The Sign Is Up!

OK, so if you've been anywhere near 2nd & Blanchard, you know that Zoe is long gone. They've moved up to Capitol Hill and good luck to them. What we're getting in their place is from the minds that brought us Spur. This is not a bad thing. I've only been to Spur for drinks and they're consistently delicious. I highly recommend the Martinez with a twist. Anyhow, they're doing some intensive work on that space, so I'm expecting great things. Zoe was simple and functional; I have no idea what this will be. I only know that they start work shortly after six every morning. It's not a problem, as I'm already up and thinking of the pros and cons of going to the gym. (The pros usually win.) They should be open in just a few more short weeks. Let's all wish them the best and patronize them whenever we're rich enough.

I've been dying to saying this: The reason why I'm cold is because I left my coterie on my boaterie. What sparkling wit!

In Case You're Still Wondering...

Yeah, that scaffold is still out in front of the Castle at 2nd & Blanchard - still serving no purpose. It's been there doing nothing for over three months now. I dunno, are they thinking about bringing back public hangings for Founders' Days? Because this would be totally ideal for that.

In Case You're Wondering...

The Castle's mystery scaffold is still there. Witness:

They're not using it for anything. It just stands there...like scaffolds do - the non-collapsing kind at least. If anybody knows what the heck they're gonna do with it, let me know.

Two Things That Happened

When I left last night for trivia, this was the scene at 2nd & Blanchard:

It seems that the Crocodile - or more precisely, Via Tribunali - caught fire. It happened around 6:00 last night. I was watching The Simpsons and didn't notice a thing. Yeah, it's kind of tough to distract me when Homer's talking. Anyhow, my guess is that Tribunali's wood-fire oven might have gotten a little frisky. Whatever happened, the fire department was required. But by 6:30 - the time I left - everything seemed under control. It's just that the neighborhood smelled like a fireplace. I walked by this morning and there weren't any signs on the Croc about it being closed or whatnot. So I guess we can put this temporary unpleasantness behind us. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is that we won trivia at the Kangaroo & Kiwi last night. In the last five months, we've played four times - and we've won every time. We're careful not to play too often and incur everyone's hatred. But golly, it's a fun quiz. I recommend that everyone experience it. Hey, if we can win it, anybody can.

So Long, Real Change!

They've been good neighbors, but it's time for Real Change to move along. What with the economic crisis and the surge in homeless and all, their longtime headquarters here at 2nd & Blanchard are getting a bit cramped. They're moving to Pioneer Square, which makes a lot of sense, because that's where most major homeless shelters and missions are. In all this time, I know that Real Change's heart is in the right place, but I'm not sure how effective they really are. I mean, there are people who have been selling the paper for 10 years. Isn't it only supposed to be an interim gig? Anyhow, they're still around for a while yet; their grand opening in Pioneer Square is May 24th. What will become of the space? Who knows, but I pray to gawd that it won't become a bar. A restaurant, OK, but please no bar. There are already two out-of-control bars on the block (the V-Bar, of course, and See Sound Lounge). We don't need to add to that number. But let's wish Real Change luck in their future new digs!

All Better!

Well, the V-Bar's window has been healed. See? I talked to a few of my neighbors and read the item on the police blotter and I'm able to piece a few things together. OK, there was this drunk guy whom they refused to serve. He took exception to that and eventually broke their window. One employee actually went and got a gun from behind the bar and took a shot at him. I didn't see it, but she apparently (and allegedly) shot at him, not up in the air. It was just one shot from a 9mm, even though my upstairs neighbor swears it was two. And then she had somebody hide the gun for her. The cops not only found that gun, but they fished out another one as well. They ended up arresting drunk guy and Annie Oakley. OK, that's basically what went on, but it still doesn't explain the battle on the sidewalk. Who were all those people? I'm pretty sure one of them was drunk guy, but who was everybody else? I'll give the cops a call later today and find out what charges are being brought against the two they arrested. Well, that's all for now.

Noodle War!

Notice anything different about the V-Bar?

