Personalized Luggage Tags

So, douchebag— what’s your invention?

Sometimes suitcases look alike. Even if they have different zippers or pockets or even when there’s a weight differential equal to half an old lady’s body mass, she can still sometimes wrestle your blue Samsonite off the carousel and drag it to the curb, leaving you with her case of old lady underthings and Este Lauder sampler lotions. If you’re lucky, she (or her handlers) will realize her error while still in the same county and you’ll only have to drive across town to make the switch. But sometimes she gets to the end of her long travel day hundredss of miles away before discovering her mistake. Personalized Airport luggage tags render this scenario virtually obsolete. Great product!

Bellingham Rock City

A column in the early issues of PMA Magazine was Great Escapes —a travel feature on a geographical secret shared with the reader with a wink and a tickle. Terry did Todos Santos in the innagural issue and Letman did Kawaii for #2. I did Bellingham for #3 before the concept was abandoned. I don’t believe we experienced a real estate boom as a result of the exposure…

Sometimes concessions are made by invaders of paradise. Visitors to Todos Santos in Bobby Bortolo’s Great Escapes entry in PMA 001 were encouraged learn and speak Spanish. In his guide to Kawai in 002, Jon Letman admonishes guests to listen more and talk less.

 Modern conquerors of the former milltown of Bellingham, WA are harder to spot from the sidewalk than more conventional invaders of paradise-- basically new whites crowding the established ones. Europeans began arriving in what is now Bellingham in the mid-19th century to the surprise of the Nooksack and Lummi tribes who’d already set up shop here and were doing just fine. Nowadays folks who’ve been here since longer than about the Reagan era consider themselves practically ‘native,’ rolling eyes in the direction of the coachloads of bearded pioneers landing downtown every day.

 It’s kinda hard to fault generations of the curious. Located conveniently between the international power centers of Seattle and VCBC, Bellingham offers peace and whimsy not seen in either of those venues for decades. At 90,000 people, the smart yet lazy village once known for the acrid stench of the Georgia Pacific pulpmill is waking up and finding that much has changed while it was anap.

 The line on Bellingham used to be that there were no jobs here. Graduates of Western Washington University lulled to passivity couldn’t find work at any anthropology or history firms in town, and there seemed to be ten qualified applicants for every vacant teaching job (WWU churns out a lot of teachers from its 15,000 undergrad population). Still, they’d fallen in love with the pace, price and endless recreational opportunities of Bellingham and just never got around to leaving. So they stayed. Now they’re rolling their eyes.

 To be super clear, there are still no traditional jobs here. When GP began shutting down in 2001, the first of 2,000+ working wage industrial jobs perished with it. Hi-tech (whatever that is) has decade and again passed on Bellingham as a host. The current local economy is precariously represented in public sector jobs: health care, local government, education-- plus a rainbow of non-profits and a small army of Realtors. And now instead of ten applicants for every teaching job, there are 50. And they all have PhDs-- though not usually from WWU…

 But unlike during the 20th century, folks don’t need an old-fashioned job to live in a city that doesn’t have any. Thanks to something called telecommuting or something, people can live anywhere. And they are.

 During the Great Inward Migration of 2004-2007, a lot of the new faces in town had liver spots and wore trifocals. Sunset and Forbes had fallen for Bellingham in the hardest promotional way, and Whatcom County was consistently rated as the #2 retirement destination in the US (behind Fort Collins, CO). Much early Bay Area Boomer money was pouring into town and the median price of a home in Bellingham proper was suddenly $345,000 rising as rapidly as the average age.

 The you-know-what of 2007-2012 reset the table. The retirees who’d been able to sell in their previous markets were cozy in their new one-level Bellingham charmers—but the moat was full of alligators and a number of fledgling businesses closed, abruptly deprived of a projected infusion of new blood and money. The overextended lost their homes and the ‘natives’ scowled, if gloating a tiny bit maybe…

 Then, like a record player whirring back to life after a power outage, Happy Days returned. The getting being again good in neighboring markets, those weary of big city wallop were invited to exit stage north to Bellingham, where the median home price has re-risen to a pornographic $460,000 with little relief in-sight.

But this time the average age is falling. Unlike 2006, the inbound profile is the young couple or new family from Seattle. Refugees not able to get out of King County fast enough are kicking in doors in Bellingham. Families of 3.1 (plus pets) are parachuting into town every day while scrolling listings on Zillow.

