You may have seen Yuji Okumoto as Ralph Macchio's rival in the movie "The Karate Kid Part II," or acting in "The Truman Show" or "Pearl Harbor." But if you take a trip to Maple Leaf, you will see him working the kitchen of his nearly 4-year-old venture, Kona Kitchen. Nestled in this residential neighborhood at 8501 Fifth Ave. N.E, the restaurant serves Hawaiian-American-style comfort food to many area residents."We never did a whole lot of advertising; we just did word-of-mouth," Okumoto said. Many of his customers are regulars who often refer friends. A lot of initial publicity was due to Okumoto's actor status. Now, Okumoto balances life between two very different, yet demanding, careers. "I had been acting for 20-plus years, and so I thought I would try something different. And lo and behold, I chose something that's even more difficult than acting. So I guess I like challenges," Okumoto mused.
With its many awards and multiple Gay Pride gigs, 669, a queer-straight band based near the University Village, has embraced its diversity.Just last year, the group was nominated for four Pride in the Arts awards, presented by the Stone Wall Society, for Favorite Group, Pride Song, Favorite Album and Musical Artist of the Year. The band performs rock and pop music that borrows from a variety of genres, including rap, jazz, folk, '80s and new age. Many of the songs are original, though 669 also performs cover tunes, such as David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Flowers on the Wall," originally made popular by the Statler Brothers, a country-music vocal group.Since band-member Tony Bon-jorno started the group three years ago, 669 has performed locally at ToST in Fremont and the Blue Moon Tavern in the University District, and beyond in Tacoma, Vancouver and Portland. The name of the band is "something that's slightly suggestive and easy to remember," Bonjorno said, "but now I just usually say its three doors down from the devil."
Fremont Month 2006 has officially ended. Known as "June" to most everyone else, our spectacularly successful series of celebrations featured a fun run, street fair, Solstice Parade, Art Car Blowout and kickoff of the Outdoor Movie season. It also included the Fremont Chamber of Commerce Picnic-in-the-Park, an annual political forum held this year on the Solstice.Political dominationEvery third Wednesday in June, the Fremont chamber members enjoy food and fun, sometimes joined by other community chambers from Ballard, Greenwood, University District and/or Wallingford. No one can say for sure if 1988 was the first picnic, which featured a speaker promoting the Goodwill Games. In 1989, candidates for Seattle City Council tried to win votes for their various and varied campaigns, and from there the tradition emerged.Now politics dominate the picnic agenda, but the timing is way off. Candidates running for election in November don't officially file until mid-July. They rarely commit to a formal campaign platform by June, nor do they identify competitors. In even-numbered years, there is no City Council race, incumbent candidates for Senate or House seats can't attend since they are still in session and judicial candidates don't grab attention - or audiences - at all. Initiatives, which usually have been filed by June, rarely have two clear sides drawn, with the vote still so far off.That is not to say being first doesn't have benefits. Seasoned candidates - aware that strong supporters lurk within strong business communities - clamor for an invite to attend and try out strategies on a casual, yet educated, crowd.
I have been in a snit since the word crept out that the National Security Agency (NSA) was eavesdropping on my phone conversations. There's no privacy left and no Second Amendment rights left in this land of the free that I can find. I really felt violated. How dare they!I've gone around feeling very irate about the madness of recording the phone calls of us all. But I started simmering down a bit and sympathy overrode anger when it dawned on me that some poor bloke had to listen to all my conversations. Surely, that is a fate worth than death.I thought back over the day. I had one call urging me to take advantage of a great opportunity to buy in, at a special presale sale of a new senior residence, with every amenity my heart could desire, in Florida. Later in the day, a smooth-talking man offered to make it unbelievably easy to pay off all my debts instantly, and just now, yet another sweet voice asked me to help out parents of orphans, among others.What marvelous offers will be on my answering machine as dinner hour approaches? I hope my snooper got some good leads out of his eavesdropping.
