Thursday, July 02, 2009

WANNA REALLY jump start the economy? Felix Salmon sez, "Pay the Artists!"

posted by clark 3:42 PM

Thursday, June 25, 2009

WHAT DID JACKO IN? One of his former lawyers says it just might have been the same thing that did in his first wife's dad.

posted by clark 11:36 PM

TEARING UP THE ROAD: Gary Merlino Construction Co. crews uncover and recover Second Avenue in Belltown on Thursday. Working north to south, new concrete forms are set between Bell and Blanchard streets, while pile drivers rip up the old pavement between Lenora and Virginia streets. The City of Seattle is repaving Second in separate stretches from Denny Way to South Jackson Street, in a project that should last into mid-July.

posted by clark 7:22 PM

MICHAEL JACKSON, R.I.P.: The ultimate tabloid celebrity was also the ultimate mess of contradictions, as you've long known. He was a devout student of classic R&B who had a series of nose and chin reconstructions, straightened his hair, and wore whiteface makeup on and off stage. He was a self-made sex symbol whose mark of "toughness" was to shriek in an attempt to reach the high notes of his early fame. He was a creator of effortless-sounding music whose life was rife with chaos, drug/alcohol abuse, and music-industry sycophants. He was a beloved entertainer who was accused of some of the most heinous crimes. He'd attained unlimited wealth (or the closest thing to that any African-American man has ever had), then spent the last third of his life scrambling to avoid total financial collapse.

In all the TV, radio, and online chatter in the first hours since his demise, I've been reading and hearing the wildest tales. Given what we know about his life, even the wildest of these rumors seem believable, whether or not they're true.

My favorite quotation about Jackson came in a Facebook message from ex-Seattle semiotician Steven Shaviro: "MJ, in his musical genius and in his sad racial and sexual confusions, epitomized American civilization more than anybody else ever did."

posted by clark 6:06 PM

FARRAH FAWCETT R.I.P.: Celebrity can be a fickle thing. So can typecasting. Fawcett was only on Charlie's Angels for one season, 22 episodes (plus a three-episode return in the show's fourth season). Yet that one role, and the accompanying glamour-image marketing, established her celebrity persona for life. From serious film roles to two Playboy appearances, nothing she did since overcame that initial inconography of the nipples, the teeth, and especially the hair. Only her slow, very public death did that.

posted by clark 12:58 PM

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

FEMALE PLAYWRIGHTS, victims of discrimination by female theater-company managers?

posted by clark 1:54 PM

GROUP HEALTH, national role model?

posted by clark 12:54 PM

Monday, June 22, 2009

ALL CONGRATS and best wishes to top local music producer Conrad Uno (Young Fresh Fellows, PUSA, and more). He and his lovely bride Emily Bishton renewed their wedding vows at Safeco Field on Sunday. The here-linked Seattle Times article mentions almost nothing about Uno's musical career.

posted by clark 11:13 AM

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

WASHINGTON HALL IS SAVED!: The historic Central District meeting hall, known in recent decades as the original home of On the Boards' performance-art events, now belongs to Historic Seattle. A big restoration/renovation will begin shortly.

posted by clark 11:18 PM

THE ORIGINAL TV TECHNOLOGY IS DEAD. And, one guy claims, the TV business will soon follow.

posted by clark 9:31 AM

MISCmedia IS DEDICATED today to Bob Bogle, Ventures founding guitarist and NW rock legend. His band got into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame just last year. His distinctively crisp, cool instrumental sound is eternal.

posted by clark 8:43 AM

NICE TO KNOW there's still one corporate art collector still anxious to buy stuff--the Ripley's Believe It or Not museums.

posted by clark 8:36 AM

Friday, June 12, 2009

TELEVISION, AS WE KNOW IT, ends in 19 minutes from the time I start writing this. I'm watching KING-TV (the first analog telecaster in our corner of the world) as its original transmission ends after nearly 61 years. Right now, it's transmitting a Today show segment about how to find the right-size bra.

KING's sister station KONG just ran a segment on its local morning news about the big digital switchover. They said KCTS (the local PBS affiliate) has already shut off its analog signal.

KOMO's been running a Good Morning America outdoor concert segment with the Jonas Brothers.

Back on KING, Today's got the Black Eyed Peas, with some backup dancers in black-and-white striped full body suits. How appropriate, for some of the last signals to be carried on the ol' 525 horizontal lines.

The segment ended with the 57-year-old station-break cue: "This is Today on NBC."

On KIRO, The Early Show offers Lionel Richie (now mostly known as a reality-show star's dad) on the deck of a Navy ship, presumably at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The onscreen program guide says I missed a segment with Betty White, that living TV legend.

KOMO's local news break has a predawn car crash and the arrest of a male suburban YMCA employee for allegedly abusing a 13 year old girl, plus traffic, weather, and one more warning about the death of analog.

