Thursday, June 20, 2002

THE RECORD LABELS and the Religious Right aren't the only people who want to put a muzzle on what you can say or do online. Now some aspiring political operatives in the state that gave us our duly-appointed President are putting out the big guns against a website that apparently offered lots of consumer-information posts about escort services and links to the services' own sites. (The site itself is now down.)

posted by clark 10:57 PM

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is, you must admit, a funny, briskly-paced, and entertaining film, no matter how ineptly it was made. A truly bad film is dull--no, worse than dull, intolerable. Thus, I approve of the reasoning behind Maxim's recent "Fifty Worst Movies of All Time" list. While it includes some fun-to-watch mistakes (Can't Stop the Music) proven to bring joy to audiences at bars and house parties, it's essentially composed of unwatchable big-budget bombs such as The Postman and Batman & Robin.

posted by clark 4:13 PM

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

TO OUR READERS #1: The summer print MISC, which was supposed to be out next week, has been delayed; basically because certain freelance contributions have been slow or nonexistent. Think of this as YOUR opportunity. We need your essays, op-eds, and fun facts (800 words or shorter), particularly about the issue's previously advertised theme: "More Sex, Less Gender." E-mail for particulars.

TO OUR READERS #2: We get a lot of e-mails from folx who'd like this site to plug their new Net-based audiovisual technology doohickeys. For them, I have a simple six-word response: Wake me when it's Mac-compatible.

posted by clark 11:46 PM

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

EX-LOCAL WRITER JESSE WALKER, whom we've written about several times previous, now brings an astute analysis concerning the slow, steady decline of the comic strip Doonesbury.

posted by clark 11:19 AM

Monday, June 17, 2002

AS PART OF my ongoing efforts to find gainful (paying) employment, I recently made my first voice-over demo recording. You can hear it at this link in the ever-popular MP3 format. Send it to anyone you know who might be responsible for casting commercials, industrial videos, documentaries, video-game soundtracks, etc., and be sure to send them this web address at the same time.

posted by clark 8:30 PM

THE CORPORATE EMPIRE STRIKES yet another blow, effectively killing off another great music sharing portal, Audiogalaxy.com. It was the best of its type, until the next one comes along. Which it will, despite the the forces of control.

IN SLIGHTLY HAPPIER NEWS, it's increasingly apparent Arthur Andersen & Co. will pay the ultimate price for its past funny-money chicanery, and will essentially cease to exist except as a lawsuit-settlement entity. It's time other companies faced similar disillusionments (not mere breakups). Clear Channel Communications is first on my list, followed by the major record labels. I'm sure you could think of others. Any suggestions?

posted by clark 6:50 PM

THE CORPORATE EMPIRE STRIKES yet another blow, effectively killing off another great music sharing portal, Audiogalaxy.com. It was the best of its type, until the next one comes along. Which it will, despite the the forces of control.

posted by clark 5:07 PM

WHY A DUCK? DEPT.: Seems like everybody in the civic establishment, and in the just-outside groups lobbying the civic establishment, wants to get rid of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The Seattle Times wants it gone. The P-I wants it gone. Allied Arts of Seattle wants it gone. And most influentually, Paul Allen wants it gone.

I want it to stay.

By far, it's Seattle's most scenic and romantic higher-speed roadway. Driving north on it at night is a visual definition of coming home to Seattle--the office towers shining to your right, Elliott Bay peacefully slumbering to your left. (And that sudden off-ramp onto Marion Street is always a mini thrill ride.) On the few days a year pedestrians can use it, it becomes a heaven of undiscovered angles and photographic possibilities.

Of course, I know the 51-year-old Viaduct can't stay, at least not in its current incarnation. It's not earthquake-safe, it's built on unstable landfill, and the seawall holding up the landfill is itself old and decaying.

This provides the civic-builder clique with the perfect excuse to demand the viaduct's replacement--not with another elevated scenic drive but with a tunnel. And on the ground level above the tunnel, the parking lots and low-rent storefronts of today's Alaskan Way would be tossed aside as an unwanted memory of a working-class past the city's elite would rather forget. In its place: What Times guest writer and architect Karen DeLucas calls "a great urban oasis" comprising "a rich dynamic series of urban places linked together by a pedestrian promenade that stretches the entire length of the Seattle waterfront."

