CLARIFICATION: When I said the branch of the Left that the local Freedom Socialist Party descended from was now the least-active aspect of the Left, I should’ve added that the FSP is a major active player in comparison to other outfits with the S-word in their names.
WHAT A CROC: Somebody opened a Crocodile Cafe in Bellevue Square. It’s not only unrelated to the Seattle Crocodile, but our Croc only found out about it when the mom of a Bellevue Croc worker called the Seattle Croc demanding to speak to her daughter. The Seattle Croc was originally to have been called the Live Bait Lounge (as listed on pre-opening posters), until owner Stephanie Dorgan (an ex-lawyer) made a trademark search and found the “Live Bait” name was already owned by some joint on the east coast.
NOMENCLATURE DEPT.: While recently heading back to the safety of town from Darkest Redmond, feeling the sensations of comfort I always feel when I make it to the west side of the bridge, I tried to devise an alternative to Tricia Romano’s description of suburban dance-club goers in a recent Stranger as “tunnel people.” That’s a term used by Manhattanites to insult those who live in other NYC boroughs or Jersey. If we have to use an NYC term to describe Eastsiders, it oughta be one based on the NYC meaning of the name “Bellevue” (look it up). I suggest “floaters.” It symbolizes not only the floating bridges and certain airheaded attitudes, but also compares the suburban everywhere/nowhere experience to the old Japanese floating world, the culture of aristocrats and courtesans who traveled around in leisure, unconnected to the land surrounding them…. More suggested new terms for Net use: “schlepping,” “tangling,” “netting off,” “cavorting,” “crawling,” “gallivanting,” and my fave-of-the-week “hydroplaning.”
DIY-TV VS. THE OLD ORDER: KOMO Town Meeting host Ken Schram has never let the details get in the way of contrived moralistic posturing. Latest example: the “threat or menace?” episode about public access cable. Producers of access shows that, in Schram’s staff’s opinion, weren’t “controversial enough” didn’t get to be on the show. He ignored all the religious, political, cultural and just-plain folksy shows so he could use a few examples of body parts and bad words as an excuse to call for censoring access (i.e., reining in an alternative to corporate media like KOMO). The way he did it just proved one reason why people are increasingly looking for alternatives to corporate media. His attempted bombast was frequently attacked and occasionally deflated by a studio audience packed with media-manipulation-savvy access producers (betcha never thought you’d see Philip Craft (Political Playhouse), Donna Marie (Hot Tub TV) and the Rev. Bruce Howard in the same place at the same time!).
JUNK FOOD OF THE WEEK: AriZona iced teas, previously mentioned here, now come in bottles. The one to get is the ginseng flavor, with the most exquisite blue bottle, useful for dried-floral arrangements and as future yard-sale bricabrac.
GETTIN’ BUFFALOED: Found a flyer on orange paper on a downtown street, purportedly from the National Park Service. It warns Yellowstone visitors not to not approach park buffalo: “Many visitors have been gored by buffalo. Buffalo can weigh 2000 pounds and can sprint at 30 mph, three times faster than you can run. These animals may appear tame but are wild, unpredictable, and dangerous.” At the bottom is a line drawing of a camera-toting tourist being tossed into the air from a buffalo head-butt. Some folks I’ve shown it to think the flyer has to be a fraud done up by those Cacophany Society people or types like them. But I wouldn’t get close to a buffalo anyway.
HE’S NOT BAD, HE’S JUST DRAWN THAT WAY: An Olympia guy was arrested in Tacoma for trafficking in stolen animation cels. The fun part of the story came when the deadpan cops in a press conference monotoned in perfect lifeless Joe Friday-ese about the perpetrator and the evidence while surrounded by bright acetate paintings of Fred and Barney. The real fun part came when KING revealed that Hanna-Barbera cels legitimately released to the collector market contain a seal of authenticity, which contains a sample of Joe Barbera’s DNA!
