By the time this issue hits the streets, we'll know whether former watch salesman Tim Eyman's latest efforts at self-promotion via the ballot initiative process have borne fruit. Eyman seeks to overturn the state House of Representatives' landmark passage of the gay civil-rights bill. Efforts at passing such a bill, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, had been under way for many years. The bill passed with the narrowest of margins this spring and was signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire. Before the ink was dry, Eyman filed Referendum 65, which aims to overturn the bill.Earlier reports suggested that Eyman's efforts at gathering the more than 110,000 signatures needed to place Referendum 65 on the November ballot were falling well short. On the other hand, he's promised an enormous late push at signature gathering and a showy display of dropping them off on the Tuesday, June 6, deadline. Eyman's tactics in the past have made something of a mockery of representative democracy. (One example: On Monday, June 5, he showed up at the state elections office in Olympia dressed as Darth Vader.) He has become something of a self-parody.
Dusty Strings Acoustic Music Shop recently won the opportunity to sell a limited-edition Martin OM-45B, a guitar worth $30,000 that was built in honor of the music and screen career of Roy Rogers. The store was one of many across the country to enter the lottery at a music merchandiser's convention, but only one of 14 dealers to win.A rare commodityRogers' career spanned more than 60 years, and his legacy continues today, eight years after his passing. He was the first person to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame twice: first in 1980 as an original member of the Sons of the Pioneers, and again in 1988 in recognition for his own contributions to country music.For most of his career, Rogers played a 1930 OM-45 Deluxe, one of only 14 made by the C.F. Martin Co., for which he paid only $30. Today, it is a featured exhibit at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Mo. Just as in the original 1930 run, only 14 of the OM-45Bs have been built. There are only three replicas left for sale in the world, which includes the one on sale at Dusty Strings, 3406 Fremont Ave. N.
In today's age of limitless marketing and commercial enterprise, having a brand is everything. For some companies, their brand is a partially eaten apple on the back of a computer, a Greek symbol on their sneaker or maybe a mermaid gracing their latte. John deLeeuw hopes that for local residents, their brand will be, simply, Wallingford.Foot trafficDeLeeuw co-owns Not a Number Cards and Gifts, a small gifts and collectibles store that he opened six months ago along Wallingford's North 45th Street corridor. Upon arriving in Wallingford, deLeeuw noticed a flurry of cars buzz past his storefront each day but was discouraged by the relative dearth of foot traffic. With that in mind, the enterprising merchant decided to start what he calls a grass-roots campaign to unify the small businesses located in and around Wallingford.
Phil Lipson stands next to a life-sized - and hairy - Sasquatch sculpture at the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries. The sculpture was donated by artist Peter Muchwiler and is made of ceramic and fake hair. A naming contest is open through July 2. The museum as at 623 Broadway East. For more information, call 328-6499.
By the time this issue hits the streets, we'll know whether former watch salesman Tim Eyman's latest efforts at self promotion via the ballot initiative process have born fruit. Eyman seeks to overturn the state House's landmark passage of the gay civil rights bill. Efforts at passing such a bill, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, had been underway for many years. The bill passed with the narrowest of margins this spring and was signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire. Before the ink was dry, Eyman filed Referendum 65, which aims to overturn the bill.Earlier reports suggested that Eyman's efforts at gathering the more than 110,000 signatures needed to place Ref. 65 on the November ballot were falling well short. On the other hand, he's promised an enormous late push at signature gathering and a showy display of dropping them off on the Tuesday, June 6, deadline. Eyman's tactics in the past have made something of a mockery of representative democracy. (One example: On Monday, June 5, he showed up at the state elections office in Olympia dressed as Darth Vader.) He has become something of a self-parody. This time, though, his goal has more negative overtones. While Eyman's previous efforts could be said to have ridden a vaguely libertarian wave of anti-tax sentiment, this time around the wave he rides is one of homophobia.
Halfway through, and the Seattle International Film Festival is rolling like a boulder down hill, picking up speed and flattening anyone else trying to find parking in the neighborhood.Stewart Copeland of the Police had to cancel his appearance, but guests are arriving every day and most of the films are starting on time.There are also, despite the long lines outside the Harvard Exit, Egyptian and Broadway Performance Hall, lots of tickets left. Out of 200-plus features, only a dozen or so are being listed as "rush tickets only" (no advance tickets left). Those showings where you might have a problem getting include:"Beowulf & Grendel" - June 8 "The Heart of the Game" - June 8 and June 11 "The Standard" - June 15"House of Sand" - June 16"Strangers with Candy" - June 17 Other than that, you should be able to waltz into whatever your film-loving heart desires.