Take a closer look:

That's a very large and broken window, my friend. I swear to God that this kind of stuff doesn't happen very often in Belltown - especially on a Tuesday evening - but last night there was a full-fledged dumbass street fight going on right across the way. Here's how I saw it: I was in bed sleeping, when the sounds of a loud argument woke me. Two guys were screaming at each other, liberally peppering their remarks with the n-word, and a woman with a super-annoying voice was apparently shouting at one or both of them. I couldn't tell what she was saying. Stuff like this usually defuses itself in minutes, if not seconds. The two shouting parties separate, head off in opposite directions and tell their buddies just how much they're gonna mess that other guy up if they should ever cross paths again. That didn't happen. It got louder and more aggressive. At this point, I'm still in bed. I can't tell where this conflict is coming from. The acoustics on this part of 2nd are weird. Sometimes stuff happening right under my window sounds far away and things down the block sound like they're happening inside my apartment. This yelling match actually sounded like it was happening down the block. It wouldn't have mattered at all if there hadn't been this leap in volume, even more n-bombs falling, then these two huge crashing sounds. I got up and looked across the street. The V-Bar's window was broken just like you see above (only glass was everywhere) and a bunch of guys were scuffling on the sidewalk. You couldn't really call it a fight. It was just some guys (all of whom appeared to be Asian; so why employ the n-word, dudes?) running in, throwing a punch or two, missing, retreating, then repeating the process again. The action flowed along about a hundred feet of sidewalk. I couldn't tell whose side was doing what or who the good guys were. At the same time, people were fleeing the V-Bar. One woman jumped in her car, made a U-turn and began driving into oncoming traffic. All the while, these guys were trying unsuccessfully to brawl. It was mesmerizing, and it lasted many minutes. I knew the cops would eventually show up. I could see a guy from Under the Needle calling them. But these dumbasses were committed to fighting. I think that in all that time, I saw only one punch land. Every other one missed its mark. Grappling was minimal, since everyone was all about throwing their punches and running away. Just as the action seemed to fizzle, somebody fired a gun. I couldn't see who it was because of the stupid tree in front of my window, so I don't know whether they were firing at somebody or not. All I know is that it really was a gun and nobody was hit. The cops eventually showed up and calmed things down. It took them about ten minutes to get there. I expected them to be in full nightstick-swinging mode, but no such luck. They initially did a lot of yelling and things quieted remarkably quickly. I don't know if anyone was arrested. The woman with the super-annoying voice from the beginning of the festivities spent a long time shouting at somebody. Everybody eventually hit the road. That left the job of cleaning up the glass to the V-Bar staff. It was really loud. It took me more than an hour to get back to sleep.

I'm pretty sure that this wasn't gang-related. These guys fought too poorly and had no intention of getting away before the cops arrived. But it was a strange sight. I've seen lots of fights before; they usually involve just two guys (girlfights are very rare) who, instead of going toe-to-toe, immediately clinch and fall to the sidewalk, roll around for a bit until both are filthy and exhausted. This action was a completely different animal. I've never seen as many guys involved before. If there were a few more on each side, it would have been a total street riot. I haven't been able to find out anything about this incident from the local rags, so I'll give the cops a call and update when I find out something new. Till then, welcome to Belltown, home of the Battle of V-Bar, first (and hopefully last) action of the Noodle War.

My Nutty Neighbors

You may have noticed when you're walking up or down the west side of 2nd Ave. between Blanchard and Lenora people laying on the sidewalk or wandering aimlessly around or carrying on conversations with no one - almost all of them are smoking. You may assume that this is a gathering point for Belltown's homeless, but you'd be assuming wrong. Most of them are my neighbors. I've lived in the Rivoli for 20 years, and for all that time, the El Rey and its tenants have been next door. Since its renovation in 1988, it has housed people with some pretty severe mental issues. Most would generically regard them as crazy. This makes life interesting at times for many of us at the neighboring Rivoli.

First off, those living next door are like all people: some are sweethearts, others are jerks, but most are somewhere in between. Based on my experience, there is nothing ennobling about being mentally ill. I know that there are tons of movies out there about brilliant crazy people prevailing over their demons even for a brief moment and achieving great things, but I have yet to see someone from the El Rey whip out a violin and dash off Bach's Partita in B Minor or elucidate about a practical way to travel faster than light speed. Apart from being crazy, everyone seems quite ordinary. For 22 years, the El Rey staff has taken care of them, and they've done a stellar job. Most of their residents have no other place to go. For them, it's either the El Rey or the streets. Some of them have actually come from the streets. And that shows in much of their behavior, which verges on the pathological.

