What We Talk About When We Talk About Seattle
The Space Needle
The Space Needle – a disappointment. Aside from physics, I can’t really figure out why it’s still there. No one goes there (except those that can afford the ride up and the restaurant at the top). Yes, the Space Needle does serve in some capacity – its function is limited to ‘being an iconic element of the Seattle skyline,’ but, jesus. The Space Needle is excruciatingly boring. Fuck the Space Needle.
Bike Messengers
The bike messengers of Seattle are intimidating, and when we talk about bike messengers in Seattle, we talk about a sub-genre of Hipster who (like Seattle baristas) glean vast portions of their identities from their jobs, which is, basically, riding a bike around in the cold eight hours a day for near minimum wage. We also talk about, of course, the bike messenger aesthetic, which seems to be so powerful here that one is forced to conform upon getting ‘jumped into’ the bike messenger job/ gang.
Suicide/ The Rain/ Nirvana
No one from Seattle actually talks about The Rain, the high suicide rate allegedly caused by The Rain, or Nirvana. No – other people talk about those things. People that aren’t from Seattle.
Microsoft
Everyone who Sold Out works at Microsoft. Working at Microsoft is inherently weird and childlike, as if one employed there had never left elementary school – Microsoft’s busses pick employees up in the morning and take them home after work every day. Employees are curiously aware of their office employee stigma, but have most likely assessed that a decent salary, benefits and the comfort of working on “campus” every day (Microsoft calls its grounds a “campus”) are worth the soul-sucking nature of business casual, daily team meetings and performance reviews by 60-year-old managerial controllers.
The Downtown Public Library
The Downtown Public Library is a day spa for Seattle’s homeless population. SPL has actually changed its tagline to “Seattle Public Library: A Day Spa for the Homeless and Disenfranchised.” I’m just kidding. But seriously, I don’t get it – where do homeless people get those cool little portable DVD players they’re always sleeping in front of? And how do they afford the laptops I always see them on?
Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill is where The Gays and The Hipsters live. Capitol Hill is also Being Gentrified, which just means all the broke white kids in Capitol Hill grew up and got tired of being broke and got jobs and started shopping at American Apparel and drinking $4 lattes at Vivace.
Queen Anne
Queen Anne is a boring neighborhood that no one seems to go to. When I think about Upper Queen Anne I actually don’t see anything. My brain just turns off. When we in Seattle talk about Queen Anne, we’re either referring to the Seattle Center or, maybe, the Queen Anne Café Ladro. I feel bad for Queen Anne because it sucks so bad.
The Central District
The Central District is for Black People. When we think of the Central District, we think of Black People. I can’t tell if that’s racist or not – whatever. But, it’s true, the Central District is, undeniably, for Black People. For example – Grocery Outlet. I hesitate to connect the fact that Seattle thinks the Central District is for Black People to the popular nickname for the Central District – “The Seedy C.D.,” – but, alas, I have only heard white people call it as such, and White People are historically afraid of Black People, so I will make that connection (we will ignore the fact that this line of reasoning may be invalid because I only have one black friend). It is possible that other minorities live in the Central District, but Seattle thinks the Central District is for Black People.
The Stranger
The Stranger is, well, for white people, but only for specific white people: they must either be in high school, college, a twenty-something, or a left-leaning, self-righteous middle-aged start-up enthusiast who can be found at Vivace on the weekends displaying an uncomfortable amount of conversational interest in the barista that’s making his skinny latte. Or the people need to be gay. But it cannot be said that “being for certain types of white people” is The Stranger’s defining attribute. No – I think its defining attribute is that it’s not afraid to use swear words and talk about now-marginally subversive behavior such as doing coke and having some kind of sexual fetish. As such, The Stranger has become a cultural flag for Seattlelites to wave around in the effort of communicating “Hey!! We’re ‘cultured’ too!! We have a porn film festival!!”
Seattle Weekly
Seattle Weekly is embarrassing.
Public Transportation
Like the Seattle Weekly – Seattle’s public transportation is embarrassing. Example: in Seattle, we have this thing called the ‘bus tunnel,’ and it exists because the city was trying to build a subway tunnel but fucked up and got the size wrong. That’s what I heard, at least. And so now we have this thing called the bus tunnel, and what happens in the bus tunnel is that busses drive through it. It goes underneath downtown and has reduced traffic perhaps 1-3%. Like the Monorail, it’s retarded.
Dick’s
Dick’s are everywhere in Seattle, but they’re not the kind getting jacked off by all The Gays on Capitol Hill. Dick’s – it’s that fast food restaurant at which people inexplicably continue to binge eat. It’s entirely beyond me why/how people even eat fast food anymore, but I did see this one funny thing outside of Dicks on Broadway, once. This street kid was begging for change, and he says “Hey y’all, wanna help me get a big bag of greasy Dick’s?”
Coffee
Coffee is great. And people in Seattle know how to make it the correct (i.e. the Italian) way to such an extent that, despite being, basically, the same as working fast food, being a barista makes you into a sort of cultural icon, especially if you’re working on the Hill and can make the floral pattern in lattes. Anyways, back to baristas basically being the same as fast food employees. They totally are! Either way, the coffee here is really good.
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle is that movie that takes place in Seattle. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are in it. It contains a disappointingly low amount of scenes where you can actually recognize anything as being in Seattle, but foreigners always seem to mention the film, anyways, upon hearing that you’re from Seattle.