Comments on Hey Everyone, Pile on Top of Eric Grandy!

I was expecting something more interesting. Like Grandy found-out this live-music club was co-sponsoring a kiddie-porn ring out of the backroom, and although the music played there was really good the place needed to be shut-down, obviously.

But when I read I find out a clothing store was having an illegal venue for all ages music out of the backroom? Yeah man, it's totally Eric's fault for being a journalist, and not you know...yours for being law-breaking douchebags.

i think most people are bringing up good points in the comments. on both sides.

we were law breakign douchebags, but again, if you read what i said... it was necessary in order to get the owner to invest in the space/changes we needed.

I totally support your right to be law-breakin' douchbags. Underground shows are cool. But you can't expect the law to cease to exist just because you're having fun. If they find you out, you're shut down, end of story. And you were putting yourself out in a lot of other places besides The Stranger. You were not very "covert".

As usual, I'm with Fnarf. I used to have a will of my own, but his work with the Christians yesterday left me a mere lapdog.

Also agreeing with Fnarf.

In addition, you say that being illegal (aka "underground") was necessary - I somehow doubt that's the case, because I've been working in theater and film long enough to know that even if you're low-budget there are always ways to work around investment and other financial obstacles while still remaining within the law - you just have to take the time to actually think about it and attack the problem with the unbreakable rule of "we stay within the law" and find ways around it - there's always a solution. It just takes more preplanning and work to get there. I guess I'm just bummed that these guys can't learn from this in a positive way and do it right - blaming a newspaper for doing their job when you didn't do yours is just childish and irresponsible.

We can call the article the straw that broke the camel's back.

Kids, I worked in catering for years, at the Westin, Sheraton and Four Seasons hotels.

We, too, had many last minute scrambles to satisfy the SPD's requirements on big events - and this was in big downtown hotels that have a lot of political clout, and are permitted for assembly by the city. It finally got to the point where we would submit a floor plan for every banquet to be held in any of the ballrooms, so that there would be no suprises.

The SFD didn't do this for any shakedown purposes, or because they hate hotels, but because they are concerned about safety. period.

So relax: They didn't single you out, and I don't think it had anything to do with any articles in The Stranger.

I was totally blown away after reading the article, even before the venue got shut down. To personally attack someone like that. Didn't Eric know Matt was on tour for three weeks and might not get cellphone reception or be able to check e-mails out in the middle of nowhere? I've been to a lot of the shows there and know that there's tons of rad angles that could have been taken. To rag on someones appearance because they didn't return a few phone calls. How petty and childish. You don't write the type of things he wrote without contemplating the consequences. It seems pretty obvious that the venue getting shut down is directly linked to the article. And I'm pretty sure someone from Atlas mentioned that they had already been in contact with the Fire marshall to come do an inspection. They were attempting to be a legitimate venue. A LOT of people are angry about this. Its all I've been hearing about for the last 14 hours. And theres posters up around capitol hill that I saw this morning. DJ FUCKING UP THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Seems appropriate. I saw those "hipster rats" out last night and they were pretty fucking hot, so I'm not sure where the rats part came from. My friends and I are going to have a rad fucking summer smoking crack in the alleys instead of enjoying the countless rad shows that are now cancelled. Thanks eric.

But wait! Iraq isn't in cahoots with al Qaeda, so why attack Iraq in the war on terrorism?

Because we're not just at war with al Qaeda, stupid. We're at war with a large and growing Islamo-fascist movement that draws its troops and funds from all over the Islamic world. Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, not just an al Qaeda problem or an Afghanistan problem. To stop Islamo-fascism, we're going to have to roll back all of the tyrannous and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East while simultaneously waging war against a militant, deadly religious ideology.

Dan Savage Oct. 2002

I can't decide if Joel's post @8 is tongue-in-cheek or not.

Oh no!!! A lot of 16-year olds sophomores from private school are pissed off!!

The part about "fucking up the neighborhood"... did you notice how the neighborhood is all bars, restaurants, condos, and apartments?

# 9 - WOW

Dan Savage as warmonger .... does the sex adviser Dan know that cocks get blown off in war ... tell the warmonger Dan ... mutilation and other serious war trauma are not good for one's sex life .. please tell him ... you can tell he never enlisted, just whoring around the clubs and bath houses in his ill spent youth ...

Mark Mitchel and Fnarf, thanks for your opinions grandpas, but you had your decades of partying and breaking the laws and if you were under 50 you would understand why the kids are pissed. An underground venue was closed because someone wanted to sell papers. That sucks. Think about all the places you hung out that were illegal back in the day. Think if they were closed down because some people who are supposed to be part of the scene wrote about the specific code violations of those underground spaces. C'mon, jog those memories old men. The article sucked. It's not the end of the fucking world as many of the posters seem to think, but it was still a mistake, and if the geeks who wrote it, edited it and printed it don't understand that then they are more out of touch than it seems. Maerz would have never printed this article, because she 'got it'. What else needs to be said?

Do you really HAVE to respond? I know in these days of blogging and myspace it seems acceptable to have several Stranger writers blogging and arguing with the Slog commenters. You are commenting on comments. Is it professional behavior for writers of a weekly newspaper? I don't think so.

So let me get this straight. Some people are perfectly okay with selective law breaking not on moral grounds but on the grounds of convenience? Doen't this smack of what the president does? And breaking the fire code sounds pretty damn petty until you know a fire breaks out and we the fire department starts pulling bodies out.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=12237

It's sad to watch these "writer's" try to cover each others' tracks and dismiss the very real point that the Eric Grandy wrote a flashy story and it got a cool venue shut down. I won't boycott the Stranger, but I will absolutely skip over anything by Eric Grandy.