grouchymuffin.com

Don’t ask me how or why, but I’ve again gotten volunteered into performing at this year’s Seattle Invitationals, a contest for Elvis Tribute Artists (ETAs). It starts at 8 p.m. tonight (Sat. 1/14/12) at the Experience Music Project within Seattle Center. Be there or be Pat Boone.

• It was that rare example of a small entrepreneurial outfit thriving within the nesting arms of a global brand. But no more. Raise a pure-cane-sugar-sweetened toast to the demise of Dublin Dr Pepper.
• What if they gave a gay-marriage debate and none of the “antis” came?
• A Wall St. Journal essayist believes Eastman Kodak might have survived the film-to-digital metamorphosis if only it hadn’t been HQ’d in the company town of Rochester NY, where management felt too beholden to company-owned factories and U.S.-based union workers. I say bosh. Kodak once had great marketers and designers who knew the shtick of “planned obsolescence,” issuing new consumer film formats every two years (and pressuring local processing plants to re-gear for each of them). The digital realm, where obsolescence is a natural byproduct of rapidly improving technologies, should’ve been perfect for them. But they let Japanese companies out-market them. A shame.
• Wendy Gittleson at AddictingInfo.org exaggerates a little when she claims Bain Capital (Mitt Romney’s former corporate-raidin’ firm) “owns most conservative and some liberal radio stations,” and that these forces are helping make Romney’s nomination a done deal. Bain is a non-controlling shareholder in Clear Channel (owner of some 1,000 radio stations of various formats, including KJR-AM-FM here) and Premiere Radio Networks (syndicator of many conserva-talk stars, plus libs Randi Rhodes and Jesse Jackson). And many Premiere conserva-talkers have been part of the right’s “anyone but Mitt” crusade.
• Another state’s Republicans want to force mumbo-jumbo “creationism” down public school students’ throats. And college students’ throats too.
• In 2006, the Federal Reserve Board fiddled while the housing bubble prepared to burst.
• Mr. Krugman explains better than I: “America Isn’t a Corporation.” Running government “more like a business” never works. Especially when the model for “business” is today’s dysfunctional, hyper-corrupt corporate world.

1975 opening; from onelifetolive.wikia.com

(Again this year, I’ve been drafted into participating in the Seattle Invitationals, a contest for Elvis Tribute Artists (ETA; and yes, that acronym is used within this particular scene). In keeping with the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair (and of It Happened at the World’s Fair), this year’s edition is under the Space Needle at the Experience Music Project, 8 p.m. Saturday. Be there or be Fabian.)

• It’s another sad day in TV land. For the fourth time in as many years, a generations-spanning narrative ends. The idea that anything as out-of-thin-air as a fictional yarn could grow and morph and dig itself in for 43 and a half years (in One Life to Live’s case) seems bizarre enough in today’s media sphere. That it did so in the old three-network TV milieu is a testament to (1) the continued ingenuity of producers and writers and actors, and (2) the fact that these productions became so expensive, with such limited revenue models, that the networks would rather reinvent existing shows than replace them. But in the 500-channels-plus-Internet world, even the old-line networks can’t support these dinosaurs of drama. Alas.
• The City of Seattle now has this handy little array of online city maps. One of the niftiest of the batch depicts the different types of street trees you can find around town. “Number one: the larch… the larch…“
• Get ready for more booze in more places in Seattle Center.
• Unlike KPLU, I have a hard time feeling sorry for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
• The McCormick and Schmick’s restaurants were just taken over by the parent company of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
• Is the author of a Congressional bill that would make online copyright violators face jail time (aka the bill that would “break the Internet“) himself an online image, er, borrower?
• White “antiracist essayist” Tim Wise considers Ron Paul to be only a few gradations less icky than the Ku Klux Klan.
• The creator of a new sitcom filled with ethnic stereotypes says it’s OK when he invokes stereotypes because he’s gay. Note to the confused: Gay white people are still white people.
• A “sexual politics” blogger would like you all to stop dissing female right-wing politicians with the same “slut”-bashing language you hate when right-wingers themselves use it.
• The concept of a “beer for women” has been tried before and failed. This time, MillerCoors is preparing to market a specially-formulated “bloat resistant” light lager. It’ll come in three named flavors: “Clear Filtered,” “Crisp Rosé,” AND “Zesty Lemon.” What’s even more bizarre is the name they’ve given the thing: “Animée.” It’s French for “livened up.” But you and I know it won’t be out three seconds before someone asks whether it’s the favorite beverage of, say, Sailor Moon.

