Friday, March 01, 2002

PUTTING THE 'DECADE' INTO 'DECADENCE': The Stranger, the weekly free tabloid with which I have an off-and-on stormy relationship, celebrated its tenth anniversary this week. The actual ten-year mark came last September, but obviously a lot of folks weren't in the mood for celebrating anything back then.

I was asked to write something for it. It didn't run in that issue (they promise it'll run next week).

It's a remembrance of local publications that have come and gone during the Stranger's lifetime:

• The Rocket: The bible of Northwest rock had already been going for 12 years when the Stranger started. Shortly after that, publisher Charles Cross sold out to some Californians who drove it into the ground. Its demise in October 2000 is still mourned by many.

• Kutie: Sometime Stranger art director Hank Trotter's moonlighting venture was a skin mag in the classic early-'60s style, full of the tease and style missing from today's formula porn. Sometimes, the only way you knew the pictures were new was from the models' tattoos. Five issues came out between 1997 and 2000; content from the unpublished issue #6 can be seen at www.kutie.com.

• Seattle Union Record: During the big newspaper strike of November 2000-January 2001, Newspaper Guild members put out their own thrice-weekly free tabloid. Freed from the dumbing-down demands of management, the newsies created a model for some future alternative urban daily.

• Metropolitan Living: The former publisher of The Employment Paper had what seemed in 1999 to be a smash idea: A slick, oversize monthly about local celebrities and upscale lifestyles; given away free to all at vending boxes, but intended strictly for the platinum-card elites. It lasted about a year and a half.

• Arts Journal: Another vehicle for luxury-goods ads, this one was mailed free to people who'd given money to Seattle's bigtime arts groups. Its content was often outstanding; too bad most folks who'd really care about it (artists, actors, playwrights, etc.) seldom got to see it.

• Redheaded Stepchild: A visual-arts zine that was almost all text, this photocopied monthly newsletter chiefly covered professional and personal survival issues for contemporary art-makers. It started in mid-1999 and ran a little over a year, before its volunteer staff found better things to do.

• Seattle Gay Standard: An ambitious effort at a real competitor to the long-established Seattle Gay News. The Standard had ambitious stories, gorgeous color photos, and a relative paucity of boys-arguing-about-the-wallpaper cartoons. But it got caught up in the same 2001 ad slump that befell Metropolitan Living and Arts Journal.

• Perv: The Stranger's own Dan Savage was one of the masterminds behind this 1996 gay-print alternative, a monthly four-page broadsheet focusing on the Capitol Hill queer club scene.

• Rock Paper Scissors: Ex-musician Thomas Marchese's attempt to fill the Rocket's void. The defiantly un-slick weekly free tabloid ran weekly from June to August 2001, and gave particular emphasis to the neo-metal community.

• The Seattle Scroll: Matt Asher's fortnightly essay-and-opinion paper started in the fall of 1996 with a novel format--a single oversize sheet of book-stock paper, rolled up instead of folded. By its end one year later, it had become a regular tabloid. Asher was last heard from writing a novel in Vermont. The Scroll's "media editor," Jesse Walker, later worked in LA for a libertarian-leaning think tank.

posted by clark 11:41 AM

NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE...: Failure.com is a neato online magazine covering such lovable (and otherwise) losers as the Edsel, the Hindenburg, and the ongoing mine fire in Centralia, PA. (found by Jerry Kindall.)

posted by clark 10:31 AM

PRACTICAL ADVICE ON PERSONAL FINANCE, intended for exotic dancers but valuable to many more of us (found by Geegaw):

"There are many excuses for not saving your money but in my experience few of them are valid. Single mother, health problems whatever- you can still afford to save."

"Set enough aside to pay for all of your expenses--food, housing, tuition, utilities, car, whatever for 4 months. This is your emergency fund, put it in your saving account and don't spend it. The rest you should invest."

The best possible investment you can make is an education. With a nice big nest egg and a good degree you can do just about anything you want when you retire from dancing. Without an education or any job skills that money will eventually be gone."

posted by clark 10:15 AM

THIS PAST TUESDAY EVENING, yr. humble editor was invited to an intimate brewpub gathering of Seattle "weblog" authors. Somebody brought around a sock monkey that's apparently being shipped coast-to-coast among a succession of web writers. Zannah of usr/bin/grl made tiny origami cranes for everyone. Here are some of the sites whose creators showed up:

• usr/bin/girl
  
• Buffoonery
  
• Talking Crow
  
• EdgeCurve
  
• The Pages Within
  
• S.J.
  
• Dagmar
  
• Geegaw
  
• Abada Abada
  
• Jerry Kindall
  
• Electrolicious
  
• Bitchquick
  
• Jane For Short
  
• Jish
  
• Foreword
  
• Re-Run
  
• Apartment Four-Oh-Four

posted by clark 10:06 AM

SOME REASONS by a European why the U.S. shouldn't invade Iraq, at least not now. (Found by Edgecurve.)

posted by clark 9:45 AM

YOU'RE NOT PROPERLY DRESSED without the officially-proclaimed "in" colors for 2002, including "Rosa Roja," Langostino," Snappy Orange," "Lemoncello!" (Found by McSweeneys.)

posted by clark 9:39 AM

Thursday, February 28, 2002

SOMEBODY FINALLY TRACKED DOWN the Seattle theatre-scene past of psychic-phone shill Miss Cleo (updated link).

posted by clark 5:29 PM

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

SAD: The world has lost Spike Milligan, creator and last living costar of the BBC Radio Goon Show and pioneer of "zany" Brit comedy...

...and Arthur Lyman, one of the kings of Hawaiian pop music.

posted by clark 7:26 PM

AFTER FAR TOO LONG, substantial changes have been made to this site's two links pages, CyberStuff and Things I Like. Many dead links have been dropped or replaced; several new items have been added. Enjoy.

SCARY: Somebody's writing threatening messages to Sonics players, and it's not about the team's mediocre home record this season.

SCARIER: The ugly truth about Clear Channel Communications, the octopus of U.S. radio that's taking over KJR and KUBE.

posted by clark 7:17 PM

LOCAL TECH EXPERT ADAM ENGST on the intellectual property cartel and efforts to fight back against its brazen encroachments on our lives and cultural progress.

posted by clark 6:30 PM

FOLLOW THE GROWING SNOWBALL of media-biz layoffs at The Dead Zone.

A HIGHLY LITERATE tribute to the Spokane-born master of animation, Chuck Jones (found by Fark).

posted by clark 3:01 PM

Monday, February 25, 2002

I KNOW I'M NOT the first to say this, but the Canadian Olympic team roolz!

posted by clark 12:46 AM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
• 2002, 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.