Erica’s post reminds me of this line from Al Runte’s famous Rock Salt concession speech. Listen, as the disgruntled professor explains why he decided to launch his (failed) campaign to be mayor of Seattle:
As Teddy Roosevelt said, ‘If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, throw your hat in the ring.’ “
Al Runte officially declared for the soon-to-be-vacant City Council seat today.
His qualifications? Um, none. But at least he’s more popular than Casey Corr.
(A full list of those who’ve applied for the position is below the jump.)
There is nothing I hate more than a sexy, spoken-word sounding rapper. Sex is for singers. Spoken-word is for the gutters. The best hiphop is hardcore hiphop; to be real, you have to sound like a black man who means business, which is exactly why the top female rappers in the 30-year history of hiphop, Heather B and Queen Latifah, are essentially butch lesbians. (Indeed, in the movie Set it Off, Queen Latifah convincingly plays a butch lesbian—the feminization of Queen Latifah after her Black Reign album [1993] ultimately cost hiphop one of its most important voices—“who you calling a bitch?”). The sole exception to this rule is, of course, Roxanne Shante, who didn’t sound sexy like the horrible Roxanne Roxanne, her rival from UTFO, but like a tough boy whose voice is cracking.
The question is: How did I get that e-mail from Steve Leahy to Bill Virgin?
Well, Leahy was courteous enough to cc me on it—because he mentions me.
He wrote: “So, between you and Joel [Connelly] who want to carp about the lack of leadership in the region, and Josh Feit at The Stranger who thinks we run this place, you can see my dilemma.”
To which I say: Don’t flatter yourself, dude. Virgin’s right. You guys are pretty unimpressive.
Hell, as dead set against the monorail as you all were, we almost got it past you until the clowns running it fucked it up.
“Poon Tang Clanā€¯ by Ursula Rucker (on her excellent third album, Ma’at Mama, due January 31 on !K7 Records) is sure to stir up controversy in the hiphop underground. A renowned spoken-word poet/MC, Rucker busts the balls of female-objectifying sexists on this witty riposte set to a stark, ominous funk foundation of just drums, cymbals, and stylus-on-vinyl crackle.
Besides possessing the sexiest, sweetest pipes in hiphop, Rucker wields a biting, articulate vocab. I keep waiting for her to blow up, but maybe the mainstream isn’t ready for an intelligent female rapper with liberal viewpoints. Who’s replicated Queen Latifah and Lauryn Hill’s commercial success in the last decade or so? Are there, as I suspect, nefarious forces only allowing women who act like XX-chromosomed thugs and sexbots to get widespread media exposure? Or is there really a dearth of witty women mic-wielders? Or am I just overlooking some talented distaff wordsmiths? Mizell? Schmader? Anybody?
PI business columnist Bill Virgin slaps the Seattle “Establishment” today for failing to make stuff happen. Basically, he accuses the Establishment of not acting like the Establishment. It’s a nice column.
His prime example? Transportation. Specifically, he dings them (and Mayor Nickels) for failing the monorail. Even though Virgin is coming from a different POV then I would on the monorail, he ultimately nails exactly what was so maddening to me about Mayor Gridlock’s monorail flip-flop last Fall—in a way that I couldn’t seem to articulate when it was all going down.
Virgin points out the the Establishment had the power to do something. He also points out Nickels’s hypocrisy on the monorail, by showing that Nickels’s final monorail animosity was/is inconsistent with his support for other financially unstable projects.
Here’s Virgin’s hit on Nickels:
The most vivid illustration of The Establishment’s malaise can be found, not surprisingly, in transportation and transit.For all its dreamy-eyed origins, the Seattle monorail idea had considerable merit; had The Establishment taken an early interest, it could have helped build a workable financial and engineering plan. Conversely, had The Establishment made a decision from the start to quash the monorail, it might have saved everyone considerable time and expense. Instead The Establishment exhibited little public interest or involvement, until Amateur Hour collapsed under the weight of its severe miscalculations.