Once again, the Space Needle held a fireworks spectacular to ring in the new year. It almost makes me forgive ’em for their role in the Chihuly gallery fiasco.

This year’s boom-boom lasted a healthy eight minutes, with a vast array of colors and effects.

My wishes for the year to come:

• Health and financial stability for you all.
• Serious progress toward revenue reform in this state at last.
• At least one local sports team with a winning season.
• And the total repudiation of the Rabid Right this election season, nationally and in each state.

Besides my current contract job deep within the belly of the publishing beast (now on week 12 of what was to have been 7.5 weeks), I’m coming off of a horrid and still undiagnosed chest thang that had me coughing and hacking like hell.

So I’ve been spending most of my non-working hours resting, not preparing blog posts.

Here are some random links I’ve been saving up.

• “Metronatural,” Seattle’s second dumbest tourism slogan (after “The Emerald City”), may be on the way out.
• The 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair approaches. The Seattle Channel’s ready with a handy video retrospective.
• Eric Scigliano goes to the once lily white suburbs of south King County to check out the ethnic variety that’s settled in there, as well as the recessionary troubles.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment to get corporate megabucks out of American politics. Nobody expects the proposal to move an inch in the megabucks-owned Congress. The alternate route would be a new “constitutional convention,” which could put up such an amendment for passage by state legislatures (which are also more or less megabucks-owned).
• The Wall Street banksters own so many politicians that nobody dares to officially investigate all their funny-money nonsense.
• Local music mainstay Jesse Sykes complains there’s too much music out these days. Jake Uitti responds by accusing Sykes of having a “fold city” mentality. Uitti defines that as…

A state of being defined by lack, self-oppression and ultimately the judgment of others.

a teenage pugmire as 'count pugsley'

Before he gained national cult fame as “the world’s greatest living Lovecraftian writer,” Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire already had several other claims to fame.

He’d played the costumed mad scientist “Count Pugsly” at the Jones Fantastic Museum in Seattle Center.

He’d published Punk Lust, a literate and intimately personal zine chronicling his life as a queer Mormon, doing restaurant work to support his obsessions with punk rock, horror fiction, and Barbra Streisand.

He’d been a constant figure on the local music scene, sometimes appearing at events in goth-white face paint with ruby red lipstick.

Finally, in recent years Pugmire’s horror fiction has risen in stature, from a few short stories in scattered anthologies to full-length, limited edition books.

He hasn’t been very visible lately. He was stuck at home, taking care of a dying mother.

Now he’s the patient. He’s reportedly now in a Seattle hospital, dealing with a worsening heart condition.

Several days ago he wrote a blog post announcing his retirement from writing. In it, he described his condition as follows:

I have been extremely ill for over a month, and it doesn’t seem like I’m gonna get better any time soon.  Tonight has been one of the worst nights.  I think my ailments are a combination of heart disease and lingering bronchitis.  One of my ailments is coranary arterial spasms, which happens usually when I recline in bed and try to sleep–they jerk my body and produce a little yelp, making sleep impossible so that I am a zombie moft of ye time.

I know no more about Pugmire’s condition at this time. Will Hart, at the horror blog CthuluWho1, is keeping track.

from 62worldsfair.com

• Joel Connelly looks back at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, whose 50th anniversary looms. He sees a city then and now insecurely seeking validation from outside, yearning to be “put on the map.”
• Neighborhood activists on Beacon Hill want to create an “edible landscape” area in Jefferson Park, full of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.
• The City of Seattle wanted to lease Building 11 at Magnuson Park, now used as art studios and a kayak shop, to a commercial developer. Then it changed its collective mind and put conditions on the deal, designed to help current tenants keep their spaces. The developer’s suing.
• The Washington State Liquor Stores’ top sellers include the cheap stuff, flavored vodka, and Jaegermeister.
• A hundred people demonstrated near the ex-WaMu HQ against corporate tax breaks (state level).
• R.E.M., which became a “half Seattle band” in the mid 1990s, is finally calling it a day.
• Headline of the day (by Nick Eaton): “Blue screen of death is a little cuter in Windows 8.”
• Amanda Marcotte believes far-right “tea party” congresscritters and supporters are so sociopathic because they come from the suburbs. I believe that’s a lame excuse. There are caring, uncaring, and violently anti-caring people everywhere.
• There’s something really, really fun this Saturday, if you haven’t already heard. And there will be only caring people at it.