Without a job market, it’s an effort to move to Bellingham. No one ends up here on accident (except students). A percentage of the well-meaning new-in-town grownups actually have or find traditional work here, though most of them telecommute. A few of them hard commute. But another segment senses this is their chance to realize the dream of opening that restaurant or starting a non-profit. Or brewery. Bellingham is startlingly over-represented in craft breweries, its thirst seemingly knowing no limits.                            

It wasn’t always this way. Janet Lightner, co-owner of Bellingham’s revered Boundary Bay Brewery, remembers when the landmark opened in 1995.

 “Bellingham felt more like a small town then,” Lightner says, recalling a version of the old days. “People wondered why Ed (Bennett, husband and co-owner) would choose that scary end of Railroad Avenue for his new business. There were no condos and no permanent home for the Farmers Market. It was dark down there!”   

These days—thanks in part to the fearless homesteading of BB-- that south end of downtown is lit any time of day or night. Plenty of residential, combined with food & drink, the BAAY children’s theater and Depot Square (permanent home of the Bellingham Farmers Market) translate to a healthy mix—one that includes students from nearby WWU. And right in the middle of it is the Boundary Bay ‘campus’ which now consists of three live music venues spread across 15,000sqft on two levels. The taproom, bistro, deck, garden and events-only Mountain Room employ 130 people pouring, cooking, serving, brewing and canning.

 “We strongly believe in Buy Local Be Local,” Lightner says, smiling (she’s always smiling). “Bellingham will always be home to us!”  

 Boundary Bay’s undying commitment to community is a shining example of the spirit that defines this town. Buy Local is not just a campaign slogan in Bellingham—it’s a way of life. (Although it is also a campaign slogan…)

 Buying local works here. A 100-mile diet is possible here. Bellinghamsters are willing to put their money where their mouths are, supporting independent merchants even if it costs more to do so. This noble localism is a source of great consternation to the Chains, who struggle here. Sure, there are some recognizable logos in Bellingham. But in general, the scrappy, locally-sourced merchant is held close and fiercely defended.

 Perhaps no single organization embodies the notion of localism more than the business networking cooperative Sustainable Connections. Wrangling the foundational values of green building, sustainable fooding, waste stream reduction and buying local under one living roof, the 17-year old non-profit is a kind of ideological mascot of Bellingham. With a growing staff and 400 dues-paying members, SC is headquarters for awesome ideas in Bellingham.

 “In my experience, Bellingham is extraordinary in that business owners often see localism as a mindset that creatively integrates business, community and the environment,” says Executive Director Derek Long, outlining the organizational tenet of the triple bottom line. “They tend to see and act on the connections in an effort to add value to all. This kind of local business leadership helps inspire all our community members to do the same.” 

 Unlike a lot of other Western Washington municipalities its size, Bellingham is a true Place—a small city rather than a large suburb. Built around the protected shores of Bellingham Bay, the town features an actual working waterfront bordering a thriving downtown business district surrounded by dense gridded residential neighborhoods. Eventually the flow is interrupted by Interstate 5 to the east, beyond which the more modern neighborhoods feature less of the character found in the older core. These subdivisions from the 1970s-2000s act almost as suburbs on a scale relative to the size of downtown—even though they are well within the city’s proper limits and greater UGA. There are plenty of pleasant neighborhoods and recreational attractions east of the freeway. But Bellingham really is all about downtown—even if it hasn’t always been that way.

 Nearly choked out entirely in the late ‘80s by the opening of Bellis Fair Mall, downtown suffered in silence for a decade. Longtime downtown anchors moved to the mall or closed down altogether and tumbleweeds blew down the deserted corridor of once-bustling Cornwall Avenue. But by the early aughts the new-mall smell had faded, and a romantic re-discovering of downtown began drawing merchants back. Bold tax incentives helped spur aggressive redevelopment, with shuttered taverns and blighted crack hotels being replaced with mixed-use mid-rises and expanded public spaces. But still, downtown seemed tentative-- not yet ready to seize its day.