So where are the new members of The Establishment going to come from?
They could come from government, although that currently seems unlikely. Supporters of Greg Nickels like to depict the Seattle mayor as bringing a Chicago-style “city that works” sensibility to town. Yet Nickels made a definitive call on the monorail only once it was obvious and expedient to do so. Nickels also has shown plenty of appetite for public boondoggles (the South Lake Union streetcar, the tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, also known as Big Dig West) that Seattle would seem to be overloaded with already, what with the light-rail mess.
Meanwhile, Steve Leahy, president and CEO of Seattle’s Chamber of Commerce, fired off a pretty defensive e-mail to Virgin, basically saying that Chambers don’t have the kind of power they used to.
He writes:
Believe me, I wish there were a czar for every important issue that seems stuck in the mud. My list would resemble yours: one for transportation; one for homelessness; one for quality K-12 education——geez, it’s so self-evident you wonder why we haven’t done that before now! [But]The “establishmentā€¯ that supposedly led Seattle in the 1950’s won’t work in a decentralized region of 3.3 million people in four counties. Which is exactly why tools like Leadership Conferences, Study Missions to other regions in the US and abroad, and Prosperity Partnership economic strategies are valuable devices in bringing people committed to our region’s future together to help sharpen their wits and align their focus and energy behind the “critical fewā€¯ priorities that will actually make a difference.
What a town: Columnists berating the Establishment for not acting like the Establishment, and the Establishment talking like the Utne Reader.
My parents failed me! This is the Charles I should be named after:
Rumor has it that the new Superman—Brandon Routh—is, er, gifted in the Superjunk department. Brit tab The Sun reported a few weeks back that the studio is asking for some digital post-production work to minimize Brandon’s Superbasket. Read all about it Defamer.
Hey, is it just me or did the costume designer choose colors that evoke Seattle and the Northwest—you know, colors that are easy on the eyes and don’t overwhelm Brandon’s massive Aussie cock?
In ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one…
For what it’s worth, I was named after this dude…
…and as he appears to be a worry-wort and crosses his legs like a fag, it was a pretty good call on my parents’ part.
Among the holiday gift bait foisted on shoppers this season was Curtain Call, the allegedly career-closing “greatest hits” collection by Eminem.
Among the “new song!” bait included on Curtain Call is “Fack,” a song that’s earned tons of scorn in the blogosphere, most notably on Pitchfork’s list of the 15 Worst Releases of 2005.
I love Eminem, take him seriously, respect his art, etc etc etc. But “Fack” sucks shit, taking Em’s ever-increasing taste for lame poo-poo/pee-pee goofiness to a most idiotic dead-end.
However, even the worst Eminem song involves something worth writing about, and in the case of “Fack,” it’s the gerbil Em repeatedly raps about shoving through a tube into his anus:
Now see that gerbil/ Grab that tube/ Shove it up my butt/ Let that little rascal nibble on my asshole/ Oh yeah right there, right there/ Uhhh I’m cumming/ Oh yeah/ Fack I just came again/ Ok pull it out now/ Oh fuck yeah/ Wait he’s not out/ He’s still crawling around up there/ Oh fack I think it’s stuck/ Oh but it feels so fucking good
With Eminem having already done his part to normalize brutal wife-murder and forced intergenerational incest, it’s nice that he didn’t shy away from one of the last frontiers of sexual shock. And to deliver the final word on his bogus status as a role model, he ends the track with this do-as-I-say refrain for America’s youth:
Shove a gerbil in your ass through a tube/ Shove a gerbil in your ass through a tube/ Shove a gerbil in your ass through a tube
RIP, Eminem. You avoided sucking for a long, long time…
So, incase you’re wondering… I, Megan Seling, have been defeated. While I knew my goal was quite ambitious, I honestly thought I could make all 106 kinds of cookies in Martha Stewart’s Holiday Cookies magazine in 55 days. Truth be told, though, I only made it to #86.
Dammit.
