IRAQI AND HIS FRIENDS: Saddam Hussein used to be a U.S. ally. We were asked to pity his poor government in its long hard war against Khomeini's Iran, not quite realizing that each leader was ruthless in his own way. Again, "realpolitik" (unquestioned support for strategically-convenient dictators) has backfired. There are no democracies in that region to support, only monarchies or other dictatorships which treat their women, dissidents, and intellectuals with greater or lesser severity. Even Israel, the lone multi-party state in the area (besides the powerless govt. of Lebanon), is not the example of tolerance and human rights that it still could become. Among the frozen Kuwaiti assets are the oil ministry's 6,500 gas stations in Europe, bearing the genuinely cute name of Q8. KOMO SAID IT: "Bush is laying down an iron curtain on Iraq." Thirty years ago, we condemned the immorality of E. Germany trying to starve West Berlin. Now we do the same. The would-be Oil War fulfills 11 years of accumulating U.S. warlust, incompletely satiated by the conquests and skirmishes in Latin America and the Caribbean; all as the long-lead-time monthlies still displayed think pieces about the possibility of a post-Cold War, post-military nation. Was this conflict escalated so sharply, so swiftly, as a way to keep the Pentagon and its suppliers in business at current levels?. . . Meanwhile, a Sony-owned theater chain in NYC changed its marquees to promote the temporarily-renamed IRAQNOPHOBIA. There will, of course, be movies about all this. Unlike Vietnam movies, these films could all be made in the close-to-Hollywood Mojave desert; like Vietnam movies, they'll likely depict conflicts between different American characters, with no Arabian people in sight. ROSEANNA ARQUETTE IN PLAYBOY: What would her grandfather Charley Weaver have thought? RUSTLE THEM SOYBEANS: B.C.'s own k.d. lang has based her career around appropriating the music and the images of the cowboy culture, as filtered through kitsch art over the years. Now she speaks out against the industry that all the real cowboys were in -- meat -- and gets flack from country radio stations afraid of offending today's cowboys, not to mention fast-food advertisers. It leads one to wonder what country music would have been like with no burgers, no cattle drives, no branding irons, no rodeos. k.d. may be the Angel with a Lariat, but with nothing to lasso. LOCAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTH: MU Press' Balance of Power comic book is mostly the same old stuff about corporate assassins and ninjas jumping around, but the futuristic Seattle setting does give us one cool panel: a sign on Broadway, "Dick's 60th Anniversary: 1954-2014." THE LAST LAFF: The Improvisation, a national chain of comedy clubs, is moving into the Showbox. Now, where the leather-jacketed vegetarians used to pogo and fight, where the Police and Psychedelic Furs once played to under 800 people, now generic yups will pay a big cover charge to sip cocktails and hear well-dressed smartasses tell insults about all the rest of us. GOODWILL GAMES LOSE $44 MILLION: Did the official theme of the "spirit of goodwill," of international friendship and pulling together, diminish the spirit of ruthless battle TV sports viewers have been used to? WHAT'S IN STORE: The Bon had this really strange Goodwill sculpture by the main-floor elevators. Three male figures held up a large sphere, while wearing bottom-baring loincloths over what from a side view clearly showed as hemispheric, one-part bulges. The Bon also quietly closed the 62-year-old Budget Store, a refuge not so much for moderate prices as for moderate styles, an island of calm in a sea of fashion victims. Now we're all expected to go to chains in the far suburbs to get cheaper clothes. ELEVATOR MUSIC IN ONE-STORY BUILDINGS: A Tillicum 7-Eleven store drives teens away by blasting easy listening music into the parking lot. This music was scientifically engineered, based on 40-year-old principles, to be as inoffensive as possible; but to today's generation, this is the most offensive thing imaginable (with the possible exception of worldwide environmental disaster or Ed McMahon). But the Muzak company is now trying to reshape its image. It's getting the rights to make easy-listening versions of contemporary hits by such artists as P.Abdul and even U2. Maybe if 7-Eleven could get a tape of the Muzak "Pride in the Name of Love" and play it over and over, they'd never worry about anybody under 35 showing up within half a mile of the place. THE FINE PRINT: "At Kellogg Company, we are committed to making the highest quality toaster pastries available. We do not make generic or store-brand toaster pastries. To insure Kellogg quality inside the box, make sure there is a Kellogg's label outside." WASHINGTON MAGAZINE R.I.P.: It tried to do nothing but make money, and failed at that. The next people to try a regional magazine should learn from Washington's mistakes and, instead of just running lavish but bland peans to scenery, pay some attention to covering people. ADS OF THE MONTH: The McDonald's commercial in which a white guy, shaving, sees a black female singer in his mirror (with shaving cream on her face!), exhorting him