Fremont and The Other Big S

Well, I guess its obvious by now that Howard Schultz hasn’t taken my advice and the Big S is still pretending to be Original down at the Market. Still no bulletin boards, still no public toilets. And Bruce Springsteen has yet to play out in front. It’s a shame really, we would have enjoyed it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, money doesn’t get to be that great by being modest. Or truthful. So we will have to resort to other measures…

Seattle has become a big bag of money, a transplant of armored cars instead of the footed people who once dwelled here. The history of this place is problematic, as is the history of all the world I suppose. A people living unsuspecting lives one day encountering another people with intrusive agendas. Property is created out of the commons, laws are passed, deeds are written and recorded. A city is born. And the heroes of that city are the ones who made the first roads, built the first fences, crafted the first charters delineating the borders between legal and illegal, engineered the first court systems, erected the first jails, and put the first prisoners in them. Bankers, real estate speculators - the ones who held the money in their hands like a policeman’s baton and used it to sweep aside everyone who just didn’t get it. This was progress, goddammit! This was theirs now, said the money/batons, and they would use the argument of split lips and broken heads, leg irons and lynching parties. It’s not an argument that makes or accepts sense, depending as it does on thug muscle and ferocity. The mouth vs. the fist. Not always a fair fight.

I won’t say I’ve given up on Seattle but I will say that I am disappointed. Seattle seems to have rolled over on its back like a dog looking for treats, kicking its legs in the air, lolling its tongue to one side, exposing its underbelly, and saying “give me money and I’m yours.” As a city it doesn’t seem to care how many people are bothered by its greed and avarice. It will make the biggest fool of itself so as not to insult Big Money – Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Howard Schultz, Suzie Burke.

Suzie… The last straw for me was Fremont. Suzie’s dad owned the trail along the water there. The Burke-Gilman Trail. It was a soft and rustling strip of land along the canal where the boats went by to get in or out of the Sound. There were a few elderly buildings, boat works and outfitters, and a line of trees where the birds would roost to have lunch. It was slow and humane. When the old man died and Susie got a hold of it – wham! - all hell broke loose. Spring-loaded psycho-developers bounded out of their boxes, rubbing their hands and slopping their drool, and in a matter of minutes the entire canal along the Fremont side was built with stalagmites. Multi story buildings with the kind of pastel sterility that only 21st century Corporate America is capable of. And that was the end of the canal. Not in the reality of no more water and no more boats, but in the way that the people who lived and loved and roomed there could no longer call that vista their own. If our lives can be partly defined by what we see and what we are surrounded by then all of their lives were changed, and through no design of their own. Now there was something in the way, a blindfold on the horizon.

Now, I’m not into stopping the time clock or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not some brittle old character shaking his cane at the wheels of progress – no, I understand that things move on. But I think they should move with more of a collective consciousness. Not for the gratification and whimsy of a small group of rich folks but for the good of us all. Or, more accurately (and this is where I could get into trouble) for the good of “the people.” Yes, there is such a thing as the people. And if we would stop playing stupid we could figure out who they are. They sure ain’t Suzie Burke.

Ever stand on the hill in Fremont and look down at the water? I have, a thousand times. Imaging you were raised there. Maybe born and raised there. Watching the boats go by and the rain come down on that wonderful canal - that’s your world out there. Now, somebody has just built a wall – a wall that generates big income for people who already have more than you do – all along that water so that you can’t see it any more. They have built a wall across the face of your world. Did anybody ask you? How can they do this? They can do it because they “own it.”

Ownership by the few at the expense of the many. That’s problematic.