But, for the record, I am still going to make all the cookies. I just didn’t get it done by New Year’s like I had hoped. When will I finish? I dunno. Hopefully very soon because I never want to cream together butter and sugar again for as long as I live. I feel like such a failure…
The current media darling of Major League Gaming (yes, a professional video game league exists) is 7-year-old prodigy “Lil Poison,” who just took second in Halo 2 at a tournament in Chicago.
This is troubling, and not just because of how irresponsible it is to let a 7-year-old play Halo 2. As anyone who has spent time on XBox Live can attest, getting called “fag” by twits with balls that have only recently dropped is par for the course. Now we’ll have to hear it from toddlers as well?
Kelly Foxton is CLEARLY a few dots short on her dice, but who doesn’t love a squirrel in a dress?
Check out the 2006 Calendars for sale.
We’re on the list of the 16 public squares most dramatically in need of improvement.
Occidental Square is #3 on the list. At fault? Our “reluctance to embrace [our] ethnic diversity.”
That’s true.
Thanks to Eric Fredericksen for the tip on Seattle’s latest embarrassment.
Charles, this is why I’m called Charles:
Charles Wesley, cofounder of the Methodist church and the composer of 6000 hymns, my favorite of which is “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” (“Lo! he comes with clouds descending, once for favored sinners slain/thousand, thousand saints attending swell/the triumph of his train/
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!/God appears on earth to reign”).
Now, Charles Petersen, why are you called Charles?
From ironic, post-punk hipster passtime to co-opted television spectacle in record time…
A few weeks ago The Seattle Times ran an interesting story about Bill Finkbeiner, the moderate Republican state senator from the eastside who has been blamed for the one-vote defeat of the gay civil rights bill last year.
People get particularly incensed about Finkbeiner because he voted against the bill, ensuring its death for nearly the 30th year in a row, even though back when he was a Democrat, he twice voted for the bill. That strikes many as unprincipled flip-flopping — and unnecessary, given that Finkbeiner’s moderate district encompasses Redmond and Kirkland, is overwhelming pro-choice, and therefore is unlikely to boot him out of office for extending basic protections to homosexuals.
Gay rights groups vowed they would hold Finkbeiner responsible if the bill—which would specifically prohibit discrimination against homosexuals in housing, employment, and financial transactions—failed to pass last year. Well, it failed to pass. And now, just a week before the new legislative session is set to open in Olympia, an eastside Democrat named Eric Oemig has announced he will challenge Finkbeiner in the upcoming November elections, and plans to hammer Finkbeiner for his flip-flopping on gay rights. A press release Oemig sent out today reads:
After 14 years, Finkbeiner still won’t say how he will vote on civil rights bill 1515 if it comes up again this year. Previously, he has voted both for and against the bill.“Let me be clear,” said Oemig, “I will be happy to cast the deciding vote to ban this discrimination.”
Whether the 38-year-old former Microsoft software engineer has any chance against Finkbeiner remains to be seen. But Oemig’s announcement keeps the pressure on Finkbeiner to flip his position yet again and support the gay civil rights bill this session (as he has suggested he may do).
Did gay rights activists put Oemig up to this? No, he says. But he’d be happy to take their money to support his campaign.
In his earlier post about the world of crime and bad manners that exists in front of the Central District bar Deano’s, Tom Francis directs readers to the neighborhood association’s public message board, featuring dozens of reports of wrongdoing witnessed in the area.
Pinnacle of fascination: The following report posted by someone who may have been mugged, or may have just had his debut epileptic seizure. Either way, poor guy…
Friday September 16th, 1800 Block E. 19th: Probable AssaultOn Friday night, at 10:30 or so, as I took my dog out for his walk, out our garage door as usual, I was apparently assaulted. I remember everything perfectly up until just closing the door in the alley behind the lofts behind me, and the next thing I remember was waking up face down in the alley, feet away from the door, with a bad case of road rash on the right side of my face, and a sore left shoulder. I was confused and disoriented, so did my best to gather my dog, and get back in to clean up.
