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Archives for 09/27/2005 - 09/27/2005

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Drunken Sentimentality

Posted by on September 27 at 8:58 PM

So last night’s booktour dispatch won me a rebuke from Dave Segal. My spelling, usually sterling, was off. Mr. Segal also disapproves of my insistence that booktour is one word. Perhaps it’s the tiny bit of German blood that flows in my veins (the Germans love to mash many words together into bignewwordsthatmeansomethingelse), but I feel that booktour is indeed one word, or should be. It will be in these tour posts.

One word I did misspell? Fellate has two Ls, not one. Sorry about that. Being this paper’s sex advice columnist—being the sex advice columnist for many, many papers—I should know how to spell fellate. But I flunked Latin in high school, Dave, and I tend to use slang in Savage Love (sucking cock, blowjobs, smoking pole, making rent, etc.), not Latin terms. So lay off, you cocksucker.

On to tonight’s reading: It was better. Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea is a better location, location, location for a book about gay marriage than some godforsaken bedroom “communityā€¯ on Long Island somewhere. Don O’Keefe, the community relations manager, was gracious, the crowd was big, and save the forced removal of one nutcase (one word) who started screaming at me about Indian spirituality—who knew lunatics wander freely around Manhattan?—the reading went wonderfully well. Sold lots of books (buy one, why don’t you?), and met lots of nice folks.

The highlight, however, was this extremely cute boy who came up to get his book signed. He gave me a gift and a card that read….

A few years ago you gave me some sound advice about standing up as a bottom. You told me to basically never let a top talk me into sex w/out a condom. You told me to respect myself enough to insist. Having that sort of respect for myself really helped, and it was sparked by your advice…

Aww.

I’ve often said that, unlike other advice columnists, I don’t delude myself. I haven’t convinced myself that I’m actually helping people. I don’t sit down to write a column and think, “Gee, I’m going to help some folks today! I’m helping! HELPING!ā€¯ I simply sit down and try to write something that will entertain my readers—frequently at the expense of the folks who seek out my advice. After all, just one person asks the question while millions of people are reading my response. So who’s the column for? The lone dope with the problem or the millions? The millions, of course, and they’re reading to be entertained, not helped or enlightened or uplifted or edified. I try not to lose sight of that fact, and not losing sight of that fact is part of the reason “Savage Loveā€¯ has lasted.

But it’s gratifying to know that I nevertheless manage to help someone every once in a while. It’s not my intent, of course, it’s not my first priority, it’s not my goal—but, still, inflicting a little positive collateral damage once in while makes me feel less ridiculous. Hey, I do some good on the margins! Who knew?

After the reading I said goodbye to my Dutton publicist, Beth Parker, who I’ve had the pleasure of hanging around with for the last couple of days (she’ll be managing me from afar for the rest of the tour), and then went out to dinner with Brian Tart, the president of Dutton, my publisher, and my former editor. We’ve been working together for six or seven years now and have only been in the same room, like, two or three times. (My new book got handed off to Julie Doughty when Brian got promoted in the middle of the editing/writing processs.) We stuffed ourselves in an Indian restaurant, drank beer, talked about books and weekly papers and kids and real estate and George W. Bush, and then had doughnuts and cheesecake for dessert. I took one last stroll through Manhattan—from Union Square to Tribeca—on the way back to my hotel. Two impressions: this city is so fucking alive, and, my God, the men here are beautiful (particularly the cocktail waiters here at the Tribeca Grand ).

But I miss my man—also a beauty. I was sitting in the lobby of my hotel, typing away, when Saint Etienne came on the sound system. They’re one of Terry’s favorite pop bands, and it’s hard to hear their music without missing my boys.

Shit. It’s one in the morning and I’ve got to be up and at the airport by seven. Tomorrow, Atlanta.

Monorail Meltdown

Posted by on September 27 at 6:28 PM

I spent much of the past week running around from City Hall to the Seattle Monorail Project headquarters and back again, watching the monorail’s spectacular collapse. To recap:

ā€¢ Two weeks ago, the mayor cancelled the monorail’s right-of-way agreement and called for an up-or-down advisory vote on the project, unless the SMP put its own measure on the ballot.

ā€¢ After a series of increasingly chaotic (and ever more tedious) meetings, the SMP decided last Thursday to do nothing, instead adopting a resolution giving agency staff more time to come up with a new finance plan, find more money, and cut costs. The resolution also instructed the SMP board to “engage the City of Seattle, including the Mayor and the City Council, in constructive dialogue.” (Too bad they didn’t think of that, say, a week ago.) The risky resolution left open the possibility of a future ballot measure, and didn’t say whether that ballot measure would be binding.

Continue reading "Monorail Meltdown" »

Anti-Nickels, Pro-Monorail

Posted by on September 27 at 6:08 PM

This just in from the 36th District Democrats (Magnolia, Queen Anne, Ballard): Mayoral candidate Al Runte got more votes than Nickels at yesterday night’s executive board endorsement recommendation meeting. Runte didn’t hit the two-thirds majority mark needed for the endorsement, but still…

Meanwhile, the 36th e-board gave the thumbs up to the monorail.

