Filthy Jerry and the Terrifying Truth About Love and Breakfast (5/30)

271 miles to Spokane, Washington, from Seattle. Filthy Jerry didn’t mind the distance, or the way that the sun curled it’s flaming fingers around his ears and face halfway there and started talking dirty in a huge, loud voice. What he minded was the unsanitary methods of the lone diner he stopped at in Quincy, Washington, whose primary export is despair. As the sun spread his dirty fire over cement and scrub-brush alike, it wasn’t inside that eggs were cooked. It was the pavement. No butter, even. Right there, parking spaces 4-7. You could only get the eggs scrambled, and bacon burnt. Grown farmers wept openly at the sight of chicken progeny, charred and crusty on their plate.
Filthy Jerry had known hopelessness-- in days and nights and hostel rooms wherein he got his nickname—but never had cement felt so much like glue, had the existence of sky seemed to mock everyone. There is no horizon to ride to when it is all horizon. His love was waiting somewhere inland, at a diner with stoves and people who would never dream of shedding tears. She would either propose to him there, he thought as miles of sameness rode towards him, or he’d find her there with a man who’d never been to Quincy.

Thanks!*

For: the northwest, and how even when it feels like you're going to die from sprawl (hello, smokey point) the light bursts and you're out in the Middle of Nowhere, in the best way possible. And that my folks live out here, instead of at some enclave on the edge of Kirkland, so they can be close to a megachurch.
that I've got a new place to live. that i've got good enough friends that the last months have been punctuated by stress headaches, rather than been one constant panic attack or a filthy sleep closet in the ID.
not drugs.
the fam.
creative pursuits and the support they've (already) been shown by Seattle's poetry community.

speaking of Creative Efforts. The now-internet-elusive Wood is marketing the following: OK, so this is me self-promoting. The plan is to get my irresponsible, stupid, violent, sexy and ultimately marketable novel finished, and to get funded to do it, so I'm crowdsourcing, with the aim of getting it sorted this week. You can read more about it here.
Pay it forward, people. While I'm sure he's embarked on more "literary" efforts (i've read some, they're good), Wood also chronically underrates his own work, so it's great to see him getting ambitious.

*I know that being Grateful should be a constant concern, and that the History of Thanksgiving is Wrought and Fraught, but that doesn't mean we can't all use a good reminder now and then. Most folks reading blogs, even those in dire straits, have it better than huge chunks of the world. I believe the reaction to that shouldn't be guilt, but gratitude.

Tell us about the Owls, Dana. The Owls.

For the past couple of months, Rachel (heretofore to be referred to as "Not Drugs") and I have been curling up on whatever couch, floor or bed was close at hand and watching David Lynch's perpetually iconic early '90s TV show Twin Peaks. Being Lynch at his (arguably) most accessible, the show tends to serve as an alt-culture touchstone for a lot of people, and one of the most interesting things about re/watching the show was the reactions of those who hadn't watched it yet -- "I know! I know! Someday." I can't really recommend the show; it's already been recommended to you, geeked on by your friends and generally deconstructed. It's worth checking out, and largely unlike most things produced prior or since, but it's also just a TV show for about 80% of the time. The other 20% is the reason it tends to hang on in the minds of critics and fans, be rediscovered. But I think most great TV shows hit that sort of range-- between 70-90% of the time they're average-to-good pieces of entertainment, then that other percent they cross over into Art on the level of the Great Films, Plays or paintings. But half the time you're watching TV for a certain sort of comfort, anyway.

But! This is not a TV review. This is about geekery. The wiki link for TP has changed since last time I looked at it a couple months ago-- that's how dedicated the fanbase is. There's a convention/retreat in North Bend, Wa (where some of the exteriors were filmed) every year that Chris Gusta goes to-- it was ultimately through one of those trips that he decided to move to the northwest. Not Drugs and I are not so dedicated as that. But having a free Sunday, we decided to head out to northeast King County to check out Twede's Cafe, home to the pie, coffee and atmosphere that Dale Cooper was such a fan of.