Everybody at the El Rey has their quirks; there's the woman who calls me "Paul." There's no persuading her otherwise. She says I look like a Paul. There's the guy who is always inviting me to his family's mansion on top of Queen Anne Hill. There's no mansion; he's a delusional schizophrenic. There's also the guy who will tell me about how God is trying to kill us all. Many, however, are not social at all. There's one fellow living there whom I've never heard speak. He's been a resident for around 15 years. I guess that's his particular quirk. All residents are harmless, non-violent and substance-free, but there are a few that do bring down the quality of life on this block, such as it is. There are a few that are tireless, relentless panhandlers. No matter how many times you walk by, you get hit up. One day a few years ago, I had lots of stuff to do and I must have walked by this one woman a dozen times. Every time, she asked for change. In the following months, the story was the same. Every single time I walked by I'd get asked. She never recognized me as a neighbor or as somebody who never gave her anything. I finally asked her to stop, as I was her neighbor and wasn't going to give her any change. She still asks to this day. Her persistence is fairly incredible and she sometimes ends up making money. What does she spend it on? Twinkies and lotto tickets. All those hours panhandling for those two things. God help us if she ever wins the lottery. There are others who patrol the garbage cans; some rifle through them occasionally, others hourly. This and the panhandling are what bring down the quality of the block; this is the same block that contains the Real Change offices. I've said it before many times: Real Change is a good neighbor. The vendors are very seldom a problem. My only gripe with the El Rey people is that they have a home, medication, care and support, but some can't shake behaving like they're homeless. Those are just the things they do. And there's nothing the El Rey staff can do about it.

Considering the issues that they have to deal with, the El Rey does a great job. Sure, their residents freak out and have psychotic breakdowns sometimes, but overall, they're kept relatively comfortable, safe, and most importantly, medicated. I would much rather have the mentally ill cared for in a place like the El Rey than having them wandering around. But there are some days when seemingly every single person walking the street is nuts, and when you walk past the El Rey, they're the nuttiest of all. So the next time you're in this part of Belltown, just know that these people, regardless of how they appear, have an entire staff that looks after them and that life for them is as good as it can get under the circumstances.

Just a note: this is my thousandth post. I honestly didn't think I'd get past a dozen. Believe me, I'm not that dedicated to any one thing. When I figure out how I stuck with this silly blog so long, I'll let you know.

Last Year's Trees vs. This Year's Trees

Last year, I tell you what, I was really very encouraged when the first signs of spring began to show. This happened in April. The first three months of the year had been extraordinarily dreary. Well, not so this year! Sure, we've had a little rain and some partly gloomy days, but overall, it's been quite nice. And warm, too. In fact, I haven't had the heat on for a week. All of those factors have combined for an early spring. I have photographic evidence of it. Behold, this is how a stretch of 1st Ave., between Virginia & Stewart looked like on April 9, 2009:

OK, nice, but here's what it looked like yesterday:

For those of you keeping score at home, yesterday was March 1st. So yeah, early spring.

Here at 2nd & Blanchard, the pear trees are in full blossom mode. Here is the one out in front of the Castle Apartments:

Yes, also lovely. In fact, all down 2nd Ave., the pears have all popped. It's quite a sight. Hooray for early spring!

The Rivoli at 100 - Part 2!

Part Two: Bad Days, Ghost Stories and Our Crazy Modern World

From the time of its construction in 1910, the Rivoli served as cheap housing for those who worked at the docks and in the downtown area. Its fortunes, as with those of Belltown, fluctuated with the economy. The twenties were booming, the thirties were awful and the forties were again booming. In the fifties, things began to change. Dock work became more mechanized, skilled and higher paying. Thanks to those innovations, there were also fewer jobs available. Also during the fifties, Belltown's most prominent industry, film distribution for all major studios, was also changing. The studio systems that had functioned so efficiently from the teens onward was unraveling. By the sixties, the neighborhood was in a state of flux and by the seventies it was in obvious decline. I have no sources to tell me how the Rivoli fared through these decades or about what happened here and when, but the fact that the place is still standing testifies that things couldn't have been overly terrible. Once the eighties dawned, however, things would take a turn for the worse.

