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News & ArtsFriday, May 6, 2011
Celeb / Drugs I Was in a Room with Charlie Sheen for Two Hours and All I Got Was Bored
Posted by Lindy West on Fri, May 6, 2011 at 4:54 PM
- Beautiful downtown Everett.
Now, I know I'm just mad at Everett because it happens to be the setting of my recent traumatic full-body Sheening. So please forgive me—I know it's not Everett's fault. BUT SERIOUSLY, EVERETT, OH MY GOD. Every business in Everett is either a bail bondsman or a Dairy Queen. Or a rape alley. Every moment spent in Everett feels like you're in an episode of The First 48. I texted my friend about this and he wrote back: "Yup, the most depressing thing I've ever seen was in Everett. It was an 11-year-old girl practicing stripper moves on a pole holding up the canopy of a bail bond office." REALLY? HOW LONG AGO WAS THAT BECAUSE I HEAR UNCLE CHARLIE IS IN THE MARKET FOR A NEW "GODDESS."
- All of these people think mental
illnesswinningness is funny.
Oh, you mean I can sit in a room and have a delusional drug-addict blowhard yell in my face for two hours about all the excuses for why his asshole boss fired him? DUDE, THAT'S CALLED A FAMILY REUNION.
Uncle Charlie, these people are not your fans. They are laughing at you. Also, you are terrible. Please stop talking and go take a nap. You're scaring the dog.
3
Charlie Sheen is the Lenny Bruce of your generation.
A decade from now when he's dead, you'll writing your thesis about him and be scrounging iTunes for the Special 10 volume bootleg edition of each and every show.
A decade from now when he's dead, you'll writing your thesis about him and be scrounging iTunes for the Special 10 volume bootleg edition of each and every show.
4
I have the dubious honor of having lived in Snohomish county for most of my life. So, I know from Everett. Eventually, I realized that Everett is the result of the following converstation:
"So, Washington. Do you have a Detroit?"
"Not yet. But we're working on it."
Now, a lot of people immediately reply with, "You mean Tacoma." Nope. I've thought about this.
Tacoma is New Jersey.
"So, Washington. Do you have a Detroit?"
"Not yet. But we're working on it."
Now, a lot of people immediately reply with, "You mean Tacoma." Nope. I've thought about this.
Tacoma is New Jersey.
6
Everett tries, it really does. There are decent little restaurants and bakeries scattered along Hewitt, Colby and Grand, but yes, step one block away in any direction and you can almost feel the dread setting in and hear the whistle of a lead pipe coming down against your neck. If I had known ahead of time you were going I would have recommended stopping at Brooklyn Brothers Pizza, just across the street from the arena...top-notch NYC-style pizza done right.
On a side note, it's kind of funny how Everett, MA is just as shitty and run-down as Everett, WA.
On a side note, it's kind of funny how Everett, MA is just as shitty and run-down as Everett, WA.
7
Srsly? 5,000 people paid $50 to see this moron? I mean I know you were forced to go, but I'm assuming most of the rest of them were there voluntarily? Of their own free will? They thought this was the best way to spend their time?
Wow. Clearly Everett is hurting for entertainment options. Badly.
Wow. Clearly Everett is hurting for entertainment options. Badly.
10
Everett has free parking throughout downtown. Per Kemper Freeman, that is the key to a thriving, vibrant business and retail center.
Someone please show Kemper pictures of entire blocks of vacant storefronts in downtown Everett (and I mean starting at the corner of Wetmore & Wall, right in the friggen heart of downtown, not way out on the fringes). Please ask him why his silly platitudes do not apply in Everett.
As someone else mentioned there are a few pockets of goodness in Everett. Zippy's. The barbecue joint down by the transit center. A Seattle Lighting branch. A very nice public library with a cool espresso bar/cafe. And just opened is a mixed-use artists' studio / art space / condo sort of thing... which just seems pushing it for what Everett can accomplish but we'll see.
