…at least according to a text message I got from reporter Erica C. Barnett yesterday afternoon.

If you don’t know, Collins—on 2nd Ave. near Yesler—has long been a hang out for city and county “VIPs” like Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.

But here’s what ECB texted me yesterday while she was arguing about RTID—exciting!— with some county dudes:

At Crimson C — the old larry’s, the new collins. Saw tim hatley, tom from jean’s office.

Hatley is a lobbyist and Tom is Tom Van Bronkhorst—a Jean Godden aide.

The Crimson C, which set up shop in the Larry’s spot (Larry’s, a rowdy black hip hop spot, lost its liquor license) is a block west of Collins and a half block south over on 1rst Ave. in Pioneer Square. Go there if you want to eavesdrop on lobbyists and council aides. Exciting!

IN OTHER COUNTY BUREAUCRAT GOSSIP: The political brain in KC Exec Ron Sims’s office, Ryan Bayne, is leaving to work for the Downtown Seattle Association. This is bad news for Sims, I believe.

And here’s a text message I got from Patti Smith:

I haven’t fucked much with the past, but I’ve fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I’ve caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I’d surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn’t bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. I desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; in heart I am Moslem, in heart I’m an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God.