It's a subject many people never talk about. What if the unthinkable happened to us? What if a major earthquake hit our region? What if a major epidemic struck or Seattle fell victim to a terrorist attack?Hard questions to be sure. But many if not most of us, whether consciously or not, act with an attitude that It Can't Happen to Us. One Capitol Hill woman is taking the subject of disaster preparation head on. Not only that, but Marlyn Keating became inspired enough to enroll her neighborhood in preparation projects as well.Keating had been thinking about such issues since Hurricane Katrina showed so clearly that the government may not provide the necessary assistance following a large scale catastrophe. In addition, she's been taking a class lately, one goal of which was to help create a project that has a positive benefit for the community. Disaster preparation seemed a logical choice.
Camille Pham-Lake and Jenalysse Renaud, students at Lake Washington Girls Middle School, recently won second and third place in the 13th Annual Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing Contest, sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. The two sixth grade contestants were selected from more than 200 entries in the fifth and sixth-grade category region-wide.This year's theme, "Someone Like Me," asked students to connect to young people who survived the Holocaust by seeing their pictures, learning their stories and writing and identifying with historical experience."I was inspired by survivors' stories, that they still had the strength to keep going," said Pham-Lake.Her winning poem, entitled "Where I Have Walked," touched on the torment that Jewish survivors experienced in Nazi Germany: "I have walked through streets on Kristallnacht, a night of broken glass, of dreams, of hearts. The thin shell between anger and rage shattered. A whole generation of lives destroyed with a single order from a man who tried to play God." With that in mind, teacher Julie Trout, from Lake Washington Girls Middle School, took her sixth-grade class on a field trip to a large chain toy store to examine how products are pitched to kids and the strong messages they send about body image, racial depictions and other issues. It was an eye-opener for the 16 students, who returned to their small school in Central Seattle with a new awareness of the world around them.
Since opening in 1922, Garfield High School has heard jazz and orchestral music echo through its music room, as well as roaring crowds cheer on their athletic teams in the gym. Many famous alumni - including Quincy Jones, Jack Benaroya and Jimi Hendrix - have passed through its hallways.This month, the school starts a new chapter. In a few weeks, fences will surround Garfield, 400 23rd Ave. A large-scale renovation will begin in July, with students and faculty expecting to move back in September 2008. To honor the closing of Garfield, the PTSA, Golden Grads and Garfield High School Foundation are planning a closing ceremonial event, The Bulldog Bash Before the Smash, on Saturday, June 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.The reunionsWith scores of graduating classes since 1923, many mini-reunions will take place in various locations in Garfield throughout the day. These include reunions of those in the Golden Years, composed of alumni from 1923 to 1955, to a reunion of the most recent graduating class of 2005. Various student groups, including the award-winning Garfield Jazz Band and alumni groups will provide entertainment in the auditorium. In addition, Garfield souvenirs and memorabilia such as sweatshirts, yearbooks from previous decades, as well as Bulldog Bricks, will be for sale. As a major fund-raiser for the Garfield High School Foundation, individuals interested in purchasing Bulldog Bricks may have a name or message engraved on a brick that will be incorporated into the new flag pavilion after the renovation.
My friend Guillermo and I use our weekly chess game at Starbucks to indulge in lengthy, unfettered discussions. "Hey Joe, what was your favorite summer?" he asked, as he nonchalantly captured my unprotected knight. "The summer of '72," I said, without looking up while contemplating my next move. This memorable summer commenced with a quick review of my report card confirming my promotion to the seventh grade. With my destiny established for next school year, I then anxiously awaited the ringing of the school bell signifying freedom in all its various meanings to a self-absorbed 12-year-old: freedom from hours of tortuously sitting in class, freedom from the melancholic Sunday blues, and freedom from the defined days of the week and hours of the day.Prior to this summer I had been exiled to camp "friendly" where long bus rides, annoying bugs and mandatory swim lessons were anything but appealing to me. Now that I was old enough to fend for myself, my days began when I rolled out of bed at the whim of my internal clock. Once up, I donned the era's summer attire of cut-off blue jeans, a white spaghetti-string t-shirt, a bandana for my shoulder length hair and a pair of coveted high top "verbs".After lumbering downstairs to consume multiple bowls of whatever sale-item cereal my mom had purchased, I would then saddle onto my no-frills bike for a carefree two mile ride to Barry Park. This urban oasis was a destination for hordes of wayward kids who had nowhere else to go or nowhere else they would rather be.Here, basketball dominated not merely as a game, but as an obsession.
