Drunken Seattle
There's plenty to do in the Emerald City while intoxicated.
Visitors often complain "there is nothing to do in Seattle after you've had too much to drink." Unaware of what the city offers, they usually repair to their hotel room to fight with their spouses.
Locals know better. Seattle presents a wide variety of entertaining and educational activities for person who has had too much to drink. Here is a sample:
- Visit REI's flagship store and try the 65-foot indoor climbing pinnacle. "Later you can sue REI for negligence," counsels trial attorney Tom Griffin. "If the injury results in multiple fractures, I will represent you."
- Attend a school board hearing. "And please voice your opinion," adds a board member. "You will be the most coherent speaker no matter how much you have had to drink."
- Threaten to move to Oklahoma City. You can enrich yourself by shouting, "Seattle must prove it's not bush league by showering me with money, or I'm voting to move the Plumbing Suppliers' convention to Oklahoma City, or maybe Renton."
- Drown. This is a local favorite, especially in the summer when Seattleites' mixture of boating and drinking culminates in the Seafair Drowning Derby. "Seattle is a great place to drown," says Mayor Greg Nickels. "Uniquely in Seattle you can choose to drown in salt water or fresh water."
- Get the Republican nomination. "Whenever people say there is nothing to do in Seattle after you have had too much to drink, I ask what about pursuing the Republican nomination for Congress," says Thurston Roach, the GOP county chairman. "We are always looking for some fool to run against Jim McDermott."
- Argue in public with your spouse. After drinking too much, Seattleites treasure public arguments with spouses. Use the terms "meathead," "low-watt bulb," and "your elevator doesn't go all the way to the top" and you'll fit right in.
- Stroll through bustling Belltown. After having too much to drink, walk around where you can sample Uzbek-Sudanese fusion cuisine, flip a condo, or contract a sexually transmitted disease.
- Ride the Monorail. Step back in time. Imagine you are back in 1962 and naïvely believe this is the transportation system of the future.
- Dream of solving your financial problems through obtaining donations from Bill Gates and Paul Allen. This is what everyone associated with a Seattle non-profit organization does after having too much to drink.
- Go to a hip-hop club. Because whitebread Seattle has the worst hip-hop clubs in the nation, you can deplore the music. Depending on your age, declare the music inferior to Milli Vanilli, The Shirelles, The Big Bopper, Bing Crosby, or Gregorian chants.
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 9:01 a.m. Inappropriate
Hang around with the homeless for any length of time, and you become acutely sensitized to the real destruction caused by booze and drugs. Lives destroyed, familes crushed, and just an untenable and tragic toll of human misery. Not something that's ROFLOL material.
Maybe if you want to suggest that the culture, political climate, and general societal behavior of the vox populi in Seattle makes more sense viewed either through a drunken haze or as the result of a bacchanalian debauch, you might have a point...an unfunny one, but a point nevertheless.
Some things in life that used to be grist for joke grinders aren't any more. Ask Don Imus what happened when a hardy-har-har racist turd ploped from his mouth. I'd like to hope that we're moving in that direction with substance abuse-based humor.
As my mother would say, "T'ain't funny, McGee!"
The Piper
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 10:11 a.m. Inappropriate
Seriously, though; I'm usually pretty hinky myself about glorifying drunkenness or alcohol use, but this piece was so funny I got over it.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 10:58 a.m. Inappropriate
spellcheck: Mayor's name is spelled wrong.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 12:27 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: spellcheck: I thought maybe he did that on purpose. But maybe not.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 1:45 p.m. Inappropriate
Perhaps you could clarify your censorship policy so I won't waste any more time.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 3:49 p.m. Inappropriate
One of the reasons I left Seattle is so I don't have to "hang around" with the homeless.
Get over yourself.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 4:21 p.m. Inappropriate
Rising Republicans: While I fully support the superb grass roots organizing work of Chairman Roach I cannot agree with his pessimism. Why, President Bush received over 18% of the Seattle vote last time and Sam Reed was over 23%. Why can't our political leaders recognize opportunity when it stares them in the face?
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 4:22 p.m. Inappropriate
The Stranegr couldn't have done this piece any better: You guys are stepping onto The Stranger turf with a piece like this. You can decide if that is a compliment or not.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 4:44 p.m. Inappropriate
"Comments like this one remind me why I am a former resident of your fair city.
One of the reasons I left Seattle is so I don't have to "hang around" with the homeless.
Get over yourself. "
My favorite part Cheech's message was where he described himself as a "former resident." Write when you find work, mate!
As an aside...Cheech...what an...apt...sobriquet.
I hang around the homeless because I want to hang around them; I do it on purpose! Whether it's through Congregations for the Homeless, Union Gospel Mission, the One Night Count, Springboard Alliance's Avondale Park, Proverbs 31:20 Ministries, or just as I encounter them in life, I see them, hopefully, as God sees them, and I try to respond accordingly.
Because I understand the level of devestation caused by both substance abuse and mental illness among this vulnerable population, I've come to lose any sense of humor relative to comments directed toward them. That guy on the bench in Pioneer Square is somebody's son or dad or brother, and that woman rooting through garbage cans and dumpsters near Occidental Park is somebody's daughter or mom or sister.
Given a choice? I'll take the homeless over Cheech and his Cheechlings any day.
The Piper
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 5:16 p.m. Inappropriate
Crosscut is neither established nor successful nor a blog. It's a journalism site, and we have high expectations of our commenters.
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 11:18 p.m. Inappropriate
Chuck, while you're at it, you might as well delete Piper's response to Cheech's deleted comment since it doesn't make any sense on it's own. Then of course you'd have to delete this comment as well.
Come on, you've got high journalistic standards to uphold!
Posted Tue, Apr 17, 11:27 p.m. Inappropriate
And a humorous rebuttal does not.
That's cool, you guys are just getting started. I'm sure you'll figure out this whole internet thing pretty soon.
Posted Wed, Apr 18, 12:26 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: Oh come on, editors: Humorous maybe, distasteful for sure.
Posted Wed, Apr 18, 5:44 a.m. Inappropriate
Take a look at my first comment in this string, and you'll see a response from the ubiquitous Cheech.
You've got your knickers knotted because something you wrote didn't pass the Editor's muster. Welcome to writing, a collaborative effort. Writers write, and editors edit; it's the circle of life. I can't tell you how many times I've been painfully blue penciled myself, so I won't even try. Let's just say them's the breaks.
And lest you think that somehow your rights have been violated...You may have the right to speak and write, but you don't have the right to be listened to or published...those are privilges. That you consider yourself funny doesn't cancel these essential truths. And on that point, it's never wise to believe your own press clippings about yourself since it gives one an inflated sense of their own importance.
BTW...I'm The Piper because I am one...a highland piper, that is.
The Piper
Posted Wed, Apr 18, 10:50 a.m. Inappropriate
Can I at least drive through Seattle on I-5 now and then?
I promise to be sober.
Posted Wed, Apr 18, 12:31 p.m. Inappropriate
p.s. I do have a sensitive side, like to walk on the beach (ok I live in Hawaii) and drink red wine at sunsets, and I do a ton of community service work (for real). But you gotta take this for what it is.
Posted Wed, Apr 18, 10:19 p.m. Inappropriate
Anyway, I'm not claiming any violation of rights - that would be ridiculous. My claim is simply that sites with a more laissez-faire approach to commenting are all the better for it, and I hope that crosscut will eventually figure this out.
Posted Thu, Apr 19, 11:08 a.m. Inappropriate
Fun piece, Steve -- keep it up.
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