Hot Weather + "Poor Black Mattie"

A cornucopia of feminine flesh tonight on Capitol Hill. Temperatures above 90 °F the small dresses come out and the naked legs and arms multiple. Chests seem larger. Skin is territory ruled by youth. A few older women, looking surprisingly good, were out sporting t-shirts and short shorts; but for the most part, the evening sunshine belonged to the young ladies.

I was feeling pretty good walking up the hill after work in the heat looking at all the pretty women. My problem foot appears to finally be on the mend, and a lower-calf pull on the other leg that I sustained in a slow Sunday morning jog around the neighborhood artificial-pitch soccer field might not preclude a Friday 4th-of-July run of some sort. And on the iPod R.L. Burnside sang "Poor Black Mattie":

Poor Black Mattie ain't got a change in clothes
Girl got drunk, close that door
Poor Black Mattie ain't got change o' clothes
Girl got drunk, throwed her clothes outdoor
Goin' to Memphis, see the World's Fair
Reason I'm goin', baby, there 

Goin' to Memphis, see the World's Fair
Reason I'm goin', know my baby there
Need no heater fireplace by my bed
Women I got cherry red 

Need no heater fireplace by my bed
Woman I got, keep me cherry red
Woman I got, keep me cherry red

Where Monsters Dwell #22: Elektro

I had a plan for this past Friday night. I would post my installment of Hippies vs. Punks in the morning rather than the evening and then, with the evening freed up, I would take a bus from downtown on my way home from work and go out to Green Lake and pick up my race bib and timing chip for this morning's running of the Husky Dawg Dash. By picking up my packet Friday night it saved me two to three hours on Saturday morning.

The plan was after getting my packet at Super Jock 'N Jill's I would get on the #48 bus and then get off on the east side of Capitol Hill and walk due west over to 15th Avenue East. I would order some Thai take-out and while I waited I would inspect the new local music offerings at Sonic Boom Records.

It was a good plan but it got off to a rocky start. There was a fundraiser at the local for "Yes! for Seatac," the living wage initiative campaign on the ballot next month that received a write-up in the New York Times last Monday, and I ended up working the door. I got out of work a half hour later than anticipated. So the bus schedule I had printed out was no longer accurate.

Fortunately a couple of old union friends who had been Green Party activists back in the day and who were at the fundraiser saw me waiting at the bus stop, pulled over and offered me a ride into the city.

By the time they dropped me off downtown and I made my way to the University Street Station I was back on schedule.

Once I got settled on the northbound  #76 bus I took a look around. The bus was filled with students, young office workers and a few older folks like myself. Two things jumped out at me, which I would guess broadly apply to public transit in most large U.S. cities today: 1) there are just as many if not more Asians, Latinos and blacks as there are whites, and 2) everyone -- and if not everyone, let's say, at least 80% -- has his or her face buried in a smartphone or a handheld video gaming device.

Pretty much the same held true on the bus ride from Green Lake to Capitol Hill after I picked up my race packet. The only difference was the racial composition was more heavily weighted to Caucasian. There were a lot of college students heading out on Friday night to get laid, and they were all texting and staring at their phones. The vibe this creates is definitely a new phenomenon -- a public sphere filled with digitally mesmerized people.

I got off the bus and trudged over the hill to 15th; found the Thai restaurant I had gone to with my last girlfriend; ordered some Pad See Ew; went out the door and down the street to where Sonic Boom Records was located, and lo and behold! It was gone. A bar was there instead.

Add the local record store along with the neighborhood book shop and video store to the Internet's list of victims. A couple weeks back I noticed that the Capitol Hill Half Price Books is gone.

I was surprised. Amazon is just wiping out stuff left and right. But the more I think about it, I suppose I am as guilty as anyone. I stopped going regularly to Sonic Boom and Half Price Books years ago. It's much easier to purchase music via MP3 download and to find an inexpensive used copy of a book you want online. But what is being lost by destroying these neighborhood repositories of culture? What is being lost by being forever transfixed by the screen? Technology seems to be demanding more of our attention than ever before.