KING's last analog commercials: Eastside Vascular Vein Center and the Village Theater. KOMO's last analog commercial: The Jewelry Exchange in Renton.

KING has now switched to an infomercial about the big switch, in Spanish with English subtitles. It was preceded by an announcement, in English, by KING 5 News dude Glenn Farley, saying the Anglophone version of the infomercial will follow.

KOMO's analog signal, beamed since 1954, is now dead.

KIRO's analog signal, beamed since 1958, is also now dead.

KSTW's analog signal continues, for now, with Divorce Court. Not what I'd have chosen to close out an era in American communications technology.

Update, 10:54 a.m.: Just called the receptionist dude at KSTW. They're keeping their analog signal on until noon today. This means the official last analog telecasts in Seattle will be reruns of judge shows.

Update, 12:27 p.m.: The final switch came at high noon. At the end of "Family Court," a pretaped announcement said, "KSTW 11 is now ending its analog signal. Please stand by." Then static.

posted by clark 8:40 AM

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

TELEVISION AS WE KNOW IT ends this Friday. Does anyone care? This guy does.

posted by clark 10:02 AM

NO COMMENT DEPT.: Thanks to iTunes' automatic search for album-cover art, I woke up this morning to find this image now attached to the brassy 1959 instrumental hit "Manhattan Spiritual." I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Sad relic of a Mad Men past we're glad to be over." Since this is the No-Comment Dept., I'll let your thoughts carry the day.

posted by clark 7:46 AM

Monday, June 08, 2009

WHILE ATTEMPTING TO DETERMINE just where Link light rail will take us starting next month, I found myself directed to a Google Maps page that still includes the Longacres horse racing track. Alas, Longacres disappeared in 1992, when the World Wide Web was little more than a glint in Tim Berners-Lee's eyes.

By the way: The light rail's initial southern terminus, the "Tukwila-International Boulevard Station," is smack dab in the middle of nothing but Sea-Tac Airport's outer sprawl. There will be a shuttle bus from there to the airport terminal until December, when Link's own airport stop's ready. I've found no official word on whether any other Metro routes will be revised to stop anywhere near the TIB. Right now, none do, except for a couple of commute-only express runs.

posted by clark 4:15 PM

Sunday, June 07, 2009

BELLTOWN'S BUILDING BOOM may be on pause, but that's not stopping landowners from greasing the legal wheels in hopes of future development projects. Just last week, the City said owners of the former Bon Marche livery stables on Western could go ahead and tear down the 101-year-old clapboard structure, should they ever choose to do so.

Besides being a relic of the horse-drawn-delivery days, and one of the last buildings its age remaining in greater downtown, it's also one of Belltown's last buildings containing real artist spaces. (Note: On this Web site, architectural offices are not considered to be "artist spaces.") It was in that building that I spent much of the 1994-95 winter and spring in Art Chantry's former graphic design studio, assembling my book Loser.

posted by clark 4:17 PM

SEATTLE TIMES SHRINKAGE WATCH: Today's Sunday paper is down to 76 pages (plus ad flyers, supplements, and comics). Weekday papers this past month have had as few as 26 pages. (That's not the "news hole;" that's the whole paper, ads and all.)

I'm not calling this feature a "death watch," because the Times still has a lot further down it could go.

As yet, no major US city has lost all its daily papers. None probably will.

But the papers that remain could become unrecognizable. They could become tiny journals of record, like slightly more mass-market versions of the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. They could become glorified pundit-newsletters promoting the local business community's agenda of the day. They could become, to borrow from the old National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody, "newscasts in print," lurid sheets emphasizing crimes, fires, and mayhem.

posted by clark 1:58 PM

I'VE GOT ANOTHER piece on Seattle PostGlobe. It's about the folks who really, really love the Film Festival.

Remember, gang: PostGlobe is not the downsized version of the old P-I Web site. It's an all-new local news site started by P-I refugees. And it could use your suggestions and your support.

posted by clark 12:17 PM

THE KARNAGE KONTINUES: Back in the days of vinyl and even beyond, the University District was the record-store capitol of the region. That's where such once-mighty industry players as Budget Tapes & Records, Discount Records, Tower, Peaches, and The Wherehouse all purveyed the big (later little) plastic discs bearing assorted types of beautiful noise.

That era ends this month. That's when the District's last specialty new music store, Cellophane Square, gives up the good fight it's fought since 1972.

At its original location on NE 42nd, and later in more spacious digs on upper University Way, Cellophane Square was a lot more than a retailer. It was a community center, a hangout, an information exchange.

This was particularly true during the 1979-91 era of the punk underground, when Seattle's civic cultural establishment sneered at any musical act younger or flashier than the Eagles. Cellophane Square was where we learned which bands were touring, which bands were breaking up, and which bands needed a new drummer. It was where we got the domestic zines and the UK music mags. It was where we got those oh-so-rare (even then!) import-only releases by American bands.