Short story is that I have a hairline fracture on my left clavicle, and a pretty messed up right side of my face (road rash, black eye swollen shut.) But I didn’t see anyone and have no memory of it per se. The doctors examining me said yes, it could have been an assault (fortunately I do not carry my wallet at night). But they feel it could equally have been any number of things like a first time epileptic event, I could have tripped over my dogline, I could have had an alcohol-induced blackout (despite only having two beers that day, last one at 7pm.) Thus, I’m hesitant to file a report, but I will write this up so the folks in my condo building know. The non-assault explanations bear consideration, certainly, but I can’t understand how a faint, blackout or whatever could result in a fracture on one side of my body, while landing on the other (I generally don’t bounce.).
Seattle Weekly just launched a new web site, featuring finicky drop-down tabs, “stylishā€¯ fonts that were “invented at Microsoft,ā€¯ and “colors that evoke Seattle and the Northwestā€¯ (because nothing says “Seattleā€¯ like maroon and periwinkle.)
Content-wise, the site’s new web-only features include a list of stories that got the most online hits in 2005 (bad news for Geov Parrish: Not one of the self-proclaimed “only consistently progressive localā€¯ columnist’s stories made the cut); searchable calendar listings that, as of this afternoon, didn’t work, and a list of local blogs that ranges from the well-known (Seattlest, Sound Politics, Horse’s Ass), to the rightfully obscure (Gluten-Free Girl, an “account of living with celiac diseaseā€¯; Microsoft Watch, which offers “really inside baseball about technical developments.ā€¯)
Mysteriously overrepresented on the Weekly’s list of links: the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (four of the P-I’s seven blogs get plugs); big business (six of ten “biz/techā€¯ blogs are about Microsoft, two are about Boeing and the ninth is—surprise—about Starbucks). Mysteriously underrepresented: Local politics (not one Seattle-focused political blog makes the list, although a blog about “local politics of the Eastside suburbsā€¯ does) and the Stranger’s own Slog, which, shockingly, merits nary a mention.
What will the Weekly’s impending takeover by the New Times media chain mean for its redesigned web site? Hard to say, but a look at some of the chain’s other clonish web sites could offer the Weekly’s online readers a glimpse of the future.
After hours of deep thought, I have decided that the best opening line in all of hiphop is that which opens Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power”: “NINETEEN! EIGHTY! NINE!”
In my unpublished work of pop theory, Twilight of the Good Times (2002), this is what I wrote about the remarkable year of 1989.
Crepuscular 80sThe 80s were the end of a world. Its hours and days detailed the sunset of the 20th century, which opened in 1917. The 19th century, which ran from 1789 (the French Revolution) and closed with the end of the First World War and the birth of the Soviet Union, was the platform from which the dreams and nightmares of 20th century were launched. These dreams and nightmares, rocketed by the militarized and mobilized super powers, each imagining itself to be “the legitimate heirā€¯ of the 19th century, came to end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall—an event that was accompanied by other great events of that astonishing year: after 27 years of imprisonment, the releasing of Nelson Mandela; the first bursts of the Japanese bubble; the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan; the Tiananmen Square massacre; the assassination of King Tubby in Kingston, Jamaica; and much, much more.
Well, at least you didn’t get shot in the face. Obie Trice- real name, no gimmicks- caught one in what is apparently a case of Motown-style road rage. Moby, however, has not been counted out as a suspect. Oh, and before y’all start in with the usual bullshit reserved for Rappers That Been Shot (now hiring!), some of you might be pleased to know that the O is OK.
The SAM exhibit is absolutely worth a visit. It’s not just lamps. Tiffany was a master glass craftsman, but also a painter, jewelry maker, and interior decorator. His work, inspired by nature, geometry, and arts of the Near and Far East, is breathtaking. Take the audio tour and spend an hour thoroughly charmed.