• A victim of the war-on-terra hype some folks would like brought back: busking musicians on ferry boats.
• Here’s CNN’s take on the scandal of Border Patrol agents unfairly harassing Latino locals on the Olympic Peninsula. The headline: “Border agent says there’s nothing to do, says money being wasted.” In other words, if it weren’t for the war-on-terra hype, none of this would be happening.
• There’s a reason all the local media latched onto the aging Hall and Oates as this year’s big Bumbershoot stars. It’s because they were the only act this year both famous enough and old enough for media people to have heard of. (Apparently, the big name acts now want a cool half million per show. And you were wondering why you haven’t heard many recessionary protest songs by said big name acts.)
• The Neptune Theater’s official re-opening, later this month, will include a one-night nod to the U District house’s roots. I speak, of course, of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which played midnight shows at the Neptune for more than a decade.
• Recession Sign #1: More parents are discovering public schools are just fine after all.
• Recession Sign #2: Realistic novels and stories about the socio-economically struggling are back in vogue.
• Adam Doree wants Steve Jobs to finally get around to donate a few buck to charity already.
• Sady Doyle really, really hates the Game of Thrones books. And Alyssa Rosenberg doesn’t particularly care for Doyle’s putdowns of the books. The point-O-contention: The novels depict women enduring some of the violent brutalities one might find in a violent, brutal fictional setting.
• Elsewhere in genderland, Hugo Schwyzer wants you to define the word “man” to mean not-boy, instead of not-woman.
• The Guardian, ever on the prowl for American weirdness with which to addle and astound its Brit readers, has discovered the “muscular Christianity” in evangelical-fringe books such as No More Christian Mr. Nice Guy. The writer seems to have never heard of the Church of the SubGenius and its “real FIGHTIN’ JESUS.”

illo to hugo gernsback's story 'ralph 124C41+,' from davidszondy.com

As we approach the Century 21 Exposition’s 50th anniversary, Seattle magazine asked a bunch of local movers, shakers, and thinkers what one thing they’d like to see this city build, create, or establish. Contributors could propose anything at any cost, as long they described one thing in one paragraph.

This, of course, is in the time honored local tradition of moaning about “what this town needs.”

In my experience, guys who start that sentence almost always finish it by desiring an exact copy of something from San Francisco or maybe New York (a restaurant, a nightspot, a civic organization, a public-works project, a sex club, etc.).

But this article’s gaggle of imaginers doesn’t settle for such simplistic imitation.

They go for site specific, just-for-here concepts.

Some of the pipe dreams are basic and obvious:

• Grist.org’s Chip Giller and the Seattle Channel’s Nancy Guppy want more, and more convenient, public transit.
• Former state Republican leader Chris Vance wants the Sonics back, and in Seattle Center not the suburbs, in an NHL-capable arena (I heartily agree).
• My ol’ acquaintance and ACT Theatre boss Carlo Scandiuzzi wants more treatment centers for the mentally ill.
• Greg Lundgren used his allotted paragraph to plug Walden Three, the comprehensive arts center he wants to build in the building where the Lusty Lady used to be (and which this web-space mentioned a couple of days ago).

Other dreamers dream bigger:

• Chris Curtis wants more farmers’ markets, at permanent locations, with community centers attached to them.
• Tom Douglas wants a new, efficient distribution system to get surplus food to feeding programs.
• Kraig Baker wants an “incubation fund” that would allow workers of all ages to take a “gap year” and explore their selves and their futures.
• Seattle magazine and Crosscut.com writer Knute Berger wants computer-graphic projections of how today’s Seattle might have looked if, say, the Denny Regrade had never been dug.
• Geekwire.com’s John Cook wants a privately funded “Billionaire University” to train the next generation of tech geniuses. (Compare this idea to that of Jordan Royer, who wants more voc-tech training.)
• Citytank.org’s John Bertolet wants a giant sci-fi weather machine to make it nice outside all the time.
• Publicola.net’s Josh Feit wants a “tax on the Seattle Process,” sending money out of politicians’ campaign funds for every piece of long-term-stalled legislation they propose. (The money would go to Chicago!)

•

As for me, I could be snarky and say that what this town needs is fewer people sitting around talking about what this town needs.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll propose turning the post-viaduct waterfront into a site for active entertainment.

We’ve already got Myrtle Edwards Park and the Olympic Sculpture Park for passive, meditative sea-gazing and quiet socializing.

The central waterfront should be more high-energy.

Specifically, it should be a series of lively promenades and “amusement piers.”

Think the old Fun Forest, bigger and better.

Think pre-Trump Atlantic City.

Think England’s Blackpool beach.

Heck, even think Coney Island.