During an early morning conversation at the Joe Bar Café, Capitol Hill resident and University of Washington art faculty member Reilly Brewster makes the following point: "Do you know about Peacock Framing? Louis is the best framer I have ever worked with." Brewster, with an arm's-length list of exhibitions nationally, has been in the art business long enough to know what he is talking about. Just last spring he was included in the National Academy's 181st Annual Exhibition. Held in New York City, the Annual is a veritable who's who in the contemporary art world. When Brewster makes declarative statements about businesses involved with the arts, I tend to listen.Peacock Custom Framing is located at 605 Broadway East, in between a tobacco shop and the Gallerias bar. Louis and Barbara Lewis bought the business about 18 months ago and bring 25 years of framing experience with them. Originally from Dublin, Louis learned how to frame by starting with local Irish artists. "I love working with prints" said Lewis, who worked with Dublin's Graphic Studio, the oldest communal print workshop in Ireland and one that champions new techniques, and the Black Church studio, which focuses on the lithographic and screen-printing processes. The day I visited the shop, he was framing a series of canvases that a client purchased on a recent trip to Greece.The true test of a framer is in the oddities that customers bring through the door. "I framed a dustbin lid in Dublin" Lewis remembered. "He had used the lid as a shield on the Falls River Road, and you could see the dents from the plastic bullets that the British had fired at him." The oddest thing he has done on this side of the pond was a T-shirt that was preserved after a first sexual encounter. One can only wonder what room in the house that particular item was hung.
Greg Nickels did something amazing recently: The man who would be pothole king asked the public what it thinks about our crummy roads and decrepit bridgesSure, he's using a public survey of the so-called "dirty dozen" worst street scenes to promote a 20-year $1.8 billion tax measure. I mean, the guy is seriously into pricey legacies. Take the Seattle Big Dig (sorry, Viaduct tunnel), for example.But the fact that hizzoner wants to get advice from the citizenry means a lot, especially since he seems supremely disinclined to do the same thing for the city council. I suspect Seattleites will have plenty of ideas on their own. After all, complaining about the city is such an integral part of "The Process" here. The survey (sorry, complaint) results will be released in July, and the top 12 get on someone's priority fix-it list, pending approval of the hard-sell funding package. There are bound to be some obvious favorites, such as pretty much any bridge in town. But I worry that tackling some of the other problems could change the character of the city for the worse.
Getting old has never been easy. And being even semiliterate in America has never been a cakewalk, either. As a culture, we worship youth and distrust thought.Reading some of the fine 19th-century novelists, or viewing a performance of "King Lear" for that matter, makes it pretty clear that aging without collapsing into a bitter little puddle of regrets has always required great effort.Like many Americans in this media-driven, media-saturated, pop-culture mishmash that has replaced thoughtful discourse, I knew unconsciously that feeling young was an essential requirement for enjoying daily American life, which is lived more and more on a painted, unwrinkled surface.Nobody fills up space in USA Today or People magazine or the airways of "Inside Edition" with questions about Paul Newman's or Robert Redford's love life. It was Benifer I, then Benifer II, and now it's Brangie. Ms. Spears somehow got both fat and haggard, but Lindsay L. is looking good.The undeclared war in Iraq isn't what's important. The fluctuating poll numbers of King George the Second, brother of Future King Jeb the Portly, is the real news. And, to digress, how seriously can we take a discussion that rests its merits on how 500 hairstylists and computer programmers in Des Moines feel President Georgie is doing?
The main Pride event may have moved downtown, but that didn't keep pride off the Hill. A full day of activities took place on Saturday, June 24, inVolunteer Park, and Broadway had a march in the early evening. While crowds were understandably smaller than in the past, people still lined the streets and a large mood of celebration filled the air.
While it may be cliché to say so, the enthusiasm was palpable. But when between 70 and 80 people show up for a public forum to consider what steps might be taken to improve Broadway's future, as was the case on June 20 at Seattle Central Community College, it certainly counts as a very good sign. Given that the evening was one of the nicest of the year the turnout was especially impressive.The forum was a chance for a group of Capitol Hill stakeholders to present the fruits of several months of effort. Working with the city's Office of Economic Development (OED), the Broadway Economic Vitality Action Team created a draft agenda of proposed actions that can and should be taken to strengthen Broadway's, and Capitol Hill's, economic health.
At first she didn't notice all of the cussing and swearing. Sure, she heard snippets of it when she whisked in and out from work. She was just grateful to have the help with all of the mounting fix-up jobs on her house. Besides, one of her dearest friends recommended Frank (not his real name) to her. It was only when he exploded with anger during an appliance installation that she became alarmed. The tenants were scared too and told her so. But his price was right- not cheap but not outrageously expensive either. When she arrived home in mid-December she discovered he had installed lighting in the wrong place. Politely, but with mounting trepidation, she pointed out the error and asked him to fix it. Infuriated at the request, he snarled with anger, flinging fixture chains around the room while he cussed her out soundly. Terrified, she fled out the door, but not before firing him on the spot. It was only when she returned that she noticed the damage he had done to her house. The above story is true. It happened to a proud, new South End homeowner., and it taught her lessons not soon forgotten. As homeowners know, home improvement is an on-going process. The demand for home improvement help is booming, and Southeast Seattle, once considered by some to be the blight of the city, is now hot, hot, hot. Homeowners are snapping up properties, and with the rush of new ownership, comes the inevitable need to fix up dwellings.