Juneteenth will be celebrated this year for the 141st year since Union Major General Gordon Granger informed the city of Galveston, TX, that their Black slaves were free and that they had been free the past two and a half years. While June 19 is the day the slaves got the news, the original date of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, has never been celebrated. My personal, totally unscientific theory is that barbecue does not work when it's cold outside in January, so June 19 looked a whole lot better.Lincoln's carefully crafted Emancipation Proclamation originally freed the slaves only in the states that had become part of the Confederacy. He wanted to strip the South of its free labor on the plantations and in the Confederate army, and it worked. But the white cotton farmers in Texas ignored the proclamation for almost three years. After General Robert E. Lee's surrendered in April of 1865, the war was over and Union soldiers came down and physically forced the issue starting June 19, 1865.Texas has always been like that. It is the only state that began as a separate nation, and that is the root of their "don't mess with Texas" slogans. So the slaves in Texas were relieved to finally get the yokes off their backs, and they threw a party so big that we are still celebrating it today.But after the party was over and they had to get down to the serious business of being free. They realized that freedom from slavery and being free to prosper as a citizen were not the same thing. We are still wrestling with that concept today.
By the time this issue hits the streets, we'll know whether former watch salesman Tim Eyman's latest efforts at self promotion via the ballot initiative process have born fruit. Eyman seeks to overturn the state House's landmark passage of the gay civil rights bill. Efforts at passing such a bill, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, had been underway for many years. The bill passed with the narrowest of margins this spring and was signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire. Before the ink was dry, Eyman filed Referendum 65, which aims to overturn the bill.Earlier reports suggested that Eyman's efforts at gathering the more than 110,000 signatures needed to place Ref. 65 on the November ballot were falling well short. On the other hand, he's promised an enormous late push at signature gathering and a showy display of dropping them off on the Tuesday, June 6, deadline. Eyman's tactics in the past have made something of a mockery of representative democracy. (One example: On Monday, June 5, he showed up at the state elections office in Olympia dressed as Darth Vader.) He has become something of a self-parody. This time, though, his goal has more negative overtones. While Eyman's previous efforts could be said to have ridden a vaguely libertarian wave of anti-tax sentiment, this time around the wave he rides is one of homophobia.
Hundreds gather in the heart of Georgetown's burgeoning business district to hear the "orchestral countrified power pop" of the eclectic Austin, Texas, group Okkerville River close down the first Georgetown Music Festival. At far left, Andy Moore of Seattle's revitalized Kane Hodder kicks out the massive, ferocious jams on the festival's mainstage. At left, bassist Holly Deye of Seattle band Lillydale is silhouetted by the Airport Way South front entrance of Georgetown's legendary Jules Mae Saloon.More than 15 bands graced the main and saloon stages during the June 3 festival, playing to crowds varying in size from dozens to hundreds over the course of the early-afternoon to late evening event.
Long, lanky Kristian St.Clair, director of the soon to be premiered film "This is Gary McFarland," looks exactly as one would expect a Jazz enthusiast willing to submerge himself into the life of an obscure and undervalued musician would appear. St. Clair's Beacon Hill home has a spare quality to it, with furniture true to the 1970s (no reproductions please!) and blessedly free of homey knick-knacks. It has a genuine feel to it and reflects the very nature of a man who is delightfully transparent, well spoken and without a trace of self-importance. I could see why McFarland's widow and musician friends trusted St.Clair to tell the story. He exudes trustworthiness.Jazz aficionados might know of Gary McFarland, but chances are they really don't. "It is a niche film in many ways because nobody has heard of Gary McFarland, even though what makes his story so interesting is that his Jazz career was heading in a pop direction that was unique and ahead of the curve," St. Clair noted.McFarland seemed to have an angel sitting on his shoulder guiding him through the throes of being a fledgling musician, even though not technically trained as such. Prospective musical collaborators, acclaimed musicians, agents and recording labels of his time, whomever he met, were all drawn to his pizzazz.
On June 16, the Seattle Central Area Chamber of Commerce (SCACC) will commence its 23rd-annual Juneteenth festival, commemorating the end of slavery in America. The three-day event, also known as African-American Emancipation Day, will take place at Pratt Park, 1800 S. Main St., from noon to 7:30 p.m., and features guest speakers, poetry readings and plenty of food and entertainment."It will be a lot of excitement," said DeCharlene Williams, founder and president of the SCACC. "People can expect friendliness, a family environment, love, joy, and peace - because that's what we celebrate."The first day of the festival, June 16, will be geared toward youths. There will be an ice cream social starting at 3 p.m. and lots of music and dancing, with musical performances by SVI Records' Robert Redwine and DJ Sir Charles.Saturday will consist of a parade from Garfield High School, 400 23rd Ave., to Pratt Park, where the festivities will continue. The main feature is a guest speaker from the African American Council, and there will be performances by T.T. Minor Elementary School's marching band and the Garfield High School band.On Sunday, the festival's final day, Juneteenth will feature more live performances from musical bands from all over the area, along with food, dancing and other featured guests.