It's here! It's here! All the local news headlines you need to know about, delivered straight to your e-mail box and from there to your little grey brain.
Learn more about it here.
Sign up at the handy link below.
CLICK HERE to get on board with your very own MISCmedia MAIL subscription!
…the latest (sporty, streamlined, high-mileage) Oscar Meyer Wienermobile showed up, along with a video crew. Young attendees of the Center’s Children’s Festival were invited to have themselves taped extolling their love of packaged meat products in song.
And now there are Spanish-language lyrics to the “Wiener Song.” Let’s all sing along, shall we?
…has issued its findings. Thankfully, they want to keep Center House and the Fun Forest, albeit with some serious upgrading. Memorial Stadium would be replaced by an “open space” above underground parking. And the Sonics would get most of the KeyArena redo money they want.
…about the Supersonics’ threatened move to the suburbs: It could, if it goes through, symbolize the Sowetoization of metropolitan Seattle. Our city built on seven hills is becoming a Mounds city—white on the inside, chocolate on the outside.
As my ex-Stranger colleague Charles Mudede has noted several times, Seattle’s housing hyperinflation has caused the geographic center of its African-American community to move south, from the Central Area to the Rainier Valley and now to the ol’ Green River valley ‘burbs of Renton, Kent, and Tukwila. So they’d be a perfect new home for NBA basketball, the semi-official Official Sport of Black America.
Given that, I still want the team to stay here in town.
Though I don’t go to many games, I like the fact that they’re here. I like the noise and energy their fans add (even in a lousy season like this past one) to Seattle Center and lower Queen Anne. I take civic pride in the inevitable Space Needle shots accompanying the sponsor billboard every time ESPN or TNT comes to telecast a Sonics game. The season the team spent in Tacoma just wasn’t the same.
I’ve been reading the usual screeds of the usual sports-hating hippies who not only don’t want to pay to keep the Sonics, but might possibly pay ’em to leave. I disagree. As I’ve written before here, I believe an amenable resolution to the team’s latest demands can be found, in the context of a larger Seattle Center redo that preserves the Center’s multi-use, multi-generational spirit.
Yes, that resolution will require the team to be responsible capitalists and not rely on heavy public subsidies and favors. But I’d demand the same from the oil companies, the drug companies, the insurance companies, etc. etc.
Every few years or so, somebody comes up with a huge master plan for Seattle Center. The latest of these somebodies is a Mayor Nickels-appointed task force. They’d like to modernize Center House and the Fun Forest, and demolish the awkward, rickety High School Memorial Stadium.
Meanwhile, ex-Seattle Weekly mogul David Brewster has submitted a more extreme plan. In keeping with his lifelong ideology of baby-boomer bias, Brewster’s plan would eradicate all Center facilities that serve clienteles significantly younger or less affluent than himself.
Brewster would raze Memorial Stadium, Mercer Arena (formerly the Arena, formerly the Ice Arena), the Fun Forest, Center House (formerly the Food Circus, formerly a National Guard armory), the North Court meeting rooms (including the Snoqualmie Room, where the Vera Project’s all-ages rock shows will move later this year), and maybe even the new and popular Fisher Pavilion. And he apparently wouldn’t mind seeing the Sonics leave town so he could erase KeyArena (formerly the Coliseum) as well.
In the place of all these funky, un-slicked-up, well-used facilities, Brewster would like to see—nothing.
Albeit, it would be a lushly landscaped nothing, with lotsa grass and trees. Maybe there’d be some gourmet sidewalk cafes and used-book pushcarts. Maybe there’d be some outdoor ampitheater spaces, which would replace a few of the many indoor performance venues Bumbershoot and Folklife would lose.
Brewster’s Seattle Times essay notes that when Seattle Center was originally being planned to take over the 1962 World’s Fair grounds, it was made to accommodate many interest groups and population segments. He’d now like to replace that “cacophany” with a unified vision of a “glorious urban park.”
I happen to love the cacophany. And I want to keep it.
Too much of Seattle (hell, too much of America) has already been subsumed by the ultra-bland upscale monoculture. Publicly-owned treasures such as Seattle Center should resist this trend. They should always belong to everyone. They should always have a place for senior square-dancers, for working families, for teens, for minorities, for fast-food eaters, and for us Century 21 nostalgists who still want to believe in a festive future.
We can have contemplative green spaces, too. And we can have upscale dineries and theatrical venues. Just not only those.
