I gave a Seattle tour to the @schoolofrock allstars, who are playing tonight at @veraproject in Seattle, and it was super fun! We went by @kexp and @djcherylwaters was there and she was so great with the kids. Then we dove into the Market, 30 of us in the middle of the day, which was bonkers but also great. I mean it when I say it was a real pleasure to spend that time with them. They’re playing tomorrow in Portland!
Yesterday I said there were only a dozen or so pictures of me from young adulthood and @rwgarnett came forward with this gem.
This was evidently taken on the Kenai Peninsula in 1988. I'm here with @kevin.horning.16 and @jimmcneil
I think you can see why so few pictures survived, they were all burned for firewood.
Pro tip: when balancing your coffee cup on your chest wait until the coffee has cooled then rotate the handle until you establish balance.
The Seattle Art Fair and the baseball game are happening right next to one another and it’s making for an interesting mix on the sidewalk.
Only a handful of pictures survive of me between 1986 and 1995. Can you imagine that now? Ages 17-26 and not a dozen photos worth keeping. There were more pictures taken of me THIS WEEK than in my entire young adulthood.
When I look at my parents, dad born in ‘21, mom in ‘34, neither of them has more than a handful of photos of their whole lives before the 1960s. I have no idea what their childhood bedrooms looked like, their proms, birthday cakes, what they looked like as sixth graders or tenth graders. Of my grandparents, I have maybe a dozen total of all four of them and I know of only one photo of my mother’s mother. She’s looking shyly down, avoiding eye-contact, maybe as a late teen? No other photos of her survive. Prior to that there are maybe a dozen of every other ancestor I have combined back to the invention of photography.
But when I was in my teens and twenties it was the era of the disposable camera! It seemed like we were all taking snaps all the time, but the photos I do have from those years, both of myself and of my friends, are awful. Apparently I did not have a “good side” in all those years and whatever memories I might want to relive were not captured. If I appear in party photos those are in someone else’s albums. My own pictures are all in front of Christmas trees. Looking at them makes me sad.
Photos are such a huge part of our lives now—they are THE killer app of our phones—but before 2010 most of what I have are blurry and poorly framed snaps. Sometimes you got lucky but mostly not.
So is it… better now? I’ve taken more pictures in the last six months, of my kid, my friends, my food, my garden—plus all the “photojournalism” I do of stuff I find in thrift stores and on the roadside—than were taken of me and my family from the dawn of photography to 2010. I want to say that photos are benign, fun even, but it’s an epochal change. Society is so messed up now I’m starting to think that even the seemingly nice inventions are playing a role.
Are all these pictures fucking us up? Or are they innocent fun?
I don’t think you can truly have a civilization without hand-painted signs. Bring back sign-painting and we’ll save America!
I smelled paint so went outside and there was mom, painting her car.
If you couldn’t find me among all the other blonde boys with bowl haircuts here’s an answer key. I was outfitted 100% by Sears.
Who went to Sunset Elementary in Shoreline? I was there from 1973-1978. I’m still in touch with a couple of friends like @mamaneedsarefill but there must be more of us!
Flipping burgers at the swim meet! #Dad #NoSeriously #Dad
At the swim meet where we are the “visitors.” If you’re a swim parent and say hello I will buy you a hot dog.
I’m not a graphic artist but i feel like the Master Burger Meister should be holding a much bigger burger. Although his burger is already very large in proportion to himself there is a LOT of blank space on the sign that could be filled with an extra EXTRA large burger.
I’m not saying that’s why Master Burger Meister Burger closed—we’ll never know.
Koosh balls were invented when I was in college, a faddish toy that appeared out of nowhere. I don’t usually connect with faddish toys but I LOVED Koosh balls.
They’re just so… neat! My dad loved them too and so did my sister. They don’t DO anything, we didn’t even know they were part of a game, we just liked having them around. We’d toss them back and forth, throw them around, lob them, twirl them, all the things. I don’t think anyone ever threw a Koosh ball in anger.
Long after the Koosh ball fad passed we still had Koosh balls. They’re the best. I can’t reinforce enough that we had almost no other faddish toys throughout my childhood. Just Koosh balls. They brought us a lot of joy.
Now I have no Koosh balls. I haven’t had one in forever. I bought a Koosh ball keychain for a friend—a mini Koosh—and she used it for years but it disappeared one day, replaced by a felt anchor.
Tonight someone mentioned that there are racquets for Koosh balls and it’s the first I’d ever heard of it. I thought they were just for tossing back and forth.
The 90s are gonna make the 80s look like the 50s!
Ben King dropped by and we spent the day trying to figure out what Italians were thinking when they designed these things. @benjamindking
I’m starting to think this song might have been sarcastic.
Yesterday we hit the links with Nathan and Amelia. You could call it a father/daughter day except the daughters would think that was corny. Three of us had, amazingly, never played nine holes of golf and the results were amazing.
Then we went bowling. At least one mom expressed amazement, via text, that we were cramming so many “dude sportz” into one day, so after a couple of frames we took up the challenge and played some air hockey, then some arcade blaster and driving games.
I briefly made a circuit of the casino but it was not an environment suitable for children even if they were allowed. By “not suitable” I mean spiritually.
This adventure partly made possible by the fact that it was 63 degrees and sunny, which made it feel more like 68.
Insider look at what happens inside the exciting environs of a recording studio with Jeff Fielder. @jefffieldermusic
It’s 67 degrees today but on Sunday it was 74 degrees so summer is here!
This weekend it’s supposed to be about 60 degrees, which is too little, but next Tuesday it might get to 80 degrees, which is too much.
Cal Anderson Park in Seattle. Massive peaceful, pro-America rally here! Absolutely a super great vibe, smart, serious-minded, pro-union speakers, tons of federal employees. This is the jam!