In the early eighties, Belltown was not exactly the ideal Seattle neighborhood. One of the most dangerous places in the entire city was the Pike Place Market at night. The corner of 1st & Pike played host to prostitutes and a wide variety of lowlifes. Belltown had its own bad spots. The Rivoli was one of them. Its absentee owner was determined to sell the building off to developers. As a result, it had sunk into a state of serious disrepair. Many of the units were uninhabitable. You could always tell the occupied units, because they had large padlocks on them. People, many of them local junkies, used to come into the building armed with crowbars to pry apartments open and empty them of their contents. The padlocks seemed to help keep them out. The hallways themselves became dangerous. People were robbed and assaulted on nearly every floor. In 1982, there was a rather infamous murder here. A tenant was killed by her crazy boyfriend. He stuffed her body into the unit's Murphy bed and fled town. After a few weeks, neighbors complained about the smell and the grisly discovery was made. Soon after that, the owner instructed the manager not to rent any more units. He was serious about getting rid of the place and was trying hard to make a deal. The building's population dropped to just four. At the same time, the Rivoli's neighbor, the El Rey, was closed and boarded up. It seemed that a similar fate was awaiting the Rivoli. But whatever deal the owner tried to strike fell through and he once again gave the manager the go-ahead to start renting the habitable units. Those were just over half of the building's apartments. The rest had broken windows, missing appliances, no electricity or something else wrong with them that would make living in them impossible.

By the mid-eighties, things had improved in the neighborhood and its environs. Police sweeps of the Pike Place Market and Belltown had made conditions more bearable. The economy had improved and the Rivoli's new crop of tenants were fitting in well. Many were artists or artisans who customized their apartments to their liking. Some of those units, including mine, remain to this day. No one is exactly sure how, but the Rivoli was picked as one of the main locations for the Alan Rudolph film Trouble in Mind. It's not the greatest film in the world, but it does show the building as it was in 1985. For the next five years, things continued to improve. At the end of the decade, the building was sold to its present owner who turned it into low income housing. This involved giving it a major renovation to make all units habitable. At the end of the project, I moved in. That was 20 years ago. The neighboring El Rey Apartments were renovated a few years earlier and has since become home to some of Belltown's craziest residents.

Because of its age and checkered past, the Rivoli has earned a place on the Seattle Ghost Tour. I've heard the stories, because the guides give their spiel right under my window. I'm flattered that the place where I've lived for two decades is garnering such attention, but I'm afraid to say that all the tales are untrue. The Rivoli is definitely not haunted. Honestly, it isn't. The apartment where the notorious murder took place in 1982 is right across the hall from me. My former neighbor lived there for 18 years and never saw or felt or noticed anything strange. She left because she'd been living here for 18 years and felt it was time for a change. Likewise, the tour claims that two guys died of AIDS in the building. Actually, they both passed away in hospice care, not in the building and, believe it or not, one of those poor fellows occupied the other apartment across the hall. It's not haunted, but it does seem that people who live there stop paying their rent for unknown reasons. Finally, the tour spins the yarn about haunted toilet. It goes something like this: in the early eighties, a crazy woman named Christine lived in the building. She was quite desperately lonely. She was in the habit of clogging her toilet with paper towels so that the building maintenance man would visit her. She later died in her apartment. To this day, the toilet in that unit mysteriously clogs at odd times. Absolutely not true. Yes, there have been crazy people who have lived here, but there was never a "Christine" in the mid-eighties, there wasn't a maintenance man - the building was way too cheap to hire one - and there is no haunted toilet. But it does make a good story, as do all the others. Take my word for it, though, this place isn't haunted.

In the twenty years I've lived here, Belltown has changed quite a bit. It went from a place where all the bums knew your name to a fortress of shiny condos peopled with temporary dotcom millionaires to a crack-saturated hellhole to the relatively tame club and restaurant mecca that it is today. Some of those things overlap, but whatever Belltown has gone through, the Rivoli has seen all of it. The apartments are small and drafty, but there are a few people who have called this place home for even longer than I have, so it does have its appeal. What does the future hold for the building? Well, it beats me, but some ultra-blogger in his jet pack might be celebrating its 200th anniversary in a century's time. This place is built surprisingly solid. So the next time you're passing by on 2nd & Blanchard, you'll know that a lot has happened here over the last 100 years.

The Rivoli at 100!

Part 1: In the beginning...

On January 1st of this year, my building, the Rivoli Apartments, quietly turned 100. Buildings are like racehorses, their birthdays are always January 1st. But I challenge you to find me a 100-year-old racehorse. The Rivoli's century of survival has been as unlikely as it is unusual, but despite all that, it continues to keep watch over the southwest corner of 2nd & Blanchard for now and into the foreseeable future.