Sadly, the rest of Everett is, as also noted above, pawn shops, bail bondsmen, and shitty bars. Everett's bar-density may be higher than Belltown's, but Gawd, ever since Dirty Martini closed and Prohibition Grille decided to suck the bar scene in Everett regressed to its 80's Lynnwood-Hair-Scene roots.
Sorry you had to see that, Lindy.
Someone please show Kemper pictures of entire blocks of vacant storefronts in downtown Everett (and I mean starting at the corner of Wetmore & Wall, right in the friggen heart of downtown, not way out on the fringes). Please ask him why his silly platitudes do not apply in Everett.
As someone else mentioned there are a few pockets of goodness in Everett. Zippy's. The barbecue joint down by the transit center. A Seattle Lighting branch. A very nice public library with a cool espresso bar/cafe. And just opened is a mixed-use artists' studio / art space / condo sort of thing... which just seems pushing it for what Everett can accomplish but we'll see.
Sadly, the rest of Everett is, as also noted above, pawn shops, bail bondsmen, and shitty bars. Everett's bar-density may be higher than Belltown's, but Gawd, ever since Dirty Martini closed and Prohibition Grille decided to suck the bar scene in Everett regressed to its 80's Lynnwood-Hair-Scene roots.
Sorry you had to see that, Lindy.
12
@10, the library is really nice. It was a little disconcerting, though, to see a cop stationed by the men's room door, who was letting only one person in at a time even though there were facilities for ten or twelve.
13
I doubt Kemper Freeman would deign to even empty his bladder anywhere near Everett. Although I find it interesting that The Stranger constantly rails against Kempers classism and anti transit stance but looks down its nose at anything north of MLT.
14
@ 13, I'm guessing "MLT" means Mountlake Terrace, in which case you're way off - they look down their nose at anything north of Green Lake, and most of what comes south of that but north of the ship canal.
16
Lindy, my friend Danny that lives in Everett says, "Probably the most depressing thing I've seen was a woman emerging from a Seattle alley sans pants, strolling over to the garbage can on Blanchard reaching in and finding enough paper products to wipe her ass."
Everett is a lot of things, dull, small-townish, a little trashy, but it isn't quite the perpetual crime scene your ham handed characterization makes it out to be.
I do not live there anymore, but I didn't leave Everett to move back to Seattle because of any of the crap you have written.
and if Seattle could get its shit together on doing something with Key Arena it would not lose out on arena bookings to a small "rape ally" town like Everett.
You don't know what the hell you are talking about when it comes to Everett, So, a hearty Fuck You, to you!
Everett is a lot of things, dull, small-townish, a little trashy, but it isn't quite the perpetual crime scene your ham handed characterization makes it out to be.
I do not live there anymore, but I didn't leave Everett to move back to Seattle because of any of the crap you have written.
and if Seattle could get its shit together on doing something with Key Arena it would not lose out on arena bookings to a small "rape ally" town like Everett.
You don't know what the hell you are talking about when it comes to Everett, So, a hearty Fuck You, to you!
17
I'm too busy laughing at MrBaker thinking of Charlie Sheen as an arena booking not worth missing out on to laugh at Charlie Sheen.
18
An arena booking is an arena booking. 5,000 at $50 a pop.
I guess it doesn't match up with free rent for roller derby.
The Thunderbirds had an arena built for them and they moved. Key Arena is third rate, and about to get completely shut out by Bellevue.
I guess it doesn't match up with free rent for roller derby.
The Thunderbirds had an arena built for them and they moved. Key Arena is third rate, and about to get completely shut out by Bellevue.
19
There were 5 events booked at Key Arena in April, 6 in May, nothing last Tuesday, and it isn't all that funny.
20
The up front section that was some crazy price like $250 or $500 was packed full also.The beer line was long but so was the line to buy a $30 t-shirt (about half the people there had one!!!).
Parking on the street was free as usual. Tailgators just up the road still has $2 beers and $3 well drinks and big portions of food. When you have to pay $5 to cross the bridge and $10 to drive thru a tunnel and then $20 to park in Seattle and then have some orange vested senior wave you away from closed off roads on the way to the freeway you might reconsider the events held in Everett and Kent's arena's.
