BITE ME: Of all the annual summer mega-events in Seattle, the Bite of Seattle is the most divergent from its officially hyped image. In the media previews and recaps, it's almost always billed as a perky-bland, homogonous ritual in which nice upscale suburban families can partake of the finest dishes from the region's finest restaurants. It's really the one big free annual gathering of KIng County's middle-class and lower-middle-class masses (the people Sidran would like to deport from the Seattle city limits). They come to pig out on empty calories from a larger array of the same junk-food and fast-food booths you see at any street fair; to collect freebies and promotional trinkets; and to listen to the region's most pathetically smarmy oldies-cover bands. Yeah, it's a "family" event. But it's one for real families: screeching kids, horny/sullen teens, ulceric grownups, and cranky oldsters. And I love it. Along with Seafair, it's one of the last truly populist huge happennings in a town that's increasingly at odds with its industrial roots and frightened of non-affluent people, particularly if said non-affluent people are darker-skinned. During the post-Mardi Gras rancor this past February, certain talk-radio goons branded the Bite as a "gangbangers' ball." Bah. It attracts regular ol' folks of all kinds, some of whom are young and/or black. And like working-class teens of all ethnic types, they can act loud and boistrous if given the opportunity to do so. (This article's permanent link.) (Originally posted 7/23/01.)

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