Apropos this sentiment, here is a cautionary tale from Where Monsters Dwell #22 about man-made machine intelligence that gains sentience and seeks domination of humanity. Like "Fin Fang Foom!" from Where Monsters Dwell #21, the lesser-known "Elektro!" is an elegant story, but it is more economically told. We shouldn't ignore its conclusion:

For to create a machine that can out-think man, is to create the instrument of our own destruction!

Capitol Hill Gentrification

Gentrification proceeds apace on Capitol Hill. Usually I stick to 12th Avenue exclusively on my to and fro work. In the last year it has become a hub of construction. Between East Denny and East Pine there are three good-size sites that look to be residential and mixed-used development; sidewalks are blocked for lengthy stretches.

But tonight, walking back from Pioneer Square where I picked up my race packet for Sunday's St. Paddy's Dash, I decided to treat myself to Taqueria Guaymas on Broadway. It recently moved from it's location on Broadway and East Union to one block north between Pike and Pine. Working the register tonight was a guy who I recognize from many years of patronizing his establishment; he said that the landlord raised the rent $1,300 a month at the old spot, which had a lot of seating and big windows. There's a Chipotle there now. When I walked by it was chock full of young women students.

The guy said while his new location is much smaller (it's tiny), there's a constant stream of foot traffic; he said even though there's just one block difference between the old and new location, you would never know based on the number of passersby. I said it must be due to the closeness of Seattle Central Community College and being smack dab between Pike and Pine.

Walking home on Broadway past Seattle Central and the post office I realized that nearly all the old Hippie places have been demolished. The big wipe-out occurred on the east side of Broadway between Howell and John when the Capitol Hill light rail station began development several years ago; that side of Broadway had lots of "Head" vibe; all gone now. There's still some independent, non-corporate commerce to be found on the blocks of Broadway around Thomas Street near my apartment building, but they're disappearing fast and will probably be completely gone in a few years.

Armed Private Security at BofA Branches Post-Occupy

What's in a New Year?  The calendar rolls over.  We celebrate the day; most of us don't have to go to work; a lot probably sleep until the afternoon.

The morning is clear here with frost on the rooftops.

In any event there is never enough time.  Aspirations soar at the beginning of a four-day weekend only to come crashing down on New Year's Eve.  Last night it sounded like a block party on Harrison Street below my studio window.  Fireworks, festive banter, alcohol-lubricated hoots.  M-80s boomed.  The big show at the Space Needle drew cheers.  All that was missing was the club music that's normally blasted during the annual summer Gay Pride celebration.  Not bad though.  I managed to mostly sleep through the ruckus.

This morning I attempted to deposit a check using an ATM at the newly opened Bank of America branch on the corner of Broadway and Thomas.  No longer are the ATMs street accessible.  You have to enter a lobby that's part of the new behemoth building at 230 Broadway and all doors were locked, no doubt because of the holiday.  Still, I suppose the days of being able to stand on the sidewalk and access one's money are before long going to be a thing of the past.  This must be part of the trend we're seeing of armed private security guards at bank branches; a post-Occupy, post-meltdown trend.

Metabolic Vehicle

What a joy it is to run, really the greatest pleasure for this celibate bachelor. 

It was a post-work slice of paradise tonight.  I limbered up trotting north down Federal Avenue and then up through Volunteer Park, a beautiful Olmsted park, cresting Capitol Hill at the Conservatory and the Seward statue.

Then it was east down Galer to the greenbelt of Interlaken Drive.  Moisture in the air and moonlight.  The Drive-By Truckers and James Brown chirped on my iPod.  I ran past a home that smelled of cooking steak.  Is there anything finer than to be a smoothly functioning, to borrow Paul Virilio's term, "metabolic vehicle"?