I had an interesting conversation in Portadown one night about ten years ago. That’s a town in Northern Ireland. (This will make sense in a bit, hold on…) I had played a folk club and was staying at somebody’s house. My host and I were relaxing with a drink or two. It had been explained to me a few days earlier up in Derry that the war was over, the Irish had won, and that all that was left to do was the paper work. Britain was leaving. It would take time, but they were on the way out. Well, my host that night in Portadown was the son of an RUC officer. That’s the police force up there, not well loved by the Catholic Irish, often accused of favoritism to Protestant loyalists. It had been scary for him to know that his father was out on patrol in a unit so hated by half of the population. Now maybe he could relax a bit. Anyway, we talked about the future, and my friend asked me, “Do you think democracy would work here? Do you have democracy in your country?”

I was taken aback at first. After all, its supposed to be universally known that America is the fountain of democracy and for him to even ask such a question should have been, well, out of the question. But ask it he did and I had to answer. So I thought for a moment and I said, “Yes, we do have democracy but we need to define it. They tell us in school that democracy is ‘one man one vote,’ but that’s not quite right. Really its one vote per social power unite. And you have to decide what the social power unite is. In America it’s the dollar. So our democracy is one vote per dollar. And that’s why Bill Gates will always have more votes than I will. Until we change things.”

I don’t remember what we talked about after that. We had a few more drinks and went to sleep. But I think that’s pretty close. One vote per social power unite. Until we change things. Look out Suzie. Look out Bill. Inequality has to be maintained by force. And forced maintenance gets you into trouble. The gears wear down, the straps and leg irons get weak. Walls start to crack. If you leave a jail alone long enough the weather itself will do the job. Nature breaks the bank.

They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day. They say it like it means something, like they’re proud of it. But it doesn’t matter how long it took to build. Who cares? What’s important is that Rome didn’t fall in day. That’s the point. Because we will last longer than their new Rome and we will help to dismantle it. And we will clear away the obstacles and make way for the vision of the people. And we will learn to dance. And we will watch those boats go by again.

Mister Clean and the Big S

I wish I was a clean as Bruce Springsteen. But I’m not. What can I say…. I come from the old days. I don’t squeak when I walk and I tend to knock things over when I first come into a room. Ask anybody who knows me, I leave a trail of stains behind. But Bruce is immaculate. That’s what they said on the AOL start page today – “what’s so different about Bruce Springsteen?” I didn’t know there was anything different but I thought I’d go check it out to see, and sure enough there he was, Mister Clean. “No drug busts and no bad hair days ever.” Well, I have to admit that I never did much with drugs, they always kinda scared me – I did acid, smoked a bunch a pot, did some speed – that’s about it. But I’ve had a lot of bad hair days. In fact, I have not been to a barber since 1965. I cut my hair myself, using a pair of regular scissors and a car mirror. I don’t even wet it down first. “So how do you get the back?” you might ask. Easy – just walk around for the next few days with a pair of scissors in your pocket and when somebody says, “jeeze, what happened to back of your head” whip out the scissors and say, “I don’t know, can you fix it for me?” I’ve been doing it that way for years. But then I don’t have a reputation to uphold or a house in Bel Air. And I don’t charge a hundred dollars a seat for people to come see me.

What did you say? That’s right, a hundred dollars a seat for Big Bruce. And that was when he was doing his Pete Seeger tribute tour. I’ll bet Pete was thrilled about that part, being an old communist and all. I mean, if you take the ideology to heart and really sing those songs, knowing what they stand for, and if you charge a hundred dollars a seat, then that must mean that the working class has made such great strides that the average Joe and Josephine can easily afford it! Plus parking, plus a baby sitter, plus dinner, plus everything else. Probably works out to about two hundred and that’s just for one person. So if you add a friend or a spouse then its three, or four. Damn! We won that revolution and didn’t even know it. Thanks, Bruce. If it wasn’t for you I’d still be waging the class war.