Feel free to read that as Seattle Commons II: A squeaky-clean, hyper-bland, fantasy playplace for the upscale and the tourists, openly intended to drive up surrounding property values and drive out any remaining outposts of the non-affluent.

Or, as Times columnist James Vesely writes of today's waterfront, "The cheesy tourist strip was OK for a different Seattle, but there are grander things that could be done, and why not dream them?"

Well, I've got my own dreams on what to do with the waterfront. And keeping the cheesy tourist strip, even expanding it, is #2 or #3 on my list.

The rise of containerized cargo and shipboard fish processing means we can't return the old stevedore docks to their original uses. But we can preserve their current uses--unpretentiously entertaining the citizenry with fish n' chips under radiant heating units, ferry rides, ice cream cones, street vendors, sea-otter displays, Imax movies, souvenir-plate stores, Sylvester the Mummy, and the occasional tugboat race or Flaming Lips concert. These fine attractions could be enhanced with selective additions, which might include an amusement park with a kickass roller coaster, a summer-long "street fair," some more exotic-import shops, some nighttime hot spots, fire eaters, stilt walkers, cabaret acts, and, of course, the Kalakala.

Just up from the water, Alaskan Way and its immediate environs between Spokane and Seneca Streets would become, in my dream, a covered (though not fully rain-protected) year-round anything-goes zone. Bars in this zone would have no mandated closing times. Pedestrians (though not drivers) would be permitted to carry open containers along what would be an all-night party place.

Beneath the street and above a traffic tunnel, a new "underground Seattle" would let grownups play safely out of sight from the family-values types: Casinos, strip clubs, rave clubs, odd performance-art venues, etc. South of Washington Street, it would turn into an "Amsterdam West" district offering red-light experiences for consenting adults of all persuasions. Above the street, a new and seismically-correct viaduct would offer three or four lanes of slow, scenic traffic on its top tier (everyday traffic would be encouraged to take the tunnel). The new viaduct's lower tier would be a covered pedestrian and bicycle way, with P-Patch planting boxes and art installations, alongside a monorail branch line.

Yeah, it'd all cost money. (Although my plan has more potentially rentable and taxable aspects than the plan the Times likes.) Yeah, it'd need rezoning. Yeah, it'd face political opposition.

But Vesely says we've gotta have big dreams if we want this city to become a better place. And my dreams are bigger, and more fun, than his will ever be.

posted by clark 4:51 PM

TODAY, MISCMEDIA.COM is dedicated to one of the true greats at the still-new art of web writing, Rodney O. Lain, who passed away over the weekend.

Lain, who at various times wrote for nearly every Macintosh-centric website, quickly established himself as an outspoken, well-written, detector of pomposity and dissecter of corporate hype. In perhaps his most memorable piece, he audaciously compared his status as a black man in a white world to his status as a Mac man in a Windows world.

AS WE APPROACH the 10th anniversary of the filmed-in-Seattle semiclassic Singles, Forbes magazine has placed Seattle right in the smack-dab mediocre middle of its listing of "America's Best Cities for Singles."

As you might expect from the magazine's other priorities, its index included "cost of living" and "economic growth" among its criteria--areas in which the Nor'West is admittedly doing piss-poor these days. But SeaTown also ranked less than stellarly in the more subjectively-defined areas of "culture" and "nightlife," areas in which I firmly believe we're more than fully competitive with other cities in our population "weight class."

But then we come to the most potentially damning part of the piece: "Seattle 'solo artists' say the town is still a bit tougher than other places when it comes to dating, as denizens tend to be more reserved than folks in sunnier spots..." As one who's proud to call himself one of those reserved denizens, I think it a badge of honor that I don't stoop to screaming dorky pickup lines at women; and I enjoy that my taste in the single ladies tends more toward smarties and less toward silicone.

Yes, Nor'Westers might be a little harder to get to know. But, like so many other advanced disciplines of life, we're darned well worth it.

OPPONENTS OF MODERN ART have a new pet accusation. Instead of calling it obscene, at least one critic is now saying it's bad for your mental health.

posted by clark 12:00 PM

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