My extremely long and enteraining LJ entry just got lost. I hit the spell check button and the window closed. There is no way I can be that prolific again. Fuckers.
I'll try again in a little while. Right now I have to go cry. It's definitely a Garfield-style Monday.
They paved Sam Goody and put up a Starbucks.
Ok, so it doesn't have quite the same ring as that Joni Mitchell song, but it's true. Where that junky old Sam Goody on 3rd used to be, there is now a gutted out building. And from the illustration of the projected finished project, it looks like the sole purpose of doing that was to put up ANOTHER Starbucks. Now, it may sound like I'm annoyed about Starbucks specifically. That's not entirely accurate. While I do think it RIDICULOUS that there is quite literally (at least) one Starbucks in any given 2 block radius downtown, I am more annoyed by the pointlessness of gutting the building. Apparently, they are trying to make 3rd and Pine/Pike look less like the tramp haven that it is and more like a swanky metropolitan area, what-with the new Johnny Rockets and the re-faced McDonalds and the silly little coffee/sandwich bar called “Cosi” that they installed in the soon to be Macy's. But it's not gonna work. It's not.
But the real issue here is this: It seems like there is no sacred architecture in Seattle. I'm not saying that the Sam Goody building was a beautiful example of historical architecture. But I see this kind of thing ALL the time around town. I come from a city (Richmond, VA) in which most of the buildings in their metropolitan area are hundreds of years old. If not the whole building, then significant sections of it. It's history. People live and work in history and there are whole societies dedicated to preserving it. (It's probably the only cool thing ABOUT that city).
Since Seattle is a young city, most of the buildings are pretty new, and therefore they don't give a second thought to tearing something down and starting over. The only “living history” we have here is the Underground Tour and those guys had to fight like hornets to preserve that. As neat as it is, it's also pretty crappy down there. It looks like a college student's basement.
Most of the standing buildings in Seattle aren't more than 50-60 years old. My old apartment building was built in the 1970's and yes it was a shithole but that's only because the owners didn't take care of it. Oh, the toilet in your unit is broken? No, we don't need to fix it. We'll just tear down the whole effing structure and build luxury condos instead. In fact, I think if The Man had his druthers, everyone in Seattle would live and work in a Starbucks-like environment.
In summary, Seattle will never have historical buildings are ANY living history because we will just keep building a “young Seattle” on top of it. One day, in the not so distant future, people will be heading underground to see scraps from the Seattle of 2005. Maybe we'll even find part of the Sam Goody sign buried under some coffee grounds.
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You Belong in 1967 |
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1950 – 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! 1960 – 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule – oh, and drugs too. 1970 – 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all! 1980 – 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night – and successful during the day. 1990 – 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good! |
A work-day inspire haiku:
I wonder how much
force it takes to kill someone
with a three-hole punch.
I just wanted to transcribe the introductory paragraph(s) from the quarterly letter we send out to our clients here at my day job. Let me remind you of what I do so that you can fully understand the gravity of this letter. We manage individual investment portfolios. In other words, we help rich people get richer through the stock market. There are two owners of our company. One of them writes the quarterly newsletter designed to assuage any fears that our clients might have about fluctuations in the market or economy. He is, at least on the surface, a conservative man in both demeanor and politics. And with that in mind, read on:
“Help me, Rhonda. Hurtling through a blur of traffic like a misguided missile, why, tell me, is it that most taxicabs don't have seatbelts? It makes you feel as vulnerable as a mosquito contesting highway airspace with the grille of a Mack truck. After all, we live in a 'safety belt' society where warnings, precautions and advisories are as ubiquitous as a multitude of moose milling around Manitoba. Examples of today's ever present alerts would be:
WARNING: Flexible Flyer sleds have recorded very poor crash test results in collisions with sidewalk curbs.
WARNING: This space age toy include 5,254 parts, requires self-assembly and a 315-piece professional tool set. Batteries NOT included.
But there is a way to make decisions and live life free of being constantly 'on guard' for fear of making a mistake. Over the entrance to the public library is the inscription that 'knowledge will set you free'. And information is knowledge. Information brings understanding which in turn brings a sense of security or trust. It is that information about [Company Name] that we want to impart to our clients and prospects so that there is a knowledge of what we stand for and what we can be expected to deliver.”
Granted, by the end of that, I SORT OF understand what he's trying to say. But I'll be damned if a client can get past the first paragraph without thinking they are reading the ravings of a lunatic.
WEEKEND RECAP
It's been a while since I've done one of these because this is my first weekend after three solid weeks of no days off. Obviously, making movies is fun but I never got a chance to recover from the day job hangover I have every Friday. So this weekend I did! Yay!