So, I propose: Anything cut out from today’s Center gets put back into tomorrow’s Center. The only exception would be the high-school football games. They can move to some current school-district-owned property (such as one of those grade schools threatened with closure), or even to Husky Stadium or Qwest Field. Down in the Beaver State, Corvallis High has long played its football games at Oregon State’s stadium (and often had better winning records than OSU). The fact that neither Brewster nor the Nickels task force bothers to talk about where the high-school games would go just shows how ivory-tower (or condo-tower) their POVs are.
As for the rest: The Sonics, in their plea for another taxpayer-subsidized arena remodel, say they want a food court and an amusement arcade. Fine. Let ’em buy out the Fun Forest operators. An altered arena complex could incorporate replacements for the Fun Forest and the Center House food court. (These restaurants and arcades should be open to the general public, not only to arena event-goers.)
The arena should also be refitted to be more favorable to hockey. The NHL is dying in Sunbelt cities where it doesn’t belong; I’m convinced one of those southern-tier teams would fare far better in a northern town with major Canadian connections.
I’d keep Fisher Pavilion and its popular rooftop deck.
The empty lawn surrounding KCTS east of Mercer Arena could become a landscaped play area, replacing the wading pool north of KeyArena (and relocating the “atomic” neon lights from there).
The other Center House and Northwest Court functions (Vera, the Center School, the Seattle Children’s Museum, the square dances, the conferences, Bumbershoot’s visual arts) could go into new structures on the Center’s periphery, perhaps at the Mercer Arena site and retaining its facade. These new buildings could be included in the same funding package and construction schedule as the arena redo.
That would leave Center House available for implosion. In its hole might go some of the green spaces and outdoor amenities Brewster wants.
But, in my heart-O-hearts, I like Center House. I like the swords-into-plowshares idea of a bulky military warehouse now devoted to fun and games. It’s a grand old building, with a lot of life left in it. And besides, I like the Mongolian BBQ and the Pizza Haven.
Maybe Brewster would slag folk like me for not possessing a will to civic greatness. Too bad.
I don’t want a civic center with good taste. I want a civic center that tastes good.
…list-O-linx today, shall we? We shall:
Sleep. Take a staggering variety of cold/flu medications. Sleep. Refrain from eating, in whole or in part. Consume bag after bag of store-brand cough drops. Listen to people tell me everybody’s been getting this debilitating bug, whatever it is. Make bad puns about the bird flu (“Of course it did; it didn’t walk!”). Cough up substances you don’t want me to describe, in mass quantities. Skip out on about half a dozen meetups, parties, Belltown Messenger interviews, etc. Sleep. Briefly attend a Drinking Liberally meeting at which I hear King County Executive Ron Sims talk informally about tying in any KeyArena rebuild with a larger Seattle Center makeover (he gave no specific suggestions as to what he’d like to add or delete from the complex). Sleep.
While the world was passing me by, an odd li’l Stranger essay suggested we might as well go ahead and let the Seattle Post-Intelligencer die. I, of course, utterly disagree. Ideally, I’d like the P-I to come out of its joint operating agreement with the SeaTimes as a viable, fully-independent, full-size daily. If that can’t be achieved, there are other options for keeping Seattle a two-daily town:
As I’ve written a few times before, the prospect of a post-JOA P-I allows all of us news fans to imagine a new type of paper for a new century. Let’s keep the imagining going. If the P-I doesn’t morph into our brave new paper, let’s start it up ourselves.
The 12th Man flag is back up on the Space Needle (or, as my pal Angelina calls it, the Spice Noodle) after having been taken down Friday night for Windstorm 2006. The pregame hype-athon is already underway. I’m psyched. I’m primed.
My big dream last night: The game’s inexplicably taking place on a Monday afternoon. But I miss most of it because I’d rather see a small intimate concert (at some place like Gallery 1412) by a noted female performance-art star who tells seriocomic monologues, accompanying herself on the cello. It’s a fascinating act, but I leave as soon as I can to catch the fourth quarter. I run to the nearest bar (ok, the nearest bar I like, which in this dream world happens to be in south Wallingford on Lake Union).
By then, the Hawks are behind 7-3; it’s apparently been a dogged defensive battle. But sure enough, our boys come through with a fumble recovery leading to a TD run in the last five minutes. (The refs spot the ball as being down within the five yard line, then our boys stick it in on the subsequent play.) The rest of the game is spent holding the other guys’ offense, a task which seems almost lost when the other guys complete a bomb pass into the red zone. But subsequent pass plays are broken up, including one in which the football lands helplessly on the ground in the end zone. Subdued celebrations commence throughout town, aided by a beautiful, unpredicted, gentle snowfall. (There are even snow flurries back inside the stadium, which in the real world won’t happen at the domed Ford Field.)
