'Live Greasy Entertainment' a fitting swan song as 500 block of East Pine Street faces redevelopment
Walking into Pony in the daytime seemed like a crime, and in many ways it was. The black walls of the gay bar that opened up six months ago in the four-room space that was formerly Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito Kitchen and the Cha Cha Lounge instantly sucked up any and all sunlight coming through the front door window. This was a shame, because on Capitol Hill at noon on Nov. 24, there was not a cloud in the sky - a rare blessing indeed. To the best of my knowledge, this might have been the first time anyone had had a reason to eschew the fleeting sunlight outside in favor of the interior of this gay black hole since Pony's fated birth, and the reason was melancholy to say the least: Marcus Wilson, who owned and operated the bar since Bimbo's found a new home several blocks east on East Pike Street, was finally selling the wares.
I entered, somewhat fittingly, with the first potential buyer of the afternoon. The young Asian man looked a little overwhelmed at first by the gigantic 36-in.vintage black-and-white reprints of male muscle models from the Athletic Model Guild, and Tom of Finland pictorials covering the dark walls of the entire place, all of them painstakingly printed and plastered by Wilson himself. As I made myself comfortable on a barstool, Wilson and the buyer discussed the impending demolition of the block and the condos that will rise from the rubble. Then Wilson started pitching the Beverage Air refrigerator.
They left me in the main bar and ascended to the risen east rooms where I remembered eating an enormous burrito in a booth by the window a year ago. Bimbo's old counter, where the restaurant originally started in 1994 before expanding into a dining room and bar in the three successive storefronts to the west of it, had become the Pony Express bar.
This retail motion came about with the news that the 500 block of East Pine Street would be developed into a massive, mixed-use project. All the businesses on the block - Manray, the Bus Stop, Kincora's - were facing their demise. Pony opened in the full knowledge of the certainty of its impending demise.
The dining room where my little booth once was had become a game room with an air hockey table, and in the itty-bitty, windowless, cave-like room to the west of me, I knew there was a little wooden stage that would be one of the reasons the 500 block of East Pine Street is remembered long after the condos go up.
"I was looking at the pyramid stack of Crisco cans behind the bar and feeling nostalgic, especially about Dean Johnson dying recently," said Paula Sjunneson, who produces a wide range of burlesque and cabaret shows around the world as The Swedish Housewife. For the last three Sundays of Pony's existence, she and local performance artist cohorts Waxie Moon and Ultra mounted the two-act Live Greasy Entertainment variety raunch show in Pony's sunken, intimate showbox - one last stand in this building's short performance legacy.
"Sundays (at Pony) were dead. I liked the space, and I just wanted to do something quick and dirty. I produce so much that it's just so nice to do a show where you feel like you're hanging out in a rec room with a bunch of friends," she said.
Johnson, a promoter and queer icon in New York who fronted the bands Dean and the Weenies and later the Velvet Mafia, died somewhat mysteriously two months ago at age 45. In the early '80s, while Sjunneson was living in New York City, she and Johnson hosted regular tribute shows for Straight To Hell Magazine in which they read aloud the true sex confessions that readers submitted to the publication. Sjunneson revived this for the show at Pony, using confession material solicited from her worldwide following instead.
Wilson, who has been producing shows of his own variety in Seattle for the past 10 years - including Pho Bang, the wildly successful and revolutionary punk-drag-dance party - is familiar with creating entertainment that changes the way people in this town go out.
"In the mid-'90s, people in Seattle saw drag shows, they went to hear live punk bands, and they went dancing, but they never did all three at once, until we finally put on Pho Bang," he said. "The show freed up people's ideas about how to go out at night. Paula's show here has done something similar, and what makes it truly enjoyable is that it's backed up by real talent. It's not a bunch of kids smearing on makeup and bouncing around on stage. These three performers are very talented and quite disciplined professionals who know how to create an environment of controlled chaos."
Wilson and Sjunneson expressed similar sentiments about the inevitable gentrification of Capitol Hill.
"There used to be a distinct Seattle disposition," recalled Wilson. "Gritty, rough around the edges, dominated by blue collar types where dirt and grime were not bad things. Over the past 10 years everything's become sanitized, germ-phobic and brand-name. To see it fall by the wayside is a bummer. And now there's all these stories coming out about it. Some say too little too late. Five years ago these stories might have been able to make a difference."
Sjunneson, who lived in Belltown when it leapt from ratty to snooty in a matter of years, said the writing has been on the wall for Capitol Hill for too long, and as for the common misconception that gentrification only happens to low income minority groups, she asks, "Aren't artists and queers a minority group? Aren't they on the fringe? We don't realize how disenfranchised we are."
But as Wilson was apt to point out, it's not so much about getting stuck in the past as it is about appreciating it. Nevertheless, the grit and grime were preserved at Pony until the very end.
Blake Driver is an arts and culture writer from Albuquerque, N.M., who spends several months a year in Seattle working in theater production. Reach him at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
