Around Valentines Day this year, I saw a dope photo entitled Baby Got Back. (I am comfortable using the word dope with you because we have already had the conversation--see the stuffwhitepeoplelike blog thread--and you will already know that I acknowledge that I am a white girl, with all the inherent privilege and uncoolness that comes with that.) I loved the caption almost as much as your photograph, and wondered if any of you friends feel a connection to Sir Mix as my real-life-friends and I do (see the fun banter in the email exchange I will post next). If you are local, you obviously know who he is, but I wonder if people who live on the Eastside (Dark Side boo hiss!), really get the whole Posse on Broadway scene that way we do. :-) youtube/watch?v=DfOJaoeE3mQ This video cracks me up every time I watch it--for so many reasons. I especially like checking out the scenery as it flies by and trying to figure out where it is. Of course, the scenery has changed since the late 80s when this was filmed, so this is a good memory challenge for me. The rollin Rainier backdrop of red doors and yellow paneled walls at the :59 second mark is our middle school, Southshore, where my buds and I went to school together. It was an open concept school, with partitions instead of walls just high enough to block view inside the classrooms and there was a perpetual zawazawa (din in Japanese but I prefer the Japanese word because it exactly describes the sound) in the air from all those teenage hormones in classrooms throughout the building, making it hard to concentrate on whats going on inside your class. Who thought that was a good design idea?? Once, we had to evacuate the school because somebodys locker exploded--I cant remember what the kids had put in it. (Maybe some of my old school friends can comment in and remind me.) Teenagers can be a nasty crew, eh? Present company not excluded, I confess. At the 1:21 mark Sir Mix rolls along Martin Luther King, past three triangle shaped car wash slots (no longer exist) and a Dunkin Donuts that used to be located at the intersection of MLK Jr Way S. and Rainier Avenue. That building is still there, but it is now a Starbucks. When I was growing up, this intersection was the border of the territory between the rival gangs Crips and Bloods. There were often shootings down there, and it wasnt always a very safe place to be. (Somehow this never fazed me though--I will chalk it up to youths insane belief in their own invincibility and thank my lucky stars I navigated those treacherous waters without getting shot, maimed, or killed.) The intersection is also a block away from my high school, Franklin HS (Go Quakers!) and just a short walk from my parents home--the home I grew up in. So, this Dunkin Donuts is my hood--we used to go there all the time--and our family banked at the U.S. Bank that was directly to the north. (That is, amazingly, still a bank to this day!) At the 3:02 mark Sir Mix stops in front of the Seattle Central Community Colleges Broadway Performance Hall, which is still there today and is such a beautiful building. I have spent hours sitting in the sun on the wide brick plaza in front of the hall on more than one occasion in my younger years. Its kind of a quiet little oasis amidst the hustle and bustle of Broadway. Directly across Pine St. from the Performance Hall is the old Egyptian Theater, which is a historic building that had to close its doors last year. king5/news/cities/seattle/Seattles-Egyptian-Theater-to-close-211922301.html It makes me so sad to see these old theaters--and movie theaters in general--to by the wayside one by one. There is something special about seeing a movie in a crowded theater with other people--its not an experience you can get at home. To be continued tonight....Meet me on the Dark Side, friend! ;-)
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:35:19 +0000
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