Friday
Thursday night was one of those sleeps where you don’t dream, you just go into a vortex of darkness. It was much needed. We started off Friday by going to a cooking class at Diane’s. Diane is an amazing woman. I loved her story and how candid she is. The only downside was that I didn’t want to eat two breakfasts so all I had beforehand was a cup of coffee and some crackers. Bad idea. I had a blistering headache from low blood sugar and it took four Advils to calm it down. In hindsight, if I had known it was going to be four hours between waking up and actually eating, I would have had something more substantial. After that, I did a little bit of shopping and visited the Seattle Art Museum. I met a cool dude in there who told me he was trying to bring back Marat’s revolutionary turban, LOL. This was motivated by my question on whether SAM had anything Neoclassical. Good times. We had lunch at Matt’s in the Market, which I thought was great. In fact, I liked it better than the Dahlia Lounge. I had a lamb burger (with lamb from Don & Joe’s downstairs) and a chickpea salad. It was wonderful. Someone tried to order a Diet Coke and the waiter was like, “We don’t have Diet Coke here. We have soda with cane sugar and that’s it.” I smiled and thought, “My kind of place.” We did a chocolate tasting at the Chocolate Box and I learned how to properly eat chocolate, which was a new thing. I bought a mug at Cupcake Royale that says Legalize Frostitution. Did some more shopping and meandering. When I slept Friday night, it was another hard sleep. I didn’t move at all.
Saturday
We ate donuts at Top Pot, which I had never heard of before. I highly recommend the Bavarian cream donut. Rich as hell, yes, but so good. We participated in the Savor Seattle Tour, which I would also recommend. You get to see the flying fish and sample all kinds of great food. The Pike Place Chowder clam chowder and seafood bisque are the best I have ever had, bar none. I liked Chukar’s Cherries and Piroshky’s as well. I rode the Great Wheel and did more shopping after that. It felt necessary to walk off the feasting we had done if nothing else. There were two kids on the Great Wheel amping each other up and panicking. I’m sitting there like, “If these fuckers get us killed, I will haunt the shit out of them in the afterlife. There will be no mercy.” Pirates Plunder is a cool store. They had all kinds of weird stuff including Bigfoot and unicorns. I wandered into a shop off the Pike Place Hill Climb and had a deep, unexpected conversation with a hippie. As she put it, "Man, we need to crack open a cold beer and have a talk like this again." You got it, friend. Anytime. Went along on two wine tastings at vineyards in Woodinville. Wine is not as appealing to me as cocktails because it almost always gives me a headache. That said, there were a couple of things I actually liked pretty well. Dinner was at the Flying Fish restaurant. If you go, I recommend the rhubarb pie with strawberry ginger ice cream. Saw a little of Lake Washington and a little of the Cascades, all of which was crazy beautiful.
And now for a rant:
On the way home, it was depressing to look around and see obesity. In cities where people are able to walk and be more active outside, you don’t see as much abject fatness. When I got on the connecting flight to come home, I was adrift in a sea of cankles and hamhock arms. I thought to myself, “Really? We can’t do better than this?” I know so many people in the Midwest that are amazingly nice. Good, down-to-earth, intelligent people. I had a great conversation, in fact, with two strangers who sat next to me on the airplane. Remember how Marx said religion was the opiate of the people? I think now that so few people follow any sort of religion, Corporate America has become the opiate of the people. Big Food and Big Pharma will make you feel better and provide convenience when your job has demanded you work a 14 hour day in a crappy office. Sit at a desk under florescent lighting and type on a computer all day. Advertisers will convince you that you need all manner of crap so that you will spend whatever money you have left on their shit. What the government doesn't get when you are ass raped by taxes, Corporate America wants to get from your disposable income. I don't know how anyone can look around and not think, "Fuck this. We need to demand better and get off the hamster wheel." I think of it like the emperor's clothes: once you realize you're getting bent over, you can't go back to the rat race happily. So help me, I wish Bill Hicks were still alive.
http://billhicks.tumblr.com/post/448255452/by-the-way-if-anyone-here-is-in-advertising-or Warhol rightly predicted the advent of brief fame for everyone; Bill Hicks rightly saw the commercialization of the country. http://imgur.com/gallery/wYtDFNu I watched that documentary The Corporation and it begins with the explanation of how we moved from monarchy to church to state to transnational corporations. And that is so true. The government isn't immune to them: the government takes money from them and kowtows to them. When I went to the movies this week and saw a cheesy commercial of Beyonce selling Pepsi, I smiled and thought of Bill Hicks and the artistic roll call:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mt1RNDEh7Y&sns=em. Does anyone ever just, like, get famous for talent anymore? Or are all of these people strategically crafted to make some old fat guy (like Dick Cheney) rich? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo&sns=em One of my favorites is from Relentless:
"'We're rock against drugs, because that's what George Bush wants!' That's what we want, isn't it? Government approved rock n' roll? Don't you want to be at a concert one night, look to your right and see Dan fucking Quayle right next to you? You know you're partying then, you know you're on the edge! 'Fuck it, the Quayle Monster's here, there ain't no going back! We might be up to eleven tonight, fuck this!' 'We're rock stars who do Pepsi-Cola commercials!' Luckily, Satan's dick has many heads, so all these little demon piglets can nuzzle up and suckle all at once . . . It's only your dignity, suck it!"
Corporate America: opiate of the people.