(Snow, as some of our longtime readers may know, has always symbolized boyish innocence and unfettered joy to me.)
The dream game’s results, of course, don’t predict the real game’s results. But they do reflect my own attitude.
I’ll watch the game at a WiFi-less bar, so don’t expect blogging-in-progress. I’ll write a big post-mortem later today or early tomorrow.
…another Bumbershoot. Seattle’s own all-you-can-eat arts buffet turned 35 this year, and seemed at times to show its age.
This year’s fest had an unspoken theme of punk nostalgia, with such headline acts as Elvis Costello, the New York Dolls, and Iggy Pop with (some of) his original Stooges–not to mention two different displays of pomo concert-poster art (the all-comers Flatstock and the invite-only “Art of Modern Rock”). Fourteen years after KNDD’s first “Resurrection Jukebox” show, it’s still weird for me to see the musical idols of my own young-adulthood marketed as golden oldies.
Not a nostalgia act, not really a “comeback” either ’cause they never really went away, the Posies wowed ’em with a new organ-enhanced sound and Ken Stringfellow’s still-youthful physique.
The giant posterized face of Rashard Lewis peers down at Sonics fans, prior to the start of what would be the team’s last game of the postseason, as if to apologize for the debilitating foot injury that kept him out of the second-round series.
The team fought mightily and valiantly. But without one of its pivotal star players, the Sonics found themselves ousted by San Antonio at the last half-second of game six.
But look on the bright side: Nobody expected this Seattle team to even make the playoffs, let alone almost make the conference finals. And the Lucking Fakers aren’t even in the dance this year!
…is finally at hand, thankfully. It can be a mighty tiring time, as this gent and his plastic horses would agree.
Seattle’s very own all-you-can-eat culture buffet began in 1970. It was originally a free festival, devised to employ baby-boomer artist types and their favorite bar-blues bands. It was also designed to utilize the whole of the Seattle Center grounds for one big thang, for the first time since the 1962 World’s Fair.
Over the years, its organizers realized the drawing power of current big-name rock bands. These “mainstage” gigs became the metaphoric tail wagging the “dog” of the festival’s local-artists’ exposure.
The fees for major rock stars escalated in the ’80s, and skyrocketed in the ’90s. (The additional income went not to the musicians, but to assorted parasitic middlemen). To pay these higher costs, Bumbershoot started charging admission fees; first modest, then a little less modest.
To draw a Center full of patrons at these prices, organizers had to keep bidding on the top touring bands, driving the costs up further. Ticket prices rose from $0 for all four days to $20 per day.
Eventually this cycle will have to slow down. Already there are signs that the mega-concert industry’s teetering on the fiscal brink, due to the greed of monopolistic promoters pushing prices beyond what the market will bear.
And Bumbershoot learned in the past two years that it can get along just fine with alterna-rock reunion acts—who just might be among the first touring giants to attempt to break off from the likes of Clear Channel.
Fortunately, the original Bumbershoot spirit of mass play has survived, with tens of thousands gathering to share one last summer blast.
We’ll have a fourth installment of Bumbershoot ’04 pix after this one.
Captions today will be short, partly because many of today’s pix speak for themselves.
This sign, mounted on two film-projector spools, reads: “Support the Washington State Independent Film Industry, Manufacturers of Motion Pictures.” I heartily agree with the sentiment.
Today’s batch starts with the big alterna-comix emphasis at this year’s festival, which culminated in a rather rambling panel discussion among our ol’ pals Harvey Pekar, Peter Bagge, Gary Groth, Jessica Abel, and Gilbert Hernandez.
Back when I was a grunt laborer for Groth, I quickly learned that cartoonists seldom speak in the taut word-balloon language in which they write. They ramble. sometimes they get to their intended point; sometimes (particularly in the case of the beloved Mr. Pekar) they end up somewhere else entirely.
So I wasn’t surprised when the conversation wandered off topic often. Still, the panel made several cogent statements. It concluded that after many years of bitter struggle, “graphic novels” (whatever the heck that term means) have gained a foothold in the mainstream book biz. Of course, that just means there are more of those titles out there, which means a lot more chaff (repackaged superhero crap, comics written to be sold to the movies) as well as a little more wheat.
Artis the Spoonman is now also Artis the Slam Poet, ranting about five centuries of oppression against the true human spirit.
I didn’t get to a lot of the great bands that played over the four days, including Aveo, the Killers, the Girls, and Drive By Truckers. But I did enjoy the thoroughly rockin’ sets by the Witness (above) and the Turn-Ons.