As for the show, it was mildly entertaining as he paced constantly wearing out the stage like he was all hopped up on 20 red bulls.
Parking on the street was free as usual. Tailgators just up the road still has $2 beers and $3 well drinks and big portions of food. When you have to pay $5 to cross the bridge and $10 to drive thru a tunnel and then $20 to park in Seattle and then have some orange vested senior wave you away from closed off roads on the way to the freeway you might reconsider the events held in Everett and Kent's arena's.
As for the show, it was mildly entertaining as he paced constantly wearing out the stage like he was all hopped up on 20 red bulls.
21
MrBaker, I used to park near Rucker, and walk the four or five blocks up to Wetmore. A game I would play on my morning walk to work was 'take-a-picture-of-the-sidewalk-vomit-and-text-it-to-my-friends". This occurred about once a week. About once a month the body fluid I'd see splashed all over the sidewalk was not vomit but something worse. Far worse.
The free parking in Everett is nice, but seriously, when rehashed butt-rockers playing tired old Metallica covers at Jimmy Z's is the crown jewel of your town's nightlife, and has been for over a friggen DECADE, there's something that needs fixin' up there.
The free parking in Everett is nice, but seriously, when rehashed butt-rockers playing tired old Metallica covers at Jimmy Z's is the crown jewel of your town's nightlife, and has been for over a friggen DECADE, there's something that needs fixin' up there.
22
Fnarf, I've never seen that. Using the facilities at the downtown Everett library is now on my to-do list!
23
Well, Everett has the best thrift stores (plural, baby!) and that bikini barista where they were busted for turning tricks, and I find it charming. To visit. A few times a year.
Charlie Sheen however is a douche I ain't got time for.
Charlie Sheen however is a douche I ain't got time for.
24
Didn't Joe Hill die there? Murdered, along with a bunch of other Wobblies, by the bosses?
I've always liked Everett's utter lack of pretension. But then again, I live in Spo-fucking-kane, so clearly something is wrong with my judgment.
I've always liked Everett's utter lack of pretension. But then again, I live in Spo-fucking-kane, so clearly something is wrong with my judgment.
25
Dr, all true, I lived on Rucker, still nothing like "the first 48" or the "rape alley" bullshit Lindy was spewing.
Lived on North Broadway, drank at the China Doll, done it.
Slightly outdated, provincial, often boring, shitty lounges with crappy music, all true, not sinister.
Everett has needed "fixing" forever, always on the verge of fixing, but never quite happening, tasteless, but not a crime.
My point is that the writer is inaccurate, not that Everett a shining city on a hill.
My other point is that mocking Everett for putting on an overpriced circus in their fairly new arena while Key Arena is dark and dead is dumb on a variety of levels.
Lived on North Broadway, drank at the China Doll, done it.
Slightly outdated, provincial, often boring, shitty lounges with crappy music, all true, not sinister.
Everett has needed "fixing" forever, always on the verge of fixing, but never quite happening, tasteless, but not a crime.
My point is that the writer is inaccurate, not that Everett a shining city on a hill.
My other point is that mocking Everett for putting on an overpriced circus in their fairly new arena while Key Arena is dark and dead is dumb on a variety of levels.
28
Also being from Spokane, and having once lived in Everett, it us the closest thing to Spokane west of the Cascades.
The city knows what it is though and is honest about it, which is cool. They have good areas and bad areas, both strongly contrasted because they're right next to each other.
I'd rather live in Tacoma then go back to Everett though.
The city knows what it is though and is honest about it, which is cool. They have good areas and bad areas, both strongly contrasted because they're right next to each other.
I'd rather live in Tacoma then go back to Everett though.
30
@10 dude, you are completely full of shit. Wetmore & Wall? Entire vacant blocks? When the fuck was the last time you were there?
31
Is MrBaker STILL arguing about how superior Everett is to Seattle? MrBaker, if you like it so much, why don't you marry it?
32
At the very least, for all its insular suburban banality, Everett is host to two roller derby leagues, so its not all bad.