to start his day with an Egg McMuffin...A Wild Waves amusement park commercial shows a teenage boy in swim trunks sliding into a tunnel section of a water slide, intercut with shots of bikini-clad females. Honest, this really aired! . . . Frito-Lay's youth-bashing ads, which alternate between condescendingly depicted kids and childishly acting alleged adults only prove how smugly out-of-it the yups really are (or at least the role-model yups who may be more populous in advertising than in actual existence). HOW INFOTAINING: KIRO is actually running those commercials disguised as talk shows, in the former Pat Sajak slot. Those "shows" belong on the chintzier cable channels, if even there (though, I must admit, most of them are funnier than Sajak ever was). . . HOW COME?: King Broadcasting is about to be sold; bringing an end to its status as the largest women-owned company operating in Washington (with the possible exception of the Sisters of Providence). KING is a Seattle institution, one of the few network-affiliate stations in the country that has its own strong identity. The papers have talked about KING's documentaries and editorials, about its Seattle magazine of the '60s (still perhaps the best thing published here). They haven't talked about its great movie The Plot Against Harry, or about KING's once-great arts coverage, or about The Great American Game (the first public-affairs game show, where all the contestants had to be volunteers in community organizations) Or about Wunda Wunda, the TV kiddie star who was this sort of harlequin character, and her potted flower Wilting Willie. When she watered it every day and sang the Wilting Willie song, you never knew whether the flower would proudly rise up to become Stand-Up Willie (with appropriate fanfare from the organist) or stay Wilting Willie and lie there drooped over the edge of the flower pot. God, don't let GE buy the station. AUTO MOTIVES: Chrysler is offering cash payoffs to any of its 60,000 union employees who retire early. Or, as Joe Garagiola might say, "Quit your job -- Get a check!" JUNK FOOD OF THE MONTH: Chicago's Viskase Corp. will supply any company with hot dogs containing an advertising message printed in edible inks. So far, no takers... A Dallas-area company that already makes Miracle Smile teeth bleach, is now entering the soft drink field with Cool Cola, a drink that's not only caffeine-free and preservative-free but vitamin-enriched. READERBOARD AT MEAD MOTOR CO. on Roosevelt: WE PAY CASH FOR ARS. If Roosevelt Way were in England and this were the new Ms. magazine, you'd be reading this on the "No Comment" page. BREMERTON, MOST LIVABLE CITY?: Maybe in the past, when there was a cool, compact downtown with Bremer's Dept. Store and one of the nation's last classic 3-story Montgomery Ward units. But not these days. Other Money ratings: Seattle 2, Tacoma 4, Eugene 6, Olympia 8. Michael Moore would love to hear that Flint, Mich. is no longer last on the list of 300 metro areas; it's not even in bottom 10. Why does Money's list so often favor the Northwest? Could be that a Portland consulting firm, Fast Forward, does the research and makes the judgements. YOUR CHEATIN' MAYOR: In the city that made adultery the stuff of gold records, Nashville, Mayor Bill Boner (no jokes please), 45, has been appearing in public with aspiring country singer Traci Peel (ditto), 34. He's calling her his fiancée, even though he hasn't yet divorced his third wife (whose $50,000 salary from a defense contractor had led to a House ethics committee investigation of him, before he left Congress to be mayor). A local newspaper reporter said they'd told him he'd called them "at a bad time," with Peel adding that they'd gone at it with one another for as long as seven hours. BUT AREN'T ALL POLITICIANS LIKE THAT?: Illone "Cicciolina" Staller, the ex-porn star in Italy's parliament, offered to sleep w/Hussein to persuade him to make peace. Perhaps she was inspired by the New Age book, The Woman Who Slept With Men to Take War Out of Them, about ancient "sacred prostitutes" who performed spiritual rituals (of which sex was merely a part) to initiate returning soldiers back into the community. NAKED TRUTH: If I may overgeneralize, the women at the Silver Image Gallery's Nudes show seemed much more comfortable with looking at women's bodies than the men were with looking at men's bodies. It's odd, considering that men pay big money to look at men's bodies that are dressed in athletic uniforms. UNTIL OUR BRISK AND COOL October ish, demand the saving of the Boeing Supersonic Transport mockup plane (now in a Fla. church), read Willie Smith's Oedipus Cadet (an odd little novel about troubled boyhood), and work for peace.
QUOTATION
REPORT
WORD-O-MONTH
PRESS RELEASE OF THE MONTH |
2001 COLUMNS 2000 COLUMNS 1999 COLUMNS 1999 COLUMNS 1998 COLUMNS 1997 COLUMNS 1996 COLUMNS 1995 COLUMNS 1986-94 COLUMNS ESSAYS FICTION X-WORDS 'THE BIG BOOK OF MISC.' THE BOOK 'LOSER' MISCmedia, THE MAGAZINE FUTURE PROJECTS CYBER STUFF THINGS I LIKE 'MISC. TALK' DISCUSSION FORUM CLARK'S CULTURE CORRAL: BOOKS, MUSIC, MOVIES REVIEWED AND SOLD (Support MISC. Media; make your Amazon.com purchases thru this link.) |
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