Several summers ago, we were away for the entire month of August. Of all the things to miss when away from a gorgeous August in Seattle, you know what I missed the most? Blackberries. For me, summer is not complete until I have had my fill of them.People who have a yearly ritual of picking local blackberries have a favorite (usually secret) patch they haunt. Mine is on a main road in the center of San Juan Island, and I pretty much risk life and limbs to pick them. Well, maybe not literally, but I do stand on the shoulder of the road with a plastic bucket in one hand, more intent on spying a large cluster of bulging, ripe berries than keeping my eye open for a veering car. It never fails that when I go picking I forget to wear long sleeves and pants. Not until I have been poked and scratched many times over in my quest for elusive, perfect berries - just beyond reach - that I remember wise pickers cover their limbs.
We're steaming toward election season. In November, Americans across the country will go to the polls and either approve or reject the Republican Congress. And like all election years, the months before voting will be filled with fund-raising, campaigning and media blitzes. Going door-to-doorThe election season has become even more visible recently, and I caught wind of it while I was walking on East Aloha Street, toward my morning coffee. There, I passed by two men in their 20s, adorned in identical blue shirts and equipped with clipboards. I noticed the logo on the back of their shirts and identified canvassers for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).I was in their shoes two years ago.
Everyone is writing memoirs these days. Children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren possibly are constantly pointing out that telling stories is grand, but would we please put them in writing. They want to know about World War II, which sounds so very long ago to them. They've accepted the fact that we didn't have televisions or computers or Nintendo, but they ask, "What did you do for fun or for school?" At least they don't ask how it was when we came across country in a covered wagon, but the implication is there.Mourning the lost pastI appreciate the genealogical obsession that has aroused this need to know, and I will gladly fill my progeny in on iceboxes, washing machines clothes lines and telephones and even such antiquities as typewriters. But I'm not convinced that I would fill them in fully and truthfully on other subjects. I can't see myself going into detail about certain periods of my life. Would you?
Having lived in Madison Park all these years, I can say that it is a fact that people change, friends and neighborhoods change and, thankfully, liquor laws change. We were pretty much faithful to our pubs in the park. There was never a problem with a liquor law, unless you count the time one warm day during the summer of '49. Bert Lundgren, owner of the Purple Poodle Tavern on the corner of 43rd Avenue and Madison Street, had a record day selling quarts of beer concealed in brown paper bags, which consumers enjoyed on the beach out of sight of the lifeguards. It was unwritten that if we did not try to save lives, the lifeguards would not drink our beer.This record-sales day was phenomenal in Bert's mind. Patrons bought beer but, of course, did not remind Bert that it was Sunday, and it was illegal to sell beer on Sundays. Luckily, there weren't any liquor inspectors around that day. Bly's Bounty Tavern, on North 45th Street and Stone Way, now long gone, was the site of a bar stool I half-sat on with one leg bent and was severely reprimanded for by the bartender. Apparently, the law stated both legs were to be bent and the hind end was to be planted firmly on the seat.Other archaic laws stated that women could not sit at the bar in a cocktail lounge and a patron could not carry a drink from the bar to a booth.
Award-winning Madison Valley jazz singer Kelley Johnson's love for music began during her childhood on a Midwestern farm."For those people who have spent much time in a rural situation, where friends and families are far away and you've got chores to do, singing is a great accompaniment," she said. "I spent a lot of time singing as a kid."She spent hours singing in her room at night - singing to the radio, to records, to musicals and pop music. In spite of the radio, her mother always had good music in the house, aided by the presence of classical music and blues artists and performers renting a room there.Then her mother's friend gave her some different music to try. Her first three albums - by Miles Davis, Billie Holliday and Keith Jarrett - changed her life, she said. Her next purchase was music by Betty Carter, whom Johnson considered one of the most adventurous and creative jazz singers of the era, and a tremendous influence when she was growing up.Filling the soulJohnson said the first jazz she heard formed her sound and her musical concepts. "I fell in love with the music," she said.Indeed, as a teenager, she wasn't intimidated by the sophisticated music and at 18, went to Milwaukee to study and perform in the burgeoning bebop nightclubs. She considers bebop to be the root of jazz.Johnson said she had no idea that in her own city of Milwaukee, and in every other city that had a jazz-music base, many women her age were being drawn to the music, purely for musical reasons based on falling in love with the music.