If they can put a man on the moon...

...then they should be able to solve [insert social injustice or economic inequity here]. Yes, I celebrated the 40 year old anniversary of the first (staged?) moon landing by having a day of anti-gravity surreal proportions (mostly bad, small hellish bursts], but the highlight was finally getting chance to ride Seattle's own entrance into spage-age transportation... No, not the monorail, sadly - but the LightRail... Yes, finally - our 20th Century urban development has arrived - in the 21st Century Ladies and Gentlemen (applause, applause - ribbon cutting, fanfare, end scene).
Having lived above the tunnel boar-er for a good 5 years, I finally got to go from downtown to Mount Baker in less than 20 minutes flat. I can't tell you how gratifying that was. No stops on every other block. No (intentionally) having to knock elderly grandmother's out of my way to get out the back door. Pleasant arrivals, chimes and a friendly voice advising you where to exit.
The stations are cute in that playful NW post-millenial-design and art-commissioned kind of way - the Beacon station has gleeful sea creatures and Bill Bell's subliminal art in the tunnels is kinda cool (and I realized that one benefit of having the downtown bus tunnels all this time is that the art and design from late 80's makes it all seem like we've had light rail all along for the last 20 years). What made the trip? Having a car full of small children who were loving every minute of the ride and kept reminding us how, even though it's a mid-century too late, our eagle has landed... (PS - photo of my metrocard for proof of concept).

Precious Moments (in History)

I know that in many ways, it's a cardinal sin to go after people who completely do not have any sense of irony (with your own), and I also know that you should not track-back to someone's site unless you're 'pro' whatever freak flag they are choosing to raise at a given moment, but for some reason, I totally realized that this site here will explain everything to you about white people. No need to sign million dollar book deals from your own blog, or hijack the nation's attention through gay-baiting pranks. This site explains everything: Red States, 2004, Mythology, Creationism, Sense of Empire, Decay, Deliverance and Death. It is a symposium of all that is terrible and terrific in this county and exemplifies the true meaning of Christmas.

Sequins: Sequence: Sequinsissential

Ok - the last gasp from the spectacle that was the Jacko Memorial, and no more jokes: I point you to the quote from my more succesful doppleganger below (in his 96 reaction during the brit awards):



...and this quote from Momus:

Michael Jackson is not just the King of Pop, but the Last King of Pop. Three major factors will prevent there ever being another one: digital culture and its fragmentation of the big "we are the world"-type audience into a million tiny, targeted audiences; the demographic decline of the "pigs in the pipe" (the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, who made pop music's four-decade-long pre-eminence possible); and the decline of the influence of the United States...
"I think we're seeing the re-appearance of class and caste. Michael Jackson's fame comes from a cultural period -- postmodern global consumerism -- when the distinction between high and low collapsed. When Pierre Bourdieu surveyed French cultural tastes in the 1960s, he found that blue collar and white collar workers had completely different cultures -- classical music for the brain workers, cheap pop for the hand workers. A few decades later, postmodern consumer culture had leveled that, at least superficially: now, people with college degrees spoke about Michael Jackson "intelligently", people from lower class backgrounds spoke about him "passionately". But everybody spoke about him. Now that postmodernism is coming to an end, and now that narrowcasting and social networking limit our encounters with "the class other", I think we'll see different classes embracing different cultures again. Things will settle back into the kind of cultural landscape Bourdieu described in "Distinction"."

Sometimes the air isn't so fresh...

Yesterday, while enroute to meet up w/peeps to watch the fireworks, i witnessed a vehicle combust from inside. The driver seemed nonplussed as flames reached up inside his windows, and he circled while talking on his cellphone. It became one of those surreal moments because you can't really explain why someone's vehicle is on fire - and the lack of soundtrack makes the whole thing long and drawn out while each of the pedestrians make the obligatory 911 phone call to give a head's up... I waited to make sure there's no assistance needed (or if anyone was in the car - which didn't look likely at that point), so I resumed walking... and I started to notice the amount of exhaust from other cars well. In fact, the whole city seemed to become this worst representation of global warming (the crappy vintage dautsun with a bad muffler, the obnoxious harley rider with the tail pipe spewing noxious gas)... It was like watching a PSA of all the things that are quickly corroding our planet, later that night replaced with the rocket exhaust of a million illegal fireworks.
In approximately 2 weeks, the Light Rail will start and with it a small victory for the South end that's been continually shunted by suspect transit issues (there's a reason why the #36 is not running on time) and an easier way to get downtown. A little too late as we gulp the last decent air...

H04

Happy July 4th, 2009... And remember, if it's lit and has a fuse - LET GO.

The Objectivism of the Hair Flip

So - i'm kinda sick today (*actually, strike that - I honk when talk, and have the taste of 2hr old smegma in my mouth, so i'm major illin) - and i'm having those not-so-lucid Nyquil moments (on the bus, in the can, etc) where my mind wanders on strange things and was literally thinking a really funny burly-drag number for stage would be Ayn Rand reading plot points from "The Fountainhead" while Male Underwear Models from a 1970's catalog would perform tableaux's of the book. I don't know how or why this meme came to me (*however note, i've long wanted to do a number that involves models from various old apparel catalogues reenacting certain works of literature) and i'm not sure why i even chose "The Fountainhead" (I've never been a fan of Rand and for the life of me can't figure out how my nyquil addled brain settled on her)... but I was floored when I read this:

Q: Why did Rand say she was so determined to see you in the role of Dagny Taggart, the female heroine in Atlas Shrugged?



Farrah:I don’t remember if Ayn’s letter specifically mentioned Charlie’s Angels, but I do remember it saying that she was a fan of my work. A few months later, when we finally spoke on the phone (actually she did most of the speaking and I did most of the listening), she said she never missed an episode of the show. I remember being surprised and flattered by that. I mean, here was this literary genius praising Angels. After all, the show was never popular with critics who dismissed it as “Jiggle TV.” But Ayn saw something that the critics didn’t, something that I didn’t see either (at least not until many years later): She described the show as a “triumph of concept and casting.” Ayn said that while Angels was uniquely American, it was also the exception to American television in that it was the only show to capture true “romanticism”—it intentionally depicted the world not as it was, but as it should be.

And "Farrah" - by the way, is none other than the late FARRAH FAWCETT... Isn't it odd that I think about posing male models in super 70's sexy underwear poses to a Rand novel and then I read this? Oh well, I found it oddly comforting to read in lieu of the Jacko-mania of late.

Gay Fried Day

Ok, this is posted after the fact, but whatevs... here's what I did on my summer vacation: Went on the "Goth Pride 09" float, sauntered over to the Seattle Center, then caught "Hunx and his Punx" at the Funhouse along with the Onono's...