Friday
A bunch of us went to our beloved Canterbury to drink way too much and eat greasy food. The place became absolutely packed which is new. I hope it doesn't get overrun with assholes because The Canterbury is my last refuge away from Capitol Hill Indie Zombies. We did bring a lot of film people with us so maybe it only SEEMED crowded because there were so many people with us that I wasn't used to having around. We didn't end up leaving early-ish to sing karaoke which is what I'd wanted to do but I couldn't seem to convince anyone to do it. Instead they kept saying “one more beer”. And that's the story of how I became excruciatingly hungover Saturday morning. Eventually, I got Krk, Faye and Dom to leave to go watch the first rough cut of Snow Day that our editor sent us. It's shaping up very nicely! I am freakishly excited about it! One of our crew is currently mass mailing comic conventions to see if they will show our film for free. That would be better than festivals in most cases because it would be seen by our target demographic (and wouldn't be panned by the snobs that often grace film festivals) and it would be free as well! (Hopefully). There are several film festivals we will sumbit to as well. But I'm mostly excited about the possibilty of Joss Whedon, Rob Zombie or Patton Oswalt seeing our movie. Digression much?
Saturday
After nursing respective massive hangovers, Faye, Sherwood, Dom (who was hangover free, the dry bastard) and I headed to the Bellevue Square Mall so that Faye and I could buy new dresses for the wrap party (horrifically girly, I know…but just because we like to spit blood on people and make dirty jokes doesn't mean we don't like to look pretty). Meanwhile, Sherwood and Dom shopped for shoes. (Which is also horribly girly and I can't make excuses for them). After that we went to see “Alone in the Dark” because after reading the description of it in the Stranger,(scroll down, cracka) how could we not?! It was Craptacular indeed and well worth paying matinee prices (or sneaking in) for a good laugh. Tara Reid just looks SO SMART with a pony tail, a clipboard and glasses!
Sunday
Dom and I were treated to breakfast by the Glidewell family in Redmond. For those of you that don't know, Alesia is my long lost childhood friend from Huntsville, AL. She was also the person with whom I made my first movie entitled “Mississippi Care Bears”. It was an abstract, mostly ad-libbed film which is as funny as it is poignant. Anywho, breakfast was great and the parents (I think) got a kick out of seeing what became of the hyper, A.D.D. riddled little blonde girl (who is now a mostly subdued, larger gothic girl. Notice I said GothIC and not GOTH. There IS a difference).
After that I watched a terrible movie on comedy central (I heart Jason Bateman…especially when he says “anal leakage”) and struggled with whether or not to go to yoga for the first time in a month and a half. Eventually, I decided I HAD to go and am very glad I did. I am pretty sore (which is normal) but I did REALLY well for not having been in that long. I believe it is because I am now about 8 pounds lighter and my center of gravity is different! I am able to balance a lot better because I'm not so top heavy. Hooray! Furthermore, I was very invigorated after class. Yoga. Is. Awesome. And so are normal-sized boobies. And Chewbacca.
A forensic artist predicted what Michael Jackson would have looked like were he a human being who aged normally instead of a mentally disturbed freak of science. I think he looks like a thinner Wesley Willis. Does that mean his music would improved instead of worsened?
A friend of mine sent me this message:
“You made a movie! I hope there's at least five times a day (like Muslim prayer) when you remind yourself of that and smile at life.”
I am having a particularly craptastic “work” day and when I read that, it really helped. Thanks.
We finished shooting Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day yesterday. The last shot was a producer cameo by Dom who killed some zombies with a croquet mallet. We were all pretty loopy by then, and everything was hilarious to us. After we wrapped at the location, crew went to Big Time to torment Borgia (who had to work right after we finished shooting…poor guy!) and have a celebratory beer. One beer turned to many, Borgia got off work early and we lamented the fact that we had to return to our regular jobs the next day. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves on this shoot. For me, it was a wonderful validation of all the work we did leading up to it. The set was fun and well organized. There were no big problems that we weren't able to find solutions for. We shot an awesome zombie movie for a minuscule amount of money and it's one of the most fun and rewarding things I've ever done in my life. I ache to do more of it. Being back here at my day job is horrible. All I want to do is jump right into post production and get the movie out there. I want everyone to see it. I want the Seattle film scene to stand up and take notice. I want to start working on the feature. I am now POSITIVE that making movies is the only career that will make me happy and I NEED to do anything in my power to make it happen.
My existence in the film world has been validated. I am on IMDB!!
I can now send in all my updates and get “Terry” up there! (And Snow Day once it premieres somewhere).
Effed by the Wind 