And speaking of class war did you see where Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, has sent around an in-house memo bemoaning the loss of the “Starbucks Experience?” I’m not sure what that experience is – you’d have to ask people who go there regularly. I’m sure they all have their own versions. To some it would be aromatic low fat double soy decaf lattes, extra hot. To others it would be huge plastic bags full of disposable cups being hoisted into green rubbish bins by uniformed baristas. To me it is often the endless crowds of lemming-like touristas pilgrimaging to the “Original Starbucks” down at the Pike Place Market. They spend thousands of dollars a day getting their super gulp sized drinks and having their pictures taken, with glue sniffing grins on their faces, in front of that wonderful corporate sign.

Now, I put “Original Starbucks” in quotes because its just not true. And they know it. Starbucks knows it. They’re playing a little trick on you, probably their way of showing their love and gratitude for all the years of excessive cash flow that comes with being a truly addictive experience. Just ask William Burroughs. Oh that’s right, he’s dead. Anyway, when the Big S started out in 1971 they were just a little roaster and baggie seller operating out of a storefront just outside the Market. Not in it. I know this because I got a little suspicious and did some digging. I went into the basement of the Suzzallo Library where they keep the old copies of the City Directories – the business records for Seattle. I checked for the address of the current “Original S” and found that it was listed as vacant in 1977. How is that possible? How could they have started in the same location that they were not in? Does this make sense? Is this Houdini marketing? Maybe I was missing something. Well, in fact I was. A friend who works in an historical society explained it to me. They are taking advantage of a loophole that says if you close Business A but take the original business license with you to open Business B then you can claim that Business B is in fact the original business. Its really just the license that you’re referring to. Pretty slick, huh?

So Mister Moneybuckets made a plastic plaque to hang in the window that said “Original Starbucks” and he made a brass obelisk to put on the floor inside that said the same thing and they put it into all the tourist guide books and on the official Seattle web site and in all the airplane magazines and all over the world. And humans, being the Pavlovian herd animals that they are, came by the tour bus load and lined up for hours to have some of that original greatness rub off on them. They take cell phone pictures and movies. They rub up against the building itself and their faces blush at the proximity of orgasmic monetary success which is, of course, the essence of the real Starbucks Experience. Money. And lots of it.

But somehow the “experience” has become watered down for Howard. You see, he’s not from these parts. He’s a New Yorker, which is neither here nor nearby but rather three thousand miles and, in his case, a million wallets away. Howard came into the scene late – sometime in the eighties – and he offered his services as a magician to the little coffee company. I will make you famous, he said, and drew out a money colored wand, flicking his wrist with a crackle of lightning and a distant sound of cash register thunder. And presto! There they were, Starbucks the Great, the world famous and world renowned, global purveyor of all thing caffeinated. And more – T-shirts, caps, umbrellas, cups and saucers, coffee makers, books, and of course, music. Music. Of course! The percolation of syncopation, the constant inescapable tunings of wake-up-and-hit-the-groove-day-with-a-latte melodies. Their own label featuring the big names – Ray Charles, Bob Dylan. I mean, why settle for one fortune when you can have two? I wish I’d thought of that.

But I though of something else. How about this… Hey Howard. Maybe what’s missing in the “experience” is a little honesty. I know you got a loophole going and its all legally copasetic and all that, but you know and we know and everybody else knows that that ain’t the original café so why not come clean? Why not do a little twelve step apologetics and admit to the whole world that you’ve been having us on? Maybe give a little of that extra money back. Maybe put a few mil into low income housing or something.

Or how about this… You confess to everybody that you’ve been lying, right? And then to make amends, first you put up public bulletin boards in all the Starbucks stores. I mean, what’s a coffeehouse without a bulletin board? Then you let the employees choose their own music. Maybe they want to play something from some other labels. Then you let them do gigs in the stores – you know, open mics, punk folk, that sort of thing. Then you open the rest rooms up for everybody. No more keys! And finally, finally…

You get Bruce Springsteen to do a free solo acoustic noon time gig right outside the store in the Pike Place Market with his guitar case open and a drunk leaning up against the window ready to pass out. We’ll make sure he’s got a permit so everything will be legal. And that’ll put you on the map again. What do you say?