Way back 101 years ago, 2nd Avenue looked like this:

This shot was taken from around Bell Street; the Moore and Josephinium are those big buildings in the distance on the left side of 2nd. Notice anything different? Yeah, there's a big ol' hill across the street! That's pretty much how things appeared at the time the Rivoli was built the following year.

The building's architect, A.H. Albertson, came to Seattle working for the prestigious New York firm Howells & Stokes. His original task was to develop the University of Washington's downtown properties, but he stayed on and designed the Northern Life Tower, St. Joseph's Church, the Seattle YMCA and numerous other buildings. How he ended up designing the Rivoli is a bit of a mystery, as he was obviously more interested in projects much grander than building an apartment building for dock workers. Whatever the reason, I'm glad he did it. I really love this old wreck of a building.


As you can see, the Rivoli's front is pretty ornate, considering its utilitarian purpose. Here you can find marble, wrought iron and terracotta all accenting the functional brick design. This is quite a contrast from its next-door neighbor, the El Rey Apartments (also built in 1910), which has almost zero ornamentation and far less charm. What you see in the picture above is only about 25% of the Rivoli, because it's an L-shaped building that wraps around a functional two-story structure that contains Cafe Zoe. The rest of the building is much more plain. But the ornate entrance counts for a lot.

The Rivoli's apartments are small. They were originally intended to house dock and other low-wage workers for cheap. Cheap places are small. But the building's saving grace is its high ceilings. Most of its units are studios. Combine a studio with a high ceiling and you can feel a bit like you're living in a box, but try living with a low ceiling - it's downright claustrophobic. I have one of the few one-bedroom apartments that the Rivoli offers. It's tiny - just a bit over 400 sq. feet. Yeah, it's small, but its location can't be beat and rent is still relatively cheap.

I had always believed that it was built as a walk-up. After all, it's only three stories tall. I was wrong. There was an actual working elevator for at least 60 years. When the building fell into disrepair in the sixties and seventies, it broke down and the then-owner decided to build over all traces that there had ever been an elevator.

The Rivoli was built halfway through a population explosion that increased Seattle's size threefold. It and other buildings in Belltown offered small apartments to both manual laborers and office workers. Over time, many of these places have disappeared and been replaced by condo towers, but the Rivoli has managed to avoid the wrecking ball. Next week, I'll explore why it's survived for so long.

Tune in next Monday for Part 2: Bad Days, Ghost Stories and Our Crazy Modern World.

Just Like That!

Wow, just a day after my screed on urban blight, one of my examples cleans up. This is the gem wholesaler across the street. Here's what it looked like yesterday and for the previous few months:

Here's how it is today:

How wonderfully non-blighted! Thanks for improving my view, Gem Center Northwest! And furthermore, I never knew that I wielded such power in this crummy neighborhood. But honestly, I'm sure it's just a coincidence. They were probably as sick of those awful tags as I was.

Fighting the Blight!

Even before the invention of writing, people have painted or scrawled things on walls, caves and rocks to show that walked upon the Earth. These days, the same thing happens, but it's a contributing factor to the blighted look of any urban landscape. You've seen it before - tag upon tag of indecipherable turns and squiggles that only make sense to other taggers. Belltown's surfaces get tagged perhaps more than any other Seattle neighborhood. As a resident, it's a little difficult to watch, because tags tend to accumulate. This is the building across the street from me:

Yeah, not pretty. If they don't do something about them, they'll continue to amass. But hey, these guys sort and grade gems, so maybe it's to their advantage to look low-rent. It attracts less attention. All I know is that it generally takes them months to deal with the tags. Many places have a much quicker reaction time: Cafe Zoe at 2nd & Blanchard, for instance. Back in September, they received this rather large gift:

The next day it was gone:

It was tagged again in November. The response was similar. It hasn't been tagged again. The Crocodile reacts similarly; they get rid of tags as quickly as possible. They haven't been tagged in months. So first off, using these two places as prime examples, eradicate the offending scrawls as quickly as possible. Taggers will find somewhere more permanent to lay down their paint and they'll keep away from your walls.

