The above is what a 76 gas-station sign, bowl-style, ought to look like.

The 76 emblem has been orange for nearly 80 years. It was orange when it was successively shaped as a shield, a vertical rectangle, a disc, a sphere, and finally a bowl. It was orange under the successive managements of Union Oil Co. of California, Unocal, Tosco, and Phillips 66.

This abomination is the new red 76 bowl, imposed after Conoco bought Phillips. Corporate powers-that-be apparently decreed that since the Conoco lozenge logo and the Phillips 66 shield logo are red, so should the 76 bowl.

The red bowl signage has been installed at the chain’s longtime outlet at Westlake and Mercer, and more recently at an ex-Chevron station on Broadway (across from an apartment building built on a former 76 station site). It will probably be phased in across the brand’s marketing territory over the next few months. There’s not much any of us can do about it, except register our complaints and fly our antenna balls at half-staff.

A CERTAIN GENT OF THE STREETS (specifically, Ballard Avenue) has at least one friend to nuture and rely upon.

TIMES CHANGE, and so do loyalties.

…formerly the Rhodes of Seattle department store, began to come down during the same week that M. Lamont Bean, who closed Rhodes and turned its suburban branches into the Lamonts apparel chain, passed away.

Bean’s story was one of your classic rise-and-fall (or should I say rise n’ fall?) tales. He started as a protege to his dad Monte Bean, who’d bought the Tradewell grocery chain and opened the first Pay n’ Save pharmacy at Fourth and Pike. Bean fils built Pay n’ Save into 300 stores in 10 states. He further built his “Family of Stores” empire by buying Ernst Hardware, Malmo Nurseries, Rhodes (which begat Lamonts), and Seattle Sporting Goods (which begat SportsWest). By the ’70s, it seemed like every other strip mall in Washington was anchored either by Pay n’ Save/Ernst or Pay n’ Save/Tradewell.

But a takeover bid for Schuck’s Auto Supply left him in debt and vulnerable to a 1984 takeover by New York financiers Julius and Eddie Trump (no relation to Donald). They sold off the Bean chains, piece by piece.

Pay n’ Save, including the Fourth and Pike flagship, is now absorbed into Rite Aid. What’s left of Lamonts is now part of Gottschalk’s. Ernst and SportsWest have disappeared altogether. Only Schuck’s, the buy that broke Bean, remains under its original name (though now merged with two other regional chains under parent company CSK Auto).

BRAVE SIGN INSTALLERS at the Kenneth Cole store (where Lamont Bean’s Ernst used to have its flagship outlet) unwittingly turn themselves into image props for giant-woman fetishists everywhere.

TELL ME AGAIN why I’m supposed to want to live someplace else?

IT’S BEEN AWHILE since humans were featured in our random Photo Phridays. So here’s a selection for your enjoyment.

JUST IN TIME for the tenth anniversary of his leaving us, fresh Cobain shirt designs are in the tourist shops.

ANYONE REMEMBER Professor Egghead?

THE MIDWAY DRIVE-IN on Highway 99 north of Tacoma, more recently just used as a Swap & Shop site, is gonna be razed for a Lowe’s and a strip mall. Where’s Joe Bob Briggs when we need him? Oh yeah–he’s got religion now.

IN HONOR of the passing of the darkest 13 weeks of the pagan year, some random rain pix for Photo Phriday.

For the third year, the Pioneer Square Mardi Gras was a low-key battle between the citizen proponents of fun and the official enforcers of no-fun. This year, an informal truce seemed to have been reached. Nobody I saw tried too hard to act high and/or rowdy; the police seemed more interested in traffic control than with forced attitude adjustment.

An accurate photo essay on the event would have nine pictures of cops and one of participants, instead of the other way around.

No wonder Polaroid’s in Chapter 11: An enterprising entrepreneuse sold digital pix of the low-key revelers, which she instantly churned out on a portable mini-printer.

JUST ANOTHER BUNCH of random Photo Phriday stuph.

JUST SOME pseudo-random street abstractions for today’s Photo Phriday. Enjoy.

…to Linda Dershang and the hard-workin’ gang at Linda’s Tavern on Pine. Hipster hangouts have notorious attrition rates, so the continued thriving of Linda’s is particularly praiseworthy.

My favorite personally-viewed events at Linda’s:

• The night the place was taken over by just laid-off Amazon.com workers, who cheerled the whole room into rousing chants of “FUCK AMAZON!”
• The cinema night on the back patio with Bette Davis’s evil-twin scenery-chompin’ performance in Dead Ringer.
• The election-night party for the sponsors of the first Monorail Initiative. For one brief shining moment, it looked as if the likes of Dick Falkenbury and Grant Cogswell really could change the world. And who knows, they still might.