The museum is open until 9 pm tonight and until midnight tomorrow (the “Last Bash” starts at 5 pm, see details). It’s your last chance to visit SAM downtown until it reopens in its new space in 2007.
I’m not a Joel Stein fan. I am not crazy about Maureen Dowd. But this feud tickles me; it’s greater than the sum of its participants.
I just got the Olympia Film Society calendar, and it’s the usual run of second-run, vaguely low-profile stuff (plus a week of Rent, bizarrely) that played Seattle ages ago. But there was one surprise. OFS is getting Duma, the pet cheetah movie that made Manohla Dargis’s top ten list, which hasn’t yet played Seattle, and certainly won’t by the time it opens in Olympia on January 21. Might be worth a trip.
Definitely worth a trip: the Hesse Collection on view at Portland Art Museum. It’s two floors packed with anything and everything—from commissioned tapestries to 2nd century B.C. Isis pendants, Faberge eggs to a stunning Hans Holbein Madonna & child, rifles emblazoned with anti-Papist propaganda to a pair of 18th century swivel chairs—belonging to Germany’s artistocratic Hesse family. I went with my parents, who enjoyed themselves, and my grandfather, who had never been to an art museum before. He pronounced it “interesting but tiring.” Indeed. The Hesse Collection will be in Portland through March 19, and then it’s going straight back to Germany. Meanwhile, SAM has lamps. Through tomorrow, and then they’re shutting down for the year.
The Sonics have shitcanned head coach Bob Weiss. The official announcement can be found after the jump.
“Drug dealing, prostitution, murders. Besides that, there are no problems.” That’s Andrew Taylor’s assessment of Deano’s Cafe, on the 2100 block of Madison. (Indeed, there was a murder as recently as last April.) As chair of the Miller Park Neighborhood Association, Taylor is leading a pack of residents who hope to convince the Washington State Liquor Control Board against renewing Deano’s liquor license.
The neighborhood association’s website keeps a public safety board, where Deano’s is an all-too-popular topic. Here is a sample:
I have HAD IT with the one-legged, crack smoking homeless guy that hangs about down here. He’s filthy and obviously totally brain damaged and smokes crack in front of God and Country with no fear and I’ve HAD IT. My generally sympathetic and liberal patience with these poor, lost, addicted souls is exhausted when it comes to this scumbag.
Another neighbor guarantees that by merely driving past Deano’s back lot you will be waved down by someone who will offer drugs and/or sex. I personally tested this claim, and I can report that even at the un-bewitching hour of 11 a.m., I had a hooker chasing after my car.
The city attorney’s office has collected input from neighborhood sources about the bar’s impact. In the letter he submitted, Taylor describes being propositioned on the sidewalk by prostitutes and drug dealers. He concludes: “We, as neighbors, cannot prove that the bar is the source of all the problems, but it is abundantly clear that Deano’s Bar serves as a focus for all that is ill and dangerous in our area.”
So I’ve contracted a fierce case of this Martian Death Flu that’s been going around — phlegm, migraine-level headache, Vic Tayback vocal stylings, etc — and nothing seems to be putting a dent in it. (Nyquil actually seems to make the sumbitch stronger and more virile, much like pollution and Hedora the Smog Monster.) Last night, in desperation, I reached for my dusty, unopened bottle of Oxycontin, prescribed for a previous back injury but gone unused due to worries about a possible interaction with something I was taking at the time. No fool I, I decided to take half of the recommended dose.
7 hours later, I’m finally able to somewhat move again, and my pupils continue to exist only on a purely theoretical level. My question is this: How in the hell do teenage abusers (to say nothing of Big Daddy Rush Limbaugh, allegedly) of this stuff function on a daily basis? I mean, Jesus, in my current state, even the general concept of algebra seems like some crazy, Lovecraftian moonman language.