 “Bellingham’s always been kind of like the pretty girl who doesn’t really realize she’s pretty,” says Downtown Bellingham Partnership Executive Director Alice Clark, gazing out the window at the very pretty young lady downtown has grown into. “At some point she started thinking maybe she ought to start wearing makeup and actually talk to people.” Call it tourism.

 Clark has been one of that shy girl’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders for decades, having kicked a lot of boulders down the hill. In 1998 she co-founded the beloved Pickford Cinema which is now the regionally-renowned Pickford Film Center featuring top-shelf first-run independent film on three screens around town. In 2009, she launched the hysterically-successful summertime neighborhood artwalk the Sunnyland Stomp. There was the Bellingham Wigout and Alice’s Pies, and now a percolating brainchild that could be her wiliest challenge yet: a 30,000sqft all-hands-on-art interactive museum on the re-developing waterfront. BOOM!

 For a city built on a bay, Bellingham has historically had surprisingly little public access to the water because of GP’s dominance of the flats. Converted from a cannery in the early 20th century, the mill covered 130+ acres of the central waterfront, a staggering 4,300 square feet of shoreline. With its demise came an opportunity for repurposing of a waterfront that had been enclosed in chainlink and steeped in mercury & chlorine as long as anyone alive could remember.

 The Port of Bellingham swapped GP the land for the environmental hot potato responsibility in 2006 and entered into a partnership with the City to much fanfare. Citizen steering groups were formed. The Department of Ecology got involved. Babies were born at St. Joseph’s Hospital and matured to puberty, but still—no new waterfront.

 It’s a pretty big project, to be fair. By presstime, there is a thru street that crosses the site. The Granary Building, one of the few salvageable structures from the old mill, has been renovated and is partially occupied by optimistic new lessees. There is a parkish park with a beachish beach and an expensive centerpiece of industrial art. The waterfront redevelopment is happening, but the process has been slow and at times contentious-- and some residents have lost patience/interest. In the future it will be a jewel with a healthy mixture of residential, commercial (including legitimate maritime trade) and public land. Stay tuned…

 Further south along the Bay shore from what will eventually be a brand new waterfront district is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, the historic district of Fairhaven. This photogenic commercial center was once its own municipality, back when what is now Bellingham was actually four separate towns. Today it is a very dear brick shopping district with its own identity, its own Village Green and its own pricing structure. Posh by Whatcom County standards, Fairhaven is home to the landmark Village Books, a number of slick new tippling houses, and Tony’s Coffee House—proudly caffeinating hippies since 1971. The paper doll definition of what a ‘hippy’ looks like has changed, but the location and coffee haven’t.

 Residential Fairhaven features a rich mix of architectural styles. Bordered by modern mansionettes & sprawling mid-century moderns in Edgemore to the south; the grand, registered Craftsmans and Tudors of South Hill to the north; and the dusty Folk Victorians and student-soaked 70s multi-family of Happy Valley to the east, south Bellingham is  .  The village itself is home to one of the larger concentrations of condominiums in the city also--much of it modern construction-- built of brick and well-integrated into the existing character of the district. 

Lots of times condos are bedeviled in cranky gentrification rants like this story. But it would actually be great if there were some new condominiums built in Bellingham. Developers can’t build apartments fast enough right now, with vacancy rates hovering around one percent. With the median home price rocketing toward $450k, Bellingham could use some affordable home ownership options, and condominiums traditionally help fill that need. But developers have shied away from the risks associated with building condos, widening the gap.

Housing has been highlighted as a marquee issue in a closely-contested Mayoral race coming down to the wire at presstime. Like everywhere else on the West Coast, Bellingham is struggling with a homeless dilemma. With housing costs rising disproportionate to wages, more and more working residents are finding themselves unsheltered. There are solutions baking, but they’re not quite done yet. The City and the Lighthouse Mission Ministries have been working together to find a site for a new shelter. Further upstream, The Bellingham Housing Authority is working toward redeveloping the site of the formerly blighted Aloha Motel to provide 150 affordable rental units. Another rung up, Kulshan Community Land Trust is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to build 50+ townhomes on the city’s northern boundary that will be owner-occupied and remain affordable in perpetuity.

But it’s a drop in the Bay. Bellingham’s creatives and working families are finding it harder and harder to live here— whether owning or renting. And that’s not good for anybody.