Here's another example of what happens when you ignore the problem and hope that it'll all magically vanish. The Cristalla is a condo high-rise at 2nd & Lenora. Last October, their rather stark south wall was host to some of the neighborhood's worst graffiti:

Yeah, that's about a hundred feet of badness. You'd think that the management would have sprung into action and done something about it immediately. After all, most of these higher-end condos and apartments sell themselves as urban oases. But they did nothing. More graffiti showed up:

More followed:

And so it remained for months. Finally, they did something about it:

They probably could have saved themselves time and effort if they had dealt with the initial batch of scrawls when it first appeared. But they didn't until their gleaming residence started looking like an abandoned building. And now the solution looks nearly as bad as the original problem. I guess they were waiting for another condo tower to go in next to them, but the way the economy is, that's not happening anytime soon, so at last they had to do something.

You'd think that with the wide variety of people wandering around, all thinking various thoughts and doing various things, that there's no point in having nice things within their reach. Actually, I've found the opposite to be true. Two examples: first, the doors of the Crocodile. Back in May, the newly-reopened Crocodile installed some very fancy door handles:

At the time, I remember thinking that something terrible was going to happen to them very soon. Not only to them, but to the doors they were attached to. Nothing of the sort has happened. They remain there unmolested; nobody has tried to pry them off or carve their initials into the doors or anything. The second example concerns the lowly traffic light utility box. You've seen them; they stand about so high and in Belltown, they are a constant attraction for stickers and tags. Well, late in the summer, the city started painting them. I'm not sure why it only involved a few of them in Belltown and downtown, but that's how it worked out. Here's one at 2nd & Virginia:


I took these pictures a while ago, but the scene is exactly the same. Nobody has messed with this box in months. Ordinarily, if it was painted the standard gray, it would be covered in tags and stickers. There are a few more of these boxes in the neighborhood and almost all have been left alone.

All of this leads me to conclude that common urban blight (i.e. graffiti and other visual noise) can be largely avoided by doing two things:
1. React quickly when graffiti shows up. Eradicate it immediately.
2. Don't be afraid to expose nice things, whether they're decorations, fixtures or artwork to the public. They'll hold up.

Most often, taggers will only mess with places that appear not to care. This neighborhood has its share of problems, but graffiti is avoidable.

Super Bowl Party!

Yeah, it was really glamorous out in front of the Rivoli yesterday afternoon. Take a look:

There's Martin, some guy, I.D. and Kevin. Not pictured: me. The bratwursts were delicious. The game was great. And to make things even more excellent, I won $10 from I.D. on it. So yes, even though we watched the game in a cheerless basement, it was still very fun.

So Long, Santa Mural!

It's about time. I don't know whether you're aware of this, but Christmas is over. The news took some time to reach certain mural-painting powers, so for the last few weeks we've been looking at Santa Claus in a sailboat with some kind of vague accompanying slogan. Well, no more. There's a new Adult Swim ad in town:

This obviously doesn't feature Santa, but what the heck is it all about? Here's a closer look:

I still don't know what they're trying for. Here's the deal: if you already know Adult Swim, you're aware that it's brilliant and you watch it (if you have cable, which I don't). But if you have no idea what it is, does this explain anything. I say no. It's irreverent, yes, but it details nothing about the show or its component parts, many of which are hilarious - especially The Venture Bros. This doesn't diminish Adult Swim in my eyes, I'm just puzzled that with all the zillions of channels out there, they can be as vague as this. That's all.

So now I'm going to be trying to make sense out of this every time I walk past it for the next however many months that it stays up. I don't think I'll be able to do it.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

What is it with all the drilling in this crummy neighborhood? Right down on the corner at Blanchard, they're doing this:

The entire process isn't exactly "whisper quiet." And just around the corner from that on 3rd, they're doing the same thing. And ditto for 4th Avenue. What's the deal? I could just go up to those guys and ask, but I'm shy, so I'll say that it has something to do with the mole people.

Problem Solved!

A few weeks ago, I showed some awful bad graffiti that sprayed on the side of Cafe Zoe here in the 2nd & Blanchard vortex. I claimed that they worked fast at Zoe to eradicate scrawlings of this type. Wow, did they ever. In fact, they were on it so quickly that I forgot that the offending puffy-looking thing had even been there, so I neglected to mention it. Well, now I'm mentioning it and here's your proof:

That shade of brown isn't the most attractive in world history, but it's functional at least.

This ties into my ringing criticism of the Cristalla, because this seems to be a lesson they haven't learned. Zoe gets rid of all graffiti almost immediately. It gets tagged once every three months or so. But it seems that dumbass taggers are trying less and less often, because they know their inferior efforts are quickly going to be wiped out. Contrast that with the Cristalla. It's just accumulating there. So yeah, my building might be old and weird, but at least the guys at Cafe Zoe have the neighborhood figured out. The Cristalla hasn't yet learned that lesson.