A bigass Ferris wheel. A monster roller coaster. Carny booths and fortune tellers. Outdoor performance stages and strolling buskers. Corn dogs and elephant ears. People walking and laughing and falling in love. Some attractions would be seasonal; others would be year-round. Nothing “world class” (i.e., monumentally boring). Nothing with “good taste.” Everything that tastes good.

atlantic city steel pier, from bassriverhistory.blogspot.com

SIDEBAR: By the way, when I looked for an online image to use as a retro illustration to this piece, I made a Google image search for “future Seattle.” Aside from specific real-estate projects, all the images were of gruesome dystopian fantasies. I’ll talk about the current craze for negative futurism some time later.

• When better toilets are designed, the Gates Foundation will design them.
• R.I.P. Bagley Wright, 1924-2011. A Princeton grad from Georgia who married into the Bloedel timber family, Wright was one of the five original Space Needle investors (hence the Needle’s original corporate name, the “Pentagram Corp.”). He also helped run the Seattle Art Museum and the Seattle Repertory Theatre, cofounded the medical-devices maker Physio Control, was a key player in downtown real estate development, was a major early investor in Seattle Weekly, and sold the house where Kurt Cobain died. He and his wife Virginia amassed a large contemporary-art collection, some of which is on view at their own gallery space.
• Anand Giridharadas believes it’s all well and good for bright minds to go to work at “social entrepreneur” projects, but he insists that “real change requires politics.”
• Buried in a story about PopCap Games boss Dave Roberts is an important lesson that always needs re-teaching:

…Making simple products is way more difficult than making complicated products…. Simple is more complicated, simple is elegant, simple is harder.”

• How I misspent my Saturday—getting lost in the Seattle Public Library’s historic 1962 World’s Fair pictures. I’m particularly fascinated by the name of a fair exhibit, the “Home of the Immediate Future.”
• Sable Verity wants the Seattle Urban League to come back strong from its recent misfortunes, and believes its once-and-future leader is not the man for the job.
• Close a hillside road. Bring in a dump truck, pre-loaded with 10,000 tennis balls. You can guess the wondrous spectacle that ensues.
• One positive result of the viaduct and 520 highway projects—the discovery of lots of pioneer garbage!
• Everybody in or near Seattle: Go see Mad Homes. It’s a site specific art installation occurring in a group of Capitol Hill houses set to be razed for apartments later this year. The 11 invited artists, given free rein to make “permanent” changes to the structures, have filled them and their front and side yards with fun and fanciful works. It’s up until Aug. 7.

• Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said he’d like to be involved in an effort to bring men’s pro basketball back to Seattle. But, he claims, there’s a “real estate problem.” This problem can only be solved with a new arena, which would cost $300-500 million. KeyArena, Ballmer asserts, is too small; though it’s actually well in the range of NBA arena capacities. What it lacks are more luxury boxes and an NHL-friendly hockey configuration. Ballmer also apparently didn’t mention that as long as the City of Seattle owns KeyArena, it won’t subsidize a new building that would compete for concerts and other bookings. Even if the city had the money, which it doesn’t. (Question: Could KeyArena be expanded again without knocking down the nearby Northwest Court complex?)
• For decades, University of Washington administrators have chafed at the presence of all those pesky college students walking around, diverting time and attention away from the world-class-research-institution stuff the administrators would much rather focus on. Now, the current UW bigwigs have come across a solution, in the form of a whoppin’ 20 percent in-state tuition hike. Students plan to protest.
• The federal government has indeed sold the former Rick’s strip club building. And yes, the new owner will probably open another strip club there.
• Howard S. Wright, the construction giant that built the Space Needle and Columbia Center, was sold off to a Texas company.
• Could it really rain more at airports?

Mayor McGinn found places at Seattle Center to put both a for-profit Chihuly glass-art gallery and a new home for KEXP.

The latter, which will include a live-performance studio with viewing windows, will be built out with no city funds. Expect even-longer pledge drives on the station starting next year.

The space will be in the Northwest Court buildings. That’s where the Vera Project is now and SIFF Cinema will be soon.

Of course, this means all of the Northwest Court’s rental spaces will be taken over by permanent tenants. Hence, they are no longer available for Bumbershoot’s visual and literary arts exhibits. This will result in these programs either getting diminished, or relocated to other Center spots. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

The northern part of Seattle Center’s former Fun Forest amusement-park site is set to become something called “Center Square.”

Which leads to the rather obvious question: Paul Lynde or Whoopi Goldberg?

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.

Our pal David Goldstein at HorsesAss.org has what I think is a splendid idea: instead of replacing Seattle Center’s doomed Fun Forest with a huge hoity-toity paid-admission Dale Chihuly glass exhibit, let’s put in a really great new family play area.