Still, Bellingham WA is a nice place to visit. You can still put a nickel in an analog parking meter, and if you don’t mind bussing your own table, there’s plenty of good meals to be had. Stop by and sit a spell. They don’t call it The City of Subdued Excitement for nothing…

Michael Costelloe

Ask Michael Costelloe to describe himself, and you probably won’t get far. Painter? Singer? It’s not that he’s elusive or that he minds interest. Father? Teacher? It’s just he’d rather talk than answer. Irishman? A label’s in there somewhere, if you delve deep enough. But who needs labels?

Though he is likely best known to readers of this magazine as the painter of the medium-heavy scenescapes hanging in local bars, or as the loose-hipped & quiver-lipped singer of the late Elvis, Michael Costelloe is not the same man to all peoples.

To his students at Wellspring, the alternative high school where he’s taught art for the past seven years, Costelloe is likely better known for being a kickass art teacher. And to his ten-year-old son Conor, he goes simply by “Dad.”

“I got Conor an electric guitar for Christmas,” says Costelloe excitedly, explaining that he’d already picked one out before letting the the boy play every guitar in Smash Your Guitar. But when he fetched the Dan Electro he’d had in mind, it was clear from his son’s reaction that this was the one. Kinda like destiny.

Kinda like. Or else he was just lucky. He is Irish, after all.

Costelloe’s Irishness is an elment of his persona that permeates all of his work, without dominating it. It is present in the folk music of the Elvis, and also in his painting, but not to the point where it’s patronizing.  His accent is still strong, but dude is as much Bellingham as he is Irish.

Born “without an e” on the fourth of July in Dublin, the son of a devout Catholic mother and a Republican father (“Republican in the Irish sense…”), his early inclinations were toward soccer. But by the time he was Conor’s age he was making his own comics, and by the early 1990s he was far from home in Bellingham, Washington, piecing together a living with a paintbrush that, even then, was very powerful.

“Bellingham has been good to me,” he says, stepping back to gain perspective on his latest painting, a 9’x5’ commissioned mural for the Grand Street Ale House. The piece features the likeness of the Sweethearts of the Rodeo, captured live at the bar, and is scheduled for completion when it’s finished. You can’t rush it.

Like “Boundary Sketches,” the series of  less-developed oil and pastel pieces featuring the Monday Night Project twang and Tuesday jazz  scenes at Boundary Bay, this new mural is an example of the sight-specific, moment-in-a-bottle style that has become one of Costelloe’s signatures. Along with his extensive works featuring various mayhems at the 3B, Costelloe’s work has become a kind of visual history to which the music scene in Bellingham has added the soundtrack.  A soundtrack that has often included himself.

Though the Elvis broke up over a year ago, Costelloe has continued to work on his chops. And just this past New Year’s Eve, he brought them back out of the living room and onto the sticky planks of the 3B stage. It wasn’t planned as a 75% Elvis reunion, but the coincidence that Peadar had just rolled back into town after six months in Spain (I’m sure it wasn’t just his arms that were tired) was pretty hard to overlook.

“It was great,” Costelloe says of the imprmptu set that also featured Elvis upright player George Hossaphatt. “Just completely off the cuff, you know. What key is it in? It was New Year’s Eve…”

That was New Year’s Eve. But tonight is just another Monday night. Just another pound of acrylic. Costelloe does not skimp where paint is concerned. There is enough on the coveralls he is wearing to paint the YMCA. But his brand new adidas, a Christmas present, have nary a fleck on them. This will change before tonight’s session is done.

Breathing through a cigarette, reclining in a chair adjacent to the work area in his waterfront studio, Costelloe is surrounded by his art and the art of others—paintings, blockprints and sculptures of wood, clay, metal and soapstone. He shares the space with longtime friend and co-conspirator Francis X. Donovan and the principal of Wellspring, also a sculptor.  Though none of his spacemates are working tonight, there is a spirit of cooperation present in the long, tall room. There are no barriers between stations. A newly-released CD of unreleased Bob Dylan recordings plays politely in the background. 

Micheal Costelloe dances with his painting.

“It’s gotta be physical,” he says, pacing the floor in front of the mural, applying cottonball-sized globs of paint at seemingly random locations on the scape. “You just gotta kind of dance around it.” Splat.

Up close, the piece has a rugged texture that almost defies comprehension. But as you move away from it, its lines become more logical, and you can almost hear the melody and taste the second-hand smoke. A record of time; art of music. 