Those crazy kids in the 36th.

We’ll see what the general membership does this Thursday night.

Crusty / hardcore show alert

Posted by on September 27 at 5:15 PM

If you wanted to see Caustic Christ and Iron Lung twice in one day, Wednesday (9/28) is the day to do it:

1) they play at 6 pm at Electric Heavyland, 252 NE 45th St. in Wallingford. It’s free and all ages.

2) they play at 9 pm at Galway Arms, 5257 University Way NE. It’s $3 and 21+. Mala Sangre is the opener at this show. The flier I saw for this described Mala Sangre as an “LA crust dude,” which is intriguing. I did a bit of internet research and found him/they described as “very heavy hardcore,” which seals the deal for me.

Just so we’re clear: Iron Lung consists of two guys from Reno rocking guitar, drums and vocals (I’ve seen them before, and I’d go see them again); and Caustic Christ consists of ex-Aus Rotten members, which I suppose speaks for itself. Here’s a Caustic Christ mp3 that I picked at random.

Personally, I haven’t decided if I’m going to go to one of these yet, though I’d like to. I’ll have to talk it over with my rock ‘n’ roll partner (you see, I just moved here from San Francisco with said rock ‘n’ roll partner, and he’s the only person I know who’d go with me—and I’ve found that going to shows alone just isn’t very fun). If I do go, I’ll report back on it.

Dina Martina Slobbers All Over The Big Apple…

Posted by on September 27 at 4:22 PM

…and the Big Apple eats it up!

I attended Dina’s one-night-only showcase at NYC’s Cutting Room the week before last, and was very happy to see Michael Musto, lifelong Village Voice gossip columnist and seminal Manhattan scenester, in the audience.

I became even happier when I saw Musto’s latest column.

World domination is imminent! Go, Dina!

musto1.jpg
(photo by Ted Grudowski)

On writing and meat products

Posted by on September 27 at 3:01 PM

One thing I love about being an editor is reading all the different ways people have to phrase things. It’s great when a writer finds a particularly concise and unique way to express a point—or, even better, to make me laugh. In working with writer Chris Estey on an upcoming CD review, he had this witty little aside to dealing with run-on sentences: “Sometimes I forget that a sentence isn’t like a sausage you’re trying to stuff all the meat into all at once.”

No American Idiots Here

Posted by on September 27 at 1:32 PM

It appears that Ms. Maerz and I are going through a similar phase of appreciation for arena rock shows. I was also in attendance at the Nine Inch Nails show on Friday and was equally impressed by the volume, theatrics and unhinged crowd—it’s good to be a little scared at a rock show now and then.

My orgiastic week of live music also included some exceptional non-arena performances, such as the Arcade Fire at the Paramount and the New Pornographers at the Showbox, both of which were technically top-notch and generous in duration. But the grand finale of my premature Rocktober was last night’s Green Day show at the Tacoma Dome. Dear God.

Clocking in at nearly 2 hours, their show may end up being the highlight of my year. First, there was the impact of being in such a blatantly anti-war, anti-Bush atmosphere: the ever-changing stage back drop included endlessly looping, ominous silhouettes of bomb-dropping planes while spastic front man Billy Joe Armstrong spit out the lyrics to “Holidayā€¯ through a megaphone. Then there was the sheer joy of seeing such a wide range of ages in the audience: just two rows in front of me, I saw legendary old-school Seattle punk James “Babyteethā€¯ Carbo pumping his fist in the air while standing next to three young girls who were so excited they had tears streaming down their faces. They capped all that with more pyrotechnics than I saw at metal shows back in the day, two cannons firing confetti and an encore cover of Queen’s “We Are the Champions.ā€¯ My companion, Visqueen frontwoman Rachel Flotard, agreed with my only-half-joking proposal that we exclusively attend arena rock shows from now on. Next up: Def Leppard at the Everett Events Center on November 8th.

This Week in God, Weeks Ago in The Stranger

Posted by on September 27 at 12:37 PM

As a sharp-eyed Stranger forums participant has pointed out, last night’s Daily Show featured a segment, “This Week in God,” that was uncannily similar to a piece that ran in The Stranger a few weeks ago. (I also saw last night’s Daily Show, and thought the same thing as I watched the segment.)

Now, I’m not saying that The Daily Show swiped Stranger material — the funny guys there could easily have had the same idea as the funny guys here. I’m just saying, check out how similar these two “reports” on blame for Hurricane Katrina are:

The Stranger

The Daily Show (click on “This Week in God: Katrina”)

Words Fail Him

Posted by on September 27 at 9:35 AM

This brief video contains nothing you don’t already know, but it’s amusing—and fascinatingly awful—to watch nonetheless.


I Didn’t Think It Could Get Any Worse for George Bush, but

Posted by on September 27 at 3:08 AM

now he’s Jimmy Carter, umm…like, literally.