Deacon@4, if Boeing left Everett and the Ship Yard closed, Snohomish could go Motor City, sans a significant amount of dark skinned people.
Deacon@4, if Boeing left Everett and the Ship Yard closed, Snohomish could go Motor City, sans a significant amount of dark skinned people.
33
Something I always tell people about Everett when they ask is that AURORA begins in Everett. This is a little known fact, but it starts at the north end of everett and extends all the way to mexico.
I grew up in Everett and remember being a kid in the very early 80s, walking to the docks where the military base is now to catch crab and take them home to eat them. Everett used to be an nice smallish town. But then it started getting big and became a strange suburban hub hybrid...a far flung urban outpost echoing seattle but only faintly because it was the biggest thing around, who's populace was made up from fleeing people from actual rural areas like Concrete, Darrington, Snohomish, or startup for gods sake. It's caught in a rough spot between being a large city but with country attitudes.
Needless to say I fled that place as soon as I was able. In the intervening 15 years I only had to go back for Mother's Day and Christmas...but each time, just driving on I-5 near the Everett Mall interchange filled me with dread and loathing.
I literally, just last month, lost my apartment in Seattle due to lack of employment, and guess where I ended up. MOTHER. FUCKING. EVERETT. I remember contemplating this eventuality and pretty much just wanted to kill myself. The thing is though, I've been here for a month now...admittedly in one of the nicer residential neighborhoods near the large golf course on 52nd, and it's not so bad. The buses are shitty since they stop running at 8pm, but if you avoid the rape alleys "downtown" and the nightmare of Rucker/Evergreen/99/Aurora, it's basically a decent suburb.
I'm certainly no Everett apologist.. (Jesus christ, have you been to The China Doll? It makes the Rickshaw look like an elegant night on the town) but it's not all bad.
Just *mostly* bad.
More...
I grew up in Everett and remember being a kid in the very early 80s, walking to the docks where the military base is now to catch crab and take them home to eat them. Everett used to be an nice smallish town. But then it started getting big and became a strange suburban hub hybrid...a far flung urban outpost echoing seattle but only faintly because it was the biggest thing around, who's populace was made up from fleeing people from actual rural areas like Concrete, Darrington, Snohomish, or startup for gods sake. It's caught in a rough spot between being a large city but with country attitudes.
Needless to say I fled that place as soon as I was able. In the intervening 15 years I only had to go back for Mother's Day and Christmas...but each time, just driving on I-5 near the Everett Mall interchange filled me with dread and loathing.
I literally, just last month, lost my apartment in Seattle due to lack of employment, and guess where I ended up. MOTHER. FUCKING. EVERETT. I remember contemplating this eventuality and pretty much just wanted to kill myself. The thing is though, I've been here for a month now...admittedly in one of the nicer residential neighborhoods near the large golf course on 52nd, and it's not so bad. The buses are shitty since they stop running at 8pm, but if you avoid the rape alleys "downtown" and the nightmare of Rucker/Evergreen/99/Aurora, it's basically a decent suburb.
I'm certainly no Everett apologist.. (Jesus christ, have you been to The China Doll? It makes the Rickshaw look like an elegant night on the town) but it's not all bad.
Just *mostly* bad.
35
Gotta love all the Seattle snobs making fun of blue collar Everett. Now do you understand how we make them vote Republican? Seattle liberals do all the work for us.
Everett murder rate 1 per 100,000
Seattle murder rate 5.9 per 100,000
Now don't get me wrong, I agree with all of you that Everett is a working class dump. But then again, I'm don't pretend to like working class people and their cultural habits.
Everett murder rate 1 per 100,000
Seattle murder rate 5.9 per 100,000
Now don't get me wrong, I agree with all of you that Everett is a working class dump. But then again, I'm don't pretend to like working class people and their cultural habits.
36
"I can...have a delusional drug-addict blowhard yell in my face for two hours about all the excuses for why his asshole boss fired him? DUDE, THAT'S CALLED A FAMILY REUNION."
Lindy, I love you.
Lindy, I love you.