Adrian responds:
my. how dreadfully tiresome. thank you ever-so for your comments on my somewhat funny column; if you actually read it with any frequency whatsover (or, er, even twice maybe), you clearly understand that not only am i gay, but desperately, cataclysmically gay. you’d also understandĀ that i possess as little problem with the word fag as i do kike and/or nigger, and have used all of them at my discretion, often, in both their delightful noun and adjective forms. which you’d also know. if you ever read it more than enough to bitch to the editors. you might do well to remember the words of confucious: “it isĀ as great a sin to take offense as it isĀ to give it.” huzzah.
regards,
adrian ryan
p.s.—fat chick, fat chick. jew.
A Stranger reader wants to know…
Adrian Ryan writes a somewhat funny column for your paper.Ā However, in the latest issue she refers to Elton John’s partner as a “creepy-looking fag.” My question is:Ā Is Adrian Ryan gay?Ā If not, what gives him the right to use the word “fag” in this manner?Ā I look forward to reading about “creepy looking niggers” and “creepy looking kikes” in your future publications.
Is Adrian Ryan gay? Does anyone know? Let’s get our best reporter on this and dig up an answer for this somewhat clueless reader.
Republican sleazeball Jack Abramoff agrees to a plea deal.
Abramoff will also agree to cooperate in any ongoing federal investigations in Washington, said his Miami attorney Neal Sonnett. Prosecutors there are investigating several members of Congress who allegedly received favors from Abramoff or his clients.
It’s a story that fills Dem hearts with glee and Republican trousers with crap. It’s also a good way to begin 2006—a very good omen.
I gave two grand to John Kerry in 2004—the max personal donation in a presidential race. I wanted Bush out and I dug deep, gave until it hurt, put my money where my big mouth was, etc. In return for my money I got was one lousy meal in a hotel ballroom, a terrible presidential candidate, and my name on every Dem’s mailing list. Today the AP reports that Kerry “never stopped running” for President, and that his “campaign Web site boasts of an online army of 3 million supporters.ā€¯
I haven’t looked around Kerry’s website, but I suspect that my two grand also bought me the honor of being counted among his three million supporters.
Well, I ain’t.
You had your chance, John, and you blew it. You were less capable of articulating your ideas than George W. Bush, a man who can barely speak English. And when the Swift Boat veterans went after your military service, you didn’t dignify their attack with a response. What you communicated to the country was this: Here’s a man who won’t defend himself, how can you trust him to defend you? It cost you the election—and perhaps rightly so.
Fuck off, John. In 2008 only Dems who can fight back and fight furiously are going to be taken seriously.
I read this Wall Street Journal article on hymen repair surgery several weeks ago, but I can’t get it out of my mind. It keeps hitting me with aftershocks of unpleasantness. I think about hymens while doing the dishes, and worse, I force my friends to talk about them an awful lot. Revirgination is a supposedly hot new fad among American women, and according to one reinvented 40-year-old virgin:
“It’s the ultimate gift for the man who has everything.ā€¯
Vomit. Rinse. Repeat.
I wouldn’t wish a second virginity on any man I’ve had sex wtih. Conversely, I cannot understand how any man could say, or even think, “I would love you more if I could make you bleed during sex.ā€¯
And I would love it (or at least be amused) if you would cum in your pants like when you were 14, and then cry on my chest a bit. So is this the new face of Romance?
Not that the women interviewed in this article sound coerced into having their hymens patched back together. It is, after all, the “ultimate giftā€¯ for the man who has everything. Shudder.
You know what I buy men who have everything? Wool socks. No one can ever have too many pairs of motherfucking wool socks.
And then there’s the whore-before-marriage angle. Silly girl, you had sex and you’re not married? Well then, you’d better stitch your flesh back together before your hungry, wanton vagina disgraces everyone you know.
“Losing your virginity is like losing a member of your family,” said Ms. Esmeralda Vanegas, owner of a New York spa that performs hymenoplasty. “We can make it seem like nothing ever happened.”
I’m sorry, but losing your virginity should never be as traumatic as losing a member of your family. And if for some freakish reason it is that traumatic, why would you pay to have it happen twice?