If there is some kind of magical recipe for the mixing of visual art and music, it is a mystery to Costelloe. He digs making both art show and rock show, but does not necessarily envision a way to integrate one with other. “They’re the ultimate compliment of each other,” he says of the brothers of different fathers. “They definitely come from the same wellspring of the body and soul.”

Splat.

It’s late. Micheal has discovered a spot of yellow paint on his new adidas and, giving up trying to rub it out, switches to pen and ink. As we talk, a nude emerges, rolled over on her side. His pen works lazily, yet with great decisiveness, and I ask how in the world he ever knows when something is finished.

“It’s been said,” he says, pouring a little beer on the drawing and smearing a line between her thighs, “that any work of art can be created with twelve strokes. Any more and you’ve done too much.”

“You gotta know when to stop,” he says, stopping. “Especially with nudes.”

“Done.”  

                                                                                          -- Callous French

If they keep making paint, Micheal Costelloe will have already unveiled the Grand Street mural by the time this book goes to press. Stop in for a stiffy and check it out. Then head over and buy a guitar at Smash your Guitar and dig another of Costelloe’s latest, a snap of holder of the key to the city, Bob Logg III, who will probably just kick the fucking door down like he always does when he visits Bellingham later this month, key or no key. If you’re not in the market for a new ax, then you can always just enjoy the painting for free. It’s on the cover of this magazine. 

Braimesworld 2002

This was the family Christmas letter, sent during the holiday season of 2002. Little did I know that within a couple of years we would actually have become the family band foretold in this festive holiday greeting…

BraimesWorld breaks new ground with 2002

Bellingham, Washington—After what Braimesworld was able to accomplish on 2001, expectations were high for their follow-up, the recently completed 2002.

But this quartet from the misty Pacific Northwest does not disappoint with this latest effort. It is every bit the epic joyride 2001 was, but seasoned with new dimension that leaves one wondering if this family has any limits.

Lead singer Edie Braimes has expanded on the stylings that made her one of last year’s biggest surprises.  Her range is remarkable for a child of only 3 years, the moody croonings of ‘Shooshoo Beegy’ giving way to the crazed, shrill screechings of ‘I Want a Popsicle Right Now.’

Edie graduated to the preschool room in the autumn and enjoys riding her bike, looking after her dollies, and pretending to read the newspaper.  “One day a kitty cat climbed a tree,” she says, adding “dinosaurs are scary!”

The creative genius behind BraimesWorld is clearly guitarist Vincent Braimes.  In addition to writing nearly all the material and telling the rest of the family where to stand, he also designed the cover art for 2002.  His guitar work is again very compelling—blistering on the rave-up ‘Hammerhead Shark, Hammerhead Shark’ but sensitive and contemplative on the instrumental ‘Pouring a Glass of Milk for My Mom.’

“I’m going to go to MarineLand tomorrow,” Vincent says, even though he totally isn’t.  In addition to being heavily into marine life, he has been experimenting with reading and writing, loves climbing trees, and also picked up a live garter snake in 2002.  He is expected to begin work on his first solo album (tentatively titled Vincent Blackshadow) late in 2003, if his kindergarten schedule permits.

She’s come a long way from her days as the Roofdogs’ Josie P. Cat, but keyboardist/producer Patti Braimes seems a natural for her role in BraimesWorld. Her work on 2002 is crisp yet whimsical (also paid) and the family clearly looks to her for guidance, relying  on her solid bassline.

Patti is looking forward to receiving tenure at Whatcom Community College in the first quarter of the coming year. She finds her work rewarding, and is a favorite of the faculty and administration.  How does she do it? “Volume,” she says, quartering a chicken while wearing heels and a rubber dress. “It’s all about volume.”

Drummer Jeff Braimes also turns in another solid performance on 2002. Somewhat of a departure from his presence on 2001, he seems to be getting more comfortable in his new capacity, and can no longer be seen driving around town talking into his digital camera.

Jeff wears eyeglasses now, and his side project with Coldwell Banker is thriving in a hot Bellingham market. He expects to double his commissions in 2003, with your help.

