of 30 said they had read a print newspaper the day before they were surveyed.”

If you believe a Harris poll published in Forbes (and there’s no reason why you should), Seattle now ranks #3 on a list of “America’s Coolest Cities”. Only NYC and Vegas outdo us in the pollsters’ matrix of arts & entertainment, recreational opportunities, and economic confidence.

Just weeks after I said the SeaTimes‘ current three-section format had a 26-page minimum size, I’m proven wrong. Tuesday’s paper was a flimsy 24 pages, including less than three pages of paid advertising. (Monday was an “observed” holiday, which meant little new political pronouncements and no stock listings.)

Last Sunday’s SeaTimes was the first I could remember (and I’m old) to have as few as 74 pages (not counting comics, TV section, magazine sections, and ad flyers).

If business at John and Fairview fails to pick up and stay picked up, management might have to impose further draconian cuts. Not to pare back to a profitable size, but to a subsidizeable size. That’s a scenario in which what’s left of the local conservative business community can prop up the paper with vanity ads, or with direct donations.

Yes! There are still people producing small press zines, in print! Those who live around here, and make zines of the comix variety, are promoted at the local blog Profanity Hill.

My ol’ pal Riz Rollins is back in the Stranger this week. It’s only a one time gig, as an interviewee instead of as a first-person essayist like he used to be in the paper, but it’s still great to read his worldview. He’s one of the most thoughtful people I’ve known in any sphere, let alone the sphere of dance music.

Following Tuesday’s minimal 26-page edition, Wednesday’s SeaTimes grew to a slightly less pathetic 34 pages. Still only six and a half pages of paid advertising, though.

At least they’re restoring a full op-ed page on Wednesday now, as well as Friday and Sunday. The Wednesday op-eds will, through the election season, carry electoral-themed material under the rubric “Reset 2010.” It’s all billed as a forum for strong advocacy pieces about changing the direction of local/state government.

Of course, when the SeaTimes talks about changing the direction of government, it means dumping them pesky libruhls wherever possible, and instilling the backers of “common sense,” “realistic” solutions. Said solutions, in Blethenland, invariably involve slashing gov’t. payrolls, busting unions, and generally reducing the public sphere to little more than cops and firefighters and big-business “support” schemes.

As if the Blethens and their hirelings still controlled the voice of the regional business community. Or even knew what that voice was saying.

At one of my regular hangouts, I recently chatted up a nice young lady who was perusing a Stranger. I let it slip out that I’d worked there long ago. For once, I didn’t get a “What’s Dan Savage really like?” Instead I got, “I remember first reading the Stranger when I was a little girl.”

This month’s Atlantic Monthly cover story bears the supposedly provocative title “The End of Men.” Essayist Hanna Rosin declares male dominance is or will soon end in vast stretches of western society—almost up to (but not yet including) top corporate/government leadership. She cites a steadily increasing female dominance in high-school graduation and college enrollment rates. She surveys a post-industrial developed world that declares little need for either muscle-bound labor or macho posturing. And yes, she dutifully mentions Lady Gaga’s videos as somehow symbolizing women’s new-found smugness or something like that.

But I couldn’t help but notice the mag’s cover icon. It’s a male symbol with a drooping arrow. Just like the logo of ’80s local (and all male) punk band Limp Richerds, one of Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm’s several secondary projects.

After several weeks of rarely dipping below 32 pages, Tuesday’s SeaTimes descended again to 26 pages, the current bare-bones minimum in the paper’s current format. What’s worse, the issue contained less than three pages of paid advertising.

And, local bloggers allege, what we do get within our last local broadsheet daily is increasingly weak in whole areas of coverage.

Jeff Reifman has noted online about the SeaTimes‘ avoiding any mention of Microsoft’s successful rerouting of software sales to Nevada for tax purposes.

Effin’ Unsound and Horses Ass, meanwhile, cry foul about the paper’s total silence i/r/t a boiling-over jurisdictional dispute between state attorney general Rob McKenna and commissioner of public lands Peter Goldmark.

It’s a fascinating unfolding saga, more complex than I can do justice to here. Essentially, the Okanogan PUD wants to condemn some Methow Valley land, owned by a state trust that supports schools. Goldmark, whose department oversees the trust, doesn’t want this. McKenna, despite a job description requiring him to represent the state in disputes such as this, refuses to pursue a suit. Goldmark has gone to the State Supreme Court to force McKenna to do McKenna’s job.

