A LOT of people have been saying that the Mariners Moose is actually Ben Gibbard, and while there are a lot of similarities (they’re both lovely movers) here’s incontrovertible proof that Ben is not the Moose.
Now, SOME people think that there are actually TWO Mariners Meese and one of them is Ben Gibbard. Those people probably would discount this post as planted misinformation and point to how COMFORTABLY the two sit together, like brothers.
I can’t speak to this. All I know is that he denies it, and he set up these photos and begged me to post them. That’s the kind of friend I am.
@mariners @marinermoose @gibbstack @pickeringpassenger @katiebrogan
You all saw the video of Cole Young getting called up from the minors? And then he got that game-winning plinker and it was so great? He’s in a little slump now because he shaved his mustache but once it grows back I predict great things.
Thanks to @robglaser for the ball game today! Going to a Mariners game on a sunny day is such a gift. And they brought back LOUIE LOUIS!
A marijuana dispensary took over a mid-mod bank building and someone thought the parking lot needed a redesign? Here’s the current state of affairs.
I’ve seen people parked here on every compass heading. It’s like stoner superposition.
Had lunch with Fire Captain Wallace and… Scott. One of them had thrilling tales of derring-do, the other brought me a print of a hairy donut. @brianwallace928 @scott_musgrove
Just like it says on the label
Talked to a dozen people at Danny Newcomb’s Incantio launch party at @solobarseattle but I only remembered to take pictures a couple of times. Incantio is a new service helping musicians get their music used in productions and getting those musicians PAID. Check it out. Also, stop by Solo Bar on lower Queen Anne, it’s like a neighborhood bar from the old days with great music. @kulturshockband @danny_newcomb @incantio_sync
If you move to a new town, or you feel isolated or can’t find your scene it’s a good first step to just find a place you like. A bar or cafe, a shop you like enough to go and sit and be part of the day.
Being a regular someplace doesn’t require that you be witty or charming, no one has to choose you or think you’re cool, you just go there often enough (and tip well) until they recognize you. After awhile you’re part of the landscape of that place.
Soon you realize you’re in a community. The other regulars, the staff and their friends—even if they know you as “that weirdo who carries live birds in their jacket” or whatever—you’re integrated into the world of that place, people will learn about you and you’ll learn about them.
Pick a place and go there. Good things will come to you.
Take a moment to reflect.
I don’t normally post her picture but since she’s a master of disguise I’ll make an exception.
My kid MC’d her school’s Spring Arts Night with her pal and as part of her banter she used this fake mustache to imitate me as an example of a herp-derp parent asking dumb questions. At one point she used the word “indubitably” to laffs. I don’t deserve this treatment.
Don’t forget it could’ve been a lot worse.
If you’ve been thinking of emigrating to Italy, or anywhere else, I’ve got a story for you:
Earlier this year my family traveled to Rome to spend a week seeing the sights together. One of the absolute highlights of the trip was the afternoon we spent with Seattleite Tiffany Parks on a personal guided tour of the Caravaggio chapel paintings of central Rome. We came away transformed by her infectious enthusiasm, all newly-minted Caravaggio super-fans!
Tiffany emigrated to Rome over 20 years ago and has built a life and family there but her Seattle roots shine through. For the last decade she’s co-hosted a podcast, The Bittersweet Life with childhood friend Katy Sewell, whom I know from her years producing the Weekday show on KUOW. I was a semi-frequent guest on Weekday (I found where Sir Mix-a-lot and I talk about the Sonics) and interviewed Katy last year for my own podcast, Dear John Letters—available free to everyone over on my Patreon page—and interviewed her a second time just about the movie The Last of the Mohicans because she’s nutter-butter for that movie.
Here’s the best part: Tiffany and Katy host a week-long in-person tour of Rome every year, this year from October 5th-11th, and if her tour of Caravaggio chapels is any indication it must be a perfect insider look at the city, action-packed, informative, personable and bespoke. Tiffany and Katy are just who you’d want to lead a guided tour, razor-sharp but lighthearted and curious. The tour is all-inclusive. They take care of everything. Here’s the link: https://thebittersweetlife.net/bittersweet-life-rome-trip/
After we got back I called Tiffany and we talked for an hour about her life as an expat in Rome, as an Italian mom, an author and tour operator. I’m posting that podcast today, free to everyone, at patreon.com/johnroderick
@thebittersweetlifepodcast
If you go to my Facebook profile I’ll have more links there.
Dim summit.
I said, “I just cut my hair yesterday.”
There was a long pause and Matt said, “No kidding…”
You all know my mom by now. She rules the roost.
Had lunch with @darren_loucas and if you’re not already you’ve got to get hip to his music and vibe. He’s one to watch in 2025 for sure.
My Uber driver to the airport works two jobs and picks up a little extra doing some driving on the side.
We tell the story of Grunge as a triumph over the excesses of hair metal, replacing fatuous drivel with authentic art. But another version of that story isn't quite so pat. Grunge ALSO smothered Shoegaze, a distinctively introspective GenX style of neo-trippy pop, in favor of a more frustrated and sneering expression. In 1988-91 (the years I was 19-22), a non-confrontational GenX culture was already on the rise, and spoke to an alternate reality.
Northern UK had a lot in common with the PNW, isolation, economic doldrums, cold-war fatalism, Thatcherism/Reaganism, and a generation raised with no supervision and no prospects. They'd already seen the lavish promises of Punk and New Wave produce, not an overthrow of stifling cultural conformity, but only Sledgehammer and Sussudio, Rick Astley and UB40.
Shoegaze and Dream Pop were a perfect expression of GenX resigned humility. It wasn't superstar-focused, it wasn't even social, it was music to drown everything out, to let the world wash over you, to numb yourself, turn off your brain and dance. Before I moved to Seattle in the autumn of 1990 this was the culture that seemed ascendant. LSD and MDA, house parties in squats, writing weird plays for an audience of friends, fucking off in cafes all day instead of chasing a bullshit job and a life of empty consumerism. Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, the supposed Grunge antecedents, felt very reciprocal with what was happening in the UK.
Stoner GenX was also happening in Hip-Hop. '88-'91 saw two competing strains, two possible futures, one hard and one soft. The harder version won when Rodney King (1991) made the softer version untenable and Trip-hop practically disappeared from the Earth.
Why did Grunge win out, pissed instead of blissed, sarcastic instead of elastic? Maybe our collective disappointment when The Wall fell and nothing seemed to change? How could all our paranoia and jingoism morph straight into GHW Bush conformism and Gulf War low-IQ neo-colonialism? We'd been resigned, sure, but this SUCKED.
Many of us look back at the late-80s underground with fondness, reverence even. It was a dark time, but small-scale and livable. And it was LOUD.
It’s possible Meghan and Selena’s adventure is ongoing and one of them, probably Selena, was like, “Gosh, Meghan, I don’t know WHERE that super cute sign went!” but it’s way more likely that Selena had an affair with Hannah andf
I met @__jvwx for chai and gave him a coupon for a dozen donuts. Los Angeles is where dreams come true.
Walking around Culver City.
At one point an ambulance went by in the distance. I was walking along a quiet side street and could see people in their living rooms watching tv or reading and we were hearing almost the exact same siren because I was only fifteen feet from them. I can never know their lives and they’re not aware of me at all but we shared a moment, nonetheless. We breathed the same siren.
I love Los Angeles on a warm night.