The original interior got arsoned about ten years ago. These days, it reminds me a bit of the Stanwood Cafe, albeit slightly more dissheveled. The prices are a bit high, but the portions are such that Not Drugs and I split a Fish 'N Chips and were almost too full for pie. Almost.


By the bathroom there is a wall of pictures, newspaper clippings, memorobillia, etc.


It was interesting people-watching and guessing who was a tourist (I guess even today that Peaks tourists account for roughly 5% of the business there and probably more on holiday weekends) and who was a regular. Some small towns have folks sporting the kinds of cowboy shirts you can also get at Red Light Clothing Exchange, but North Bend doesn't seem to be one of them. The place fully embraces the tourist element-- all the servers were wearing shirts advertising Twede's 1) 50 Different Types of Burgers (yup) and 2) Home of Twin Peaks' Pie and "a damn fine cup of coffee."
The place also hosts an open mic on Tuesdays.
This all seems for the best; North Bend wasn't depressing in the way that some Washington towns can be, nor was it generically strip-malled but the downtown didn't appear to have the internal bustle of an Arlington (though that may be good-- less meth) or the diversity of business of Stanwood, or the packed-right-in cute historical downtown of neighboring Snoqualmie. If you were there for a reason (like a TV show conference) you'd probably find a decent bar or restaurant or two, but nothing jumped out at me as "ooh, we should come back for that," even with my er, "unique" fascination with the smaller towns and suburbs in Western Washington.






Also, it should be pointed out that neither North Bend nor Snoqualmie seemed like places where the woods nearby contained portals to Unspeakable Evil. But then, maybe that's part of the point.

You Could Practically Hear the Clicking Sound: Moving Out of the 'rents

The couch by the dove
covered with almost-finished errands,
promises I made when I thought I'd
have more time.

The days spun by like the Wheel of Fortune,
you could practically hear the clicking sound
as, living in two cities, my nerves frayed
like dental floss.

Plans for goodbye rituals, chucked out
like Starbucks mugs missing trash cans,
daily affirmations lost sorting through
string after string of broken lights.

So, with clothes mountained on the floor
in front of my bed, I note that
my suitcase is never empty for long,
the stress is always equal,

but it is different leaving a place
you know you can come back to,
even if its a long dark hour away

on a highway you never hoped to know so well.

at least we see eagles, like, every day

The great thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to ponder the future, near and far, relive memories and basically just think about life.

The horrifying thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to . . .

there was a wind-storm friday night that knocked over the Sunset Scene, a new display in which blinking LEDs fade in, out, create a sunset effect. It actually looks pretty cool. When it isn't spread all over the ground because its black backdrop could, in Dad's words " . . . effectively be used to carry four hundred-plus pound boats accross the ocean."

This is the first job I've worked where the weather mattered so much to actually doing it since I drove the truck to San Francisco.

_ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _

good weekend in Seattle. I almost laundry-listed a post about what occurred but decided to write about christmas lights instead.

Silver Firs, Washington

You can see the cougars looming in the trees;
Every single building here in Silver Firs
looks like the last one on a long road into the wilderness
a classic case of named-after-what-used-to-be-there

Yes, this now-suburban community hasn’t
Been the same since the applebees (with their tasty happy hours)
And the safeway (with their deals on flowers)
And the house after house set three trees in,
just enough green to obscure sattelite dishes,
Everyone here with their trucks and SUVs

Feeling cheated that they’ll never have to kill an Indian.
Or fight a sharecropper. Or make their own moonshine.
Which is why the stares are still hard and mean, even
On the way to Jr.’s soccer practice, suspicious glares
At those who smoke in front yards—it’ll set off the kerosene!
Best not talk too loud after dark, it’ll attract the bears
Just waiting there beyond the next condo,
They weren’t messing around
When they put the sign up
That said Dead End.