The SeaTimes still finds space, however, to run a glowing human interest feature about every sparsely attended tea party rally. And, starting Wednesday, it promises a new weekly commentary special all about why state government should do everything big business wants, or something along those lines.

The book industry site Publishing Perspectives wrote recently about Barry Eisler, a liberal blogger and an author of “political thriller” novels.

He’s got a new novel out called Inside Out. It’s about, among other hot topics, America’s use of torture during the previous decade.

Eisler’s plugging the book on other lefty sites and radio shows.

Publishing Perspectives‘ take on this campaign: Why haven’t the  liberal media plugged books before?

Well, they have.

Ed Schultz, Jim Hightower, and the pre-senatorial Al Franken have each put out several essay collections.

Olbermann and Maddow are always interviewing authors and recommending titles. They sometimes plug the same book on three or more consecutive cablecasts.

The Nation has had at least two book-preview issues a year for as long as I’ve been reading it.

Huffington Post and Daily Kos each have plenty of book pieces.

As for this site, we’ll get back to looks at books soon. Promise.

My ol’ acquaintance Thomas Frank sees pundit/politician reaction to the BP disaster and proclaims that, with a few notable exceptions, “We are all liberals for the duration.”

RULES: Comedian/singer/musician/cabaret improvisor Reggie Watts gets discovered, and fawned upon, in New York magazine.

DROOLS: The long puffy story completely ignores the fourteen years Watts spent as a working musician in Seattle, equally adept at rock, power pop, funk, jazz, and avant-improv.

I recently posted a link to marketing guru Garland Pollard’s list of  “brands to bring back.”

Now, the local angle on missing brands.

Pollard’s blog has praised Seattle’s Major League Soccer franchise for wisely keeping the beloved Sounders name.

He’s scolded the retailer formerly known as Federated Department Stores for trashing its beloved regional store names, including The Bon Marche. He’s suggested bringing those back at least in some capacity.

And when the Post-Intelligencer folded as a print daily, Pollard suggested things Hearst bigwigs could do to keep the P-I brand active, beyond a mere Web presence, such as a weekly print paper or magazine. I think that’s still a good idea.

I, of course, have my own faves I’d like brought back:

• If it can ever be determined who (if anyone) owns the trademark rights to Frederick & Nelson, I’d love to see a new store with that storied name. It needn’t be a full line department store. It could just be a quality family clothing store plus a cosmetics counter and a tea room.
• The Rainier and Olympia beer brands currently live in vestigial form, owned by the Pabst marketing company and made by Miller in LA. It’s time they were brought home, perhaps contract-brewed by one or more local microbrewers.
• With Sound Northwest merged out of existence, the region could use a print music mag again. Why not resurrect The Rocket? I can just see gleefully overdesigned cover portraits of today’s Seattle “beard bands.”
• Someone, somewhere, has the bulk of the exhibits from the Jones Fantastic Museum, the beloved carny attraction that used to reside in what’s now the Seattle Center House.
• Heck, for that matter let’s find a place somewhere in town to put up a new Fun Forest. I suggest the former Frederick Cadillac/Teatro ZinZanni block in Belltown, where two humungous condo towers were supposed to rise up before the housing market fell down.
• Speaking of Belltown, this town still needs a restaurant/lounge as fun, as welcoming, and as classlessly classy as the Dog House.
• Compared to most of these fantasized revivals, there’s actually some practical hope for a new Sonics franchise. The money and the management are in place. I’m certain a re-enlarged arena can be conceived with a minimal govt. investment. This leaves only two obstacles—David Stern and the current team owners at whose bidding he serves.

Corporate consultant Garland Pollard, at his Brandland USA blog, put out a list three years ago of “100 Brands To Bring Back.”

It has many fondly remembered names you might expect on such a list—Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Marshall Field’s (Pollard also wants the other Macyfied regional retailers brought back), Woolworth, Pan Am, Mutual Radio, GTE.

It’s also got at least a couple of clunkers. It’s way too early to get nostalgic over MCI, and I suspect few people would ever place trust in the Enron name again.

On more recent blog entries, Pollard has added his condolences toward Postum, Pontiac, and Continental Airlines, and expresses his fears toward the future of the Mars-acquired Life Savers.