My sometime alterna-journalism colleagues in Harvey Danger have re-formed, and played their first all-ages gig in five years. Sean Nelson, bless him, still looks like a journalist, but his singing voice is stronger than ever.
From the above image, I won’t have to tell you that wristbands for the nighttime stadium rock show were gone within an hour and a half on Monday. Built to Spill singer-songwriter Doug Martsch (below) sounded more Michael Stipe-like than ever.
The reunited Pixies, however, sounded just the same (marvelous) as they ever did. They played all their should-have-been-hits and then some, in a tight hour-and-a-half show. Few singers can make me so happy, singing about such bleak topics, as Mr. Black and Ms. Deal can.
One more set of these pix to come.
WE ONLY GOT TO GO to two days’ worth of Bumbershoot this year, but will stretch our pix of the weekend out to three days, just to extend the joy.
We begin with Mass Productions, who turned the Space Needle into a giant harp last year. This year’s production was somewhat more modest.
Also back this year: Flatstock, the art show and sale by rock poster designers from across North America.
Claudia Mauro, who runs the local indie publisher Whit Press, introduced contributors from her poetry anthology In Praise of Fertile Land.
I love fertile land. I’m just not all that fond of nature poetry, particularly in the ’70s Port Townsend/La Conner style, which Mauro’s book includes much of. All that sanctimonious worship of a selectively-described “nature” in which farms never smell like manure and in which human beings other than the poet are never mentioned.
I used to dislike nature poetry because its sensibility was at odds with my young-adult cantankerousness. Now, I dislike it because it posits a Rousseau-esque romantic longing for a “simpler time” that never was.
In the real world, farmers have always been out to make a buck, have always been pressured by corporate and/or governmental powers, and have always bent and shaped the land to suit their ambitions. Rural life has always been frustrating and/or lonely. Young adults have longed to get the heck outta there since the age of Playboy of the Western World, and likely before.
I won’t even get into the PoMo philosophical construct that “nature,” as nature poets imagine it, doesn’t even exist except as a theoretical opposite to “civilization,” whatever that is.
Liz Phair, as you may have heard, has reinvented her look, from indie-rock bad girl into blonde quasi-waif. As long as she still plays and sings great, I don’t care.
In other apparel topics, fashion shows were held at regular intervals next to the “Fashion Alley” concession booths.
At one such show, we finally learned what’s worn underneath a Utilikilt—another Utilikilt.
The Bumbrella Stage, again this year, held a pair of strange banner-fellows on its sponsor flags. Last year, America’s most widely read lefty magazine shared the stage with Captain Morgan rum. This year, its logo appeared beneath that of Miller Beer, which was recently sold from Philip Morris to South African Breweries.
On the left, James Brown-esque vocalist Bobby Rush. I’ve seen James Brown impersonators on stage before, but they were always white.
The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Paul Allen’s latest vanity monument, opened Friday morning with a simple ceremony. Instead of the all-star weekend of free rock concerts that marked the opening of SFM’s parent organization, the Experience Music Project, SFM merely had some short speeches by the usual suspects (Allen, Mayor Nickels, author Neal Stephenson, etc.).
Nickels, bless him, turned out to be a geek at heart. He thanked the costumed “extraterrestrials” in the audience, and closed his remarks with “Live long and prosper.”
Several of the suspects then jointly pressed a button which set off metallic confetti showers, some steam spurting out of the robo-bug gizmo on the building, and “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (a.k.a. the 2001 theme) blared forth.
Among the costumed fans in attendance was our ol’ pal and Punk Lust zine editor Willum Pugmyr (above).
Management didn’t let me take pictures inside the museum. But I can tell you it’s a fanboy’s dream. For the (relatively costly) price of admission, you get to see dozens of real movie props (Captain Kirk’s chair, the Lost in Space robot), costumes, illustration-art pieces, fanzine pages, book covers, toys, and more. There are also many clever computer-based displays, including the “Hall of Fame” section (honoring some three dozen influential authors), and two impressive globular video-projection units.
And as a writer, I was pleased to see all the attention given to the written origins of sci-fi.
The space is smallish. But since the EMP’s vast Sky Church auditorium’s adjacent, it can be used for any SFM special events, which I hope will include author panels, film festivals, and other fan-convention favorites.
The place is fun, and the strolling experience through the small space is appropriately akin to traversing a cramped spaceship. I’m just disappointed at the $10 admission fee. Perhaps Mr. Allen needs to be reminded that some of us have less spending money than he does.