There will still be a few new CDs at the University Book Store, and a lot of used discs at 2nd Time Around. But the scene just won't be the same.

posted by clark 12:02 PM

Monday, June 01, 2009

IF YOU'D WONDERED what the odd temporary readerboard sign for a Hal Ashby film festival was doing up outside the Showbox one day last week, we now know. It was part of a Target TV commercial with Pearl Jam. Really.

posted by clark 2:06 PM

IN TODAY'S NOOZE:

• Joel Connelly doesn't like the idea of still more street construction in Belltown, worrying that all these closed lanes and parking spaces could fatally disrupt business, especially if Nickels's "park boulevard" idea (reducing Bell Street to one lane of traffic and plaza-izing the rest) goes through. I believe if Bell's gonna be revamped, it might as well be done now, while all this other work is already going on on or near it.

• Our favorite expert on the domestic automotive collapse, Michael Moore, says good riddance to the old General Motors. (Say, since we the U.S. taxpayers now own the company, let's bring back the Geo! And let's make us some of those hi-speed passenger trains, too, OK?)

• As the Chase-ification of Washington Mutual nears completion, a lot of WaMu ATM cards have stopped working. The possible culprit: Chase's deal to switch WaMu's debit card handling services from MasterCard to Visa.

• Seattle Business Monthly depicts the Seattle Times-owning Blethen family as a dysfunctional clan worthy of soap-opera depiction.

• Our pals at the local news site PubliCola have some real investment behind them now, thanks to Greg Smith, the real estate developer who almost ran for mayor this year. Yeah, he almost ran against Greg Nickels, for whom PubliCola cofounder Sandeep Kaushik now does campaign PR.

• And the equally fine folks at another local news site, Seattle PostGlobe, have published another photo essay by yr. intrepid c'r's'p'n'd't. It's all about the demise of the Summit K-12 alternative public school.

posted by clark 1:53 PM

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

SO WE NON-CALIFORNIANS got to pout n' protest against California's supreme court when it upheld that state's anti-gay-marriage initiative.

As I wrote here last fall, it's always fun to snipe about the state that thinks it's so superior to the rest of us.

(Of course, longtime readers know that when I snipe at Calif., I also snipe at people here whose only idea how to improve Wash. is to blindly copy everything that's been done there.

As if everything done there would always work here.

As if everything done there even worked there.)

But, as speakers at Tuesday's Westlake Park rally asked, why don't all these local protesters do more to get legal gay marriage in this state?

Well, some are.

We've now got the great compromise that is "civil unions."

(And as one Daily Kos diarist put it, Tuesday's Calif. ruling seems to pave the way for a similar compromise there.)

But plenty of activists insist that "the legal equivalent of marriage under another name" just ain't the same thing as marriage.

And they're right.

posted by clark 11:18 AM

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

PATTI SMITH: Beat poet, punk pioneer, social activist, and White Stripes mother-in-law.

posted by clark 7:09 PM

I'M STARTING TO LIKE these online "abstracts" of New Yorker articles better than the articles themselves.

posted by clark 12:10 PM

I WAS AT THE FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL. I took a bunch of pictures. Twelve of them, with quasi-philosophical captions, are now up at Seattle PostGlobe.

I hope to create more of these slice-O-life photo pieces for PostGlobe. If you like this, you could consider a donation to that fledgling nonprofit news site.

posted by clark 9:51 AM

PETER SCHMIDT HAS his own personal bogeyman to blame for all the warmongering waste and fiscal foolishness of the Bush era. It's the nation's top universities, with their "culture of selfish, cutthroat behavior."

I'm not so sure myself. Yeah, rich-kid campuses have lots of maturity-challenged spoiled brats running around, imagining that they can do any damned thing they want to and to hell with the consequences. But the whole of our civic culture's been like that lately. There's no one real place where it started. And it can only end with individuals demanding, and living, a better way.

posted by clark 9:40 AM

Sunday, May 24, 2009

BACK IN WINGNUTTIA, one Sam Schulman argues what just might be "The Worst Case Yet Against Gay Marriage," as described in a New Republic snark post. Schulman goes beyond the normally accepted bounds of reactionarydom, to posit that marriage is necessary to keep straight men in proper society and to keep women from "concubinage."

By the way, this is the Sam Schulman who used to own the short-lived magazine Wigwag--not the (now late) Sam Schulman who used to own the Sonics.

posted by clark 10:01 PM

Friday, May 22, 2009

A UW PALEONTOLOGIST poses the musical question: What if our planet wasn't such a benevolent mother after all?

posted by clark 12:45 PM

BURIED IN PLAIN SIGHT at the top of this article about the self-publishing book boom is a startling statistic. Between self- and corporately-published titles, one book was published last year for every 500 Americans. Not one copy sold, but one whole work created. And this doesn't count works issued solely online or as ebooks.

posted by clark 12:43 PM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
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