Crypto-Croc

The other day, I saw these guys painting something on the 2nd Ave. side of the Crocodile. It looked like some kind of mural. Observe:

In case you can't see, there's Santa Claus in a boat and the words "do you still care" across it. It's a statement, not a question, because there's no question mark. Marketing genius alert! This who thing confused me at first, but it turns out that it's an ad for Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. Even I know what that is, although I possess no cable. Right now, I'm in the middle of season one of the Venture Brothers. It's kind of totally hilarious at times. I have no idea what specifically the mural-thing is referring to, but I'm sure it can't be as bad as its own advertisement.

What Beautiful Artwork!

OK, I'm being sarcastic. It's a little tough to do in print unless you come right out and announce it like I just did. Anyhow, I finally got out of my hovel today after several days of pretty horrendous weather. To be honest, it's really cool watching all this storming and whatnot from the safety and relative comfort of my apartment, but when you're walking around out there amongst the storming and whatnot, it's not a pleasant experience. Anyway, coming back from Denny Park, I saw this on the side of Cafe Zoe right here at 2nd & Blanchard:

Yeah, now everybody knows this guy's name, whatever it is. But not for long. The Zoe crew is pretty quick about eradicating dumbass graffiti like this. The last time they got tagged, the offending scrawl was gone in two days. So now the clock is ticking. Let's see how long it takes to get rid of it. Hey, I've got all kinds of time. Stuff like this is fun for me.

What Will We Tell the Children??

Tula's has been around for a long time. For jazz clubs, surviving more than, say, two years is a remarkable achievement. But Tula's has been around for at least 15 years, so they must be doing something right. Speaking of that, do any of you longtime Belltowners remember their belly dance nights? They were a wild Thursday night institution for something like five years. Seattle's favorite jazz drummer once told me that belly dance night was how they paid their bills, so they could take a loss on the other six nights of jazz. For one reason or another, belly dance night came to a close. It was replaced by the Hawaiian revue. It didn't last long for a number of reasons. Let's see...the stage was too small for the hulking grass-skirt-wearing guys in the show (it's also too small for most of the bands that play there, too), it was way too loud (I could hear everything quite clearly at my place nearly a block away, even with their doors and my windows closed), and the show involved a lot of fire. So yeah, it didn't last very long. But while it was there, it was kind of cool to see these large guys in grass skirts out front smoking and practicing their fire twirling. Since then, it's been a full-on jazz club. Heck, I had my very first live gig there. It was a student show organized by my sainted teacher, saxophone legend, Don Lanphere. It was in 1999. I was terrified. I nervously waited around till one in the morning to play "Just Squeeze Me" with a rhythm section that just wanted to go home. I survived, but just barely. A short time later I was back with the Seattle Central big band. I think I mentioned that Tula's stage is small - even if you're playing with a quartet. Well, just imagine fitting 17 people up there. It was madness. Every gig, the whole night long, trombone slides would be shooting past both ears. After a while, I got used to it. And a while after that, I left the band. I always wanted to play at Tula's with my own small group, but that hasn't happened yet. First of all, I need to organize a small group and then we need to rehearse a lot. Those two things aren't happening any time soon, because 1. I hate to organize jazz bands when there are zero gigs on the horizon, and 2. jazz musicians, including myself, hate to rehearse. Oh well, if Tula's has managed to keep its doors open for 15 years, it can go another 15. Maybe by then I'll have my act together - complete with extra-bad jokes for between-tune banter. Of course, I'm just assuming that Tula's will always be a jazz club. Something I saw today gave me pause to ponder, though. Observe:

Yeah, a punk show at Tula's. Sacrilege! What's next in topsy-turvy world, the Julliard Quartet at the Crocodile? Actually, I have absolutely no problem with them doing punk shows there; it's just that it's such a small venue for that kind of young person's music. Certainly, if they're unpopular punk bands, then the problem solves itself. It'll be slow - just like any one of a thousand jazz nights they've had in the past. Only the haircuts will be different. But maybe it will be packed.

If you're feeling so inclined, go to this show and tell me how it is. I'm out of town on Friday, but I'd really like to hear about it. You only need three bucks to get in!