MISCmedia for 49/01
Every Home I've Lived In Is Still Standing, Part 1

TODAY'S MISCmedia is dedicated to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, the car customizer, model-kit designer and inventor of the printed T-shirt industry, whose Rat Fink characters will live forever among preteen boys of all ages.

AS A COUNTDOWN to the gigantic MISCmedia 15th Anniversary celebratory fete (June 2, all ages, mark your calendars now), we'll be running some occasional glimpses of the art show that'll be part of the festivity.

It's a public coming-out of sorts for my new digital-photography thang. It's not the big Seattle coffee-table book (that's still without form or void), but a much smaller documentation project--every home yr. loyal web-corresp'n'd't had lived in.

(Because they haven't all been photographed yet, they'll be presented here out of order.)

#5: 4052 Woodlawn Ave. N. My first home in Seattle. An unlicensed mother-in-law apartment on the second floor of a home owned and occupied by a sweet Italian-American couple with five sons, ages 8-16. They ran a furnace-cleaning business out of the home, and kept a small but exquisite painted-statuary shrine to Mary in their front yard. In 1976, they were the first people I knew to acquire a VCR--and a selection of hardcore porn tapes (the Swedish Erotica series).

NEXT: Some more of this.

ELSEWHERE:

• After the Florida election debacle, it's the demise of the Republicans' claim to be the Party of Morality (found by Arts & Letters Daily)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Parts one and two of a guest columnist's reminiscences of beer, basements, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
• Mulling still more potential changes to the site.
• Memories of the radio station formerly known as KCMU.
• Thanks to the Net, some folks are writing more. That's supposed to be a bad thing?
• Remember rain?
• In defense of DIY publishing.
• A special offer on slightly-hurt Losers.
• Parts one and two of Boeing becoming just another global corporation.
• Could you be turning into a hippie without even knowing it?
• Is it time to privatize welfare customer-service?
• Tell me a story.
• A TV critic faces cancer.
• Music to accompany the mattress mambo.
• Goodbyes to film critic John Hartl, the outre-music zine The Tentacle, and some cool stores.
• A last lingering look inside the OK Hotel.
• Seattle as a city that works (and works and works).
• The terrible beauty of the freeways.
• The end of our little makeover parable.
• PBS discovers marketing to kids.
• Courtney Love reinvents herself as an anti-major-label crusader.
• Handicapping the Seattle mayoral race.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate)
• The origin and future of MISCmedia