37
I grew up on Mercer Island and I now live in the suburbs of Snohomish County, so I should hate Everett as a trash-hole like Lindy does. I love your writing, Lindy, but I did think you were a bit harsh on Everett (say whatever you want about Sheen, though). The downtown's better than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and it's really trying. The recent economy sucked all the momentum out of the progress there. But I've never felt that unsafe walking around the downtown core. Casino Road's a different story ... BTW, fun fact: No DQ's in Everett.
38
Yeh. I gotta agree that this is just an ignorant and elitist post by you. There are no DQ's in Everett and the county jail and courthouse were literally a block away so thats why you saw so many bail bonds.
Keep working on those hard hitting facts.
Keep working on those hard hitting facts.
39
I distinctly remember reading a fabulous quote in the newspaper 20+ years ago from the Mayor of Everett: "Everett's economy is like a toilet seat. It goes up and down." The Mayor!
40
Okay, okay, OKAY! I just can't let this go...
Sooo... About 5,000 people were there. $50 a ticket. That's roughly $250,000 take for one show. Granted, a few seats were probably comped, but most were sold. I don't know what Charlie Sheen's cut was, but it's probably safe to say that that raging asshole probably made more in one night than I made all of last year. And then he undoubtedly goes out an blows it all on fake tiger's blood and meth.
*sigh*
Sooo... About 5,000 people were there. $50 a ticket. That's roughly $250,000 take for one show. Granted, a few seats were probably comped, but most were sold. I don't know what Charlie Sheen's cut was, but it's probably safe to say that that raging asshole probably made more in one night than I made all of last year. And then he undoubtedly goes out an blows it all on fake tiger's blood and meth.
*sigh*
41
His cut of the merchandise being sold at the venue and from his website, also with his videographer and production crew, maybe a dvd will be made or some other crazy junk that might be available for purchase or download or whatever so you can see the highlights you missed RP :)
Actually, there are two DQ's in Everett
6521 Evergreen Way, Everett
230 128th Street Southwest, Everett
Actually, there are two DQ's in Everett
6521 Evergreen Way, Everett
230 128th Street Southwest, Everett
42
@41
Do you think 4 miles from the comcast arena counts as downtown?
I must drive by that and never notice. The one in lake stevens burned down.
Do you think 4 miles from the comcast arena counts as downtown?
I must drive by that and never notice. The one in lake stevens burned down.
44
@38 Took the words right out of my mouth. And yeah, Everett sucks, I've lived here for a good portion of my life, but I've feared for my personal safety waaaayyy more while visiting Seattle than I ever have in Everett.
45
To this day, I don't understand this need to bag on every Seattle suburb and proclaim it to be trashy/scary/backwoods/some unexplored frontier. Anyone over the age of 22 can talk shit about the suburbs that we (likely) all grew up in. It's low hanging fruit. Keep bashing away and feeling impressed with yourself for having an opinion.
46
Before Lindy get's too down on Everett, I suggest she wander around Belltown alone at night, some night other than Friday or Saturday. Then again, don't. I don't want her to find out what "rape alley" is really like.
47
@45: Everett is not a suburb. It's a separate city, it's been around almost as long as Seattle; people don't rag on it because it's a biter, people rag on it because it sucks on its own.
48
@45 Everett is a very special exception because it has gone far above and beyond to earn the scorn of urbanites. I'll buy that it's safer than Seattle, but it's because there isn't the foot traffic around to make it lucrative for criminals or anyone else.
49
I'm gonna go right on ahead and say yeah: Charlie Sheen sucks, and 5,000 people showing up for his gig probably means Everett isn't the most thriving cultural center.
But (and this is as a Seattle native and current inhabitant) I'm going to pipe up with those who've mentioned Tailgator's, Zippy's, etc. Also DEFINITELY going to second (third, etc) The Stranger's classism.
But (and this is as a Seattle native and current inhabitant) I'm going to pipe up with those who've mentioned Tailgator's, Zippy's, etc. Also DEFINITELY going to second (third, etc) The Stranger's classism.
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