Linda’s is also one of the last places where Cobain appeared in public, as you’re bound to hear next month as the media get ready to hype that, less happy ten-year anniversary.

It looks increasingly possible after Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses in seven states. The candidate was so confident about those contests, he (and Dean) came here, to rally the respective faithful for our own caucuses on Saturday.

The Kerry rally at the Sheraton ran late, as these things usually do. It was scheduled for 7:30, but at 8:15 people were still being herded into the big ballroom. Inside, the event turned out to be the Kerry & Gary Show, with Gov. Locke (seen here to Kerry’s right) introducing the candidate and warming up the crowd.

Kerry’s speech was standard boilerplate stuff. Get a decent health-care system, save the environment, stop sucking up to “Benedict Arnold CEOs,” dump Ashcroft, get some integrity back in D.C., elect a president who’s been on an aircraft carrier for real, bring it on. Some of the comments by audience members were more telling, particularly the catty talks about other audience members who showed up with Dean buttons.

One thing was sure: From certain angles, he looks remarkably like Jon Stewart, or maybe Clutch Cargo. On CNN later that night, the panels-O-pundits (particularly Mo Rocca and Wolf Blitzer) couldn’t get over how Kerry’s emerged as the most manly Democratic candidate in many an election cycle. Thankfully, CNN hasn’t switched to HDTV yet, so you had to imagine Mo and Wolf salivating and sweating at the thought of ol’ Ketchup Boy’s eyebrows, his dimples, his rugged war-hero shoulders.

The other thing I noticed on CNN Tuesday night: Everyone who mentioned Kerry’s speech on the channel used the annoyingly belittling qualifier “Seattle, WASHINGTON,” except, thankfully, for local-boy-gone-big Aaron Brown.

FAO Schwarz’s Seattle store closed last week after eight and a half years as the city’s premier emporium for all things play-like.

Seeing a once-proud institution collapse like this was sad, but perhaps not preventable. Yeah, management claims Wal-Mart did ’em in; but the FAO stores were in downtowns and major malls, far from the Wal’s exurban big boxes. I smell mismanagement, perhaps on a big scale. But it makes little difference now.

For mass-market toy merchandise (the Barbie-level stuff, as opposed to the Beanie Baby-type stuff sold more exclusively at indie stores), in-town Seattle shoppers are largely stuck with Fred Meyer, the Bon, and the Northgate Toys “R” Us.

IF TOMORROW, “Super Sunday,” is America’s biggest day for macho horseplay, last Friday night was Seattle’s night to celebrate beauty.

First, there was the lavish opening party for Spa Noir, a new posh pampering palace in the former Confounded Books space at Second and Bell. Above, owner Jessica Norton receives a bouquet of flowers and a socket wrench to celebrate having finally gotten the space ready.

Spa Noir offers all the favorite day spa services (facials, massages, manicures, etc.), but offers them until 10 p.m. Appointments can be made for even later at night, so bar and nightclub workers will have something to go to after closing time besides the suburban casinos.

Just a block away, the Rendezvous hosted the Nerd Rock Fashion Show A Go-Go, a sprightly little fashion show featuring local designers and benefitting the fledgling DIY arts orgalization Hometown Gravy.

Then, down by Terry and Mercer at Consolidated Works,, came the lavisher-than-lavish opening night gala for the second Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. You’ve got to get there this weekend. It fills Conworks’ cavernous exhibition space with hundreds upon hundreds of paintings, drawings, sculptures, Etch-A-Sketches, installation pieces, and more. They mostly are figure studies of lone females and males in provocative poses. There are also many fetish action scenes, some gay action and lesbian action scenes, and even three or four images of heterosexual coitus (the one category noticeably missing at last year’s festival in Town Hall).

It was often hard to see the beautiful art because of all the beautiful people in the way. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of flirty gals and dashing guys swarmed the joint, reveling in their fabulosity.

The festival organizers didn’t let me take pictures last night. (Hey, some of ’em are BDSM people, so you have to expect they’ll love to make rules.) I did, however, persuade a finely-coiffed party attendee named Alisha to pose outside the building. (Her outfit was designed by print MISC contributor Jen Velasco.)

As Seattle’s winter overcasts continue their reign of darkness, something like Beauty Night should be an annual ritual.

BOWLING, BOOZE, and free WiFi–the three great tastes that taste great together! And they can all be found, perhaps exclusively in the world, at the lovely Leilani Lanes in north Greenwood.

That’s where I and over two dozen others were on Wednesday night, for a webloggers’ bowling party.

Pictured above, none other than our Confounded Books pal Brad Beshaw. He wasn’t in our group, but just happened to be at the alley the same night.

Besides knockin’ the ol’ pins down, many of us played the Dance Dance Revolution game. Pictured above, “TYD” and Anita Rowland.

…offers great deals on those two great tastes that taste great together–candy bars and diabetes test machines.