“Contact me with all your real estate needs,” he says, letting another call ring through to voicemail. “And a-one, and a-two, and a-one, two, three…”

The band kicks in on cue and BraimesWorld rips through another hit song. One thing readily apparent about this band is that they really do enjoy playing together. There’s plenty of love & respect for one another, and it shows in the music. BraimesWorld has indeed produced another timeless classic with 2002, and 2003 hopes to be another smash. Look for big things from this family in the years to come.

                                                      --Callous French 

(Editors note: watch for Braimesworld at various engagements on the west coast this coming year:

 Live at The Absolut—Poulsbo, Washington

                                         New Year’s Eve

“Adults only”-- San Fransisco,California

                                          January 17-19

70th birthday bash, invitation only—Pasco

                                               March 15

TBA: MarineLand, Steel Lake, Bumbershoot

Jim Blanchard

Another artist profile for What’sUp by Callous French.

Jim Blanchard looked me in the eye and summarized his point.

“That’s the true test of art.”

I don’t have a fuck’s idea what his point was by then, because we were both pretty drunk already. But it shows up in my “notes” from our conversation, so I know he said it.

Also in the notes are some other profound statements similarly orphaned of context, like:

“The medium is the message.”

“I’ve been rejected by many printers…” and

 “When you have a toothache, you just can’t stop touchin’ it (with your tongue.)”

Blanchard, or Jimm b as he signs his art, has a lot to say. But he is most often given to saying it with images, not words. His vast and varied body of work spans three decades and includes most of the limbs of the craggy visual art counter culture monster, from fanzines to comics, rock flyers to original art. His resume includes extensive collaborative work with the Peter Bagge, Jim Goad and Pat Moriarity, as well as creditsin Exit, Answer Me! and even Newsweek.

He’s one of us now, having moved to Bellingham on September 11, 2001 with his wife Diana, the saucy lead singer of the DTs. His path here has been a long and staggering one, with his most recent headquarters being Seattle-- a cultural universe away from his formative home of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Can growing up in a hideous void like northeastern Oklahoma cultivate in one’s brain a fascination with double-dick Satans, exploding eyeballs and coprophelia? If not, then Jimm b’s got some explaining to do, because there’s this and a lot more lurking in his highly-developed style which includes mediums as diverse as collage and sticker art.

But his out pitch, the one that is probably most central to his most important work is the trusty pen and ink.

“It’s kinda my freak” he said of the medium, drawing on a tall glass of bourbon, no ice.

And what freak. The startling detail in Blanchard’s pen work absolutely boggles consciousness. Whether conveying the multi-frame descent into mind-mashing psychedelic death in The Execution of Carl Jung or laying down the sincere and literal milk in portraits of middle-shelf 1960s celebs like Lee Marvin and Captain Beefheart, Blanchard exhibits that hyper-keen scientific gift that the great realists have in common where proprietizing likeness and freezing time are concerned.

There’s always commercial work available to artists with these skills, and Blanchard supplements his creative projects with “commercial” work to pay the rent. But when your day clients are Loompanics, Hustler and the Stranger, you can hardly call it straight work.

After the wild success of 2002’s sticker art series, for which Blanchard created 4’ x 4’ portraits of Teli Savalis, Steve McQueen and other offroad personalities composed primarily of produce stickers over black acrylic (a favorite juxtaposition was James Caan and kosher stickers), the frontier might have seemed just about conquered to even the most adventurous artistes. But new to Blanchard’s todo list this spring is an interpretation on Chicken Little, actually commissioned by the Kings of underground destruction themselves, the Disney Corporation! Thirty respected artists from across the wide world of Disney were approached with the task of applying their own peculiar spins to a common 8” Chicken Little figurine. The results will be auctioned off in Los Angeles and New York this month and next, with proceeds going to charity.  How Jim Blanchard of Bellingham, Washington—an artist much more interested in serial killers than cereal boxes—wound up on this short list seems a bit of a mystery, even to Blanchard himself.

“Disney didn't actually approach me,” had admitted. “It was some firm in Boston that specializes in promotion and hooking bigwig companies up with hip, underground artists. I'm sure Disney doesn't have a clue I exist, and that suits me fine.”

The Disney-commissioned Chicken Little project might suggest than Blanchard has “done it all,” coloring the inevitable question “what’s next for Jim Blanchard of Bellingham, Washington?” But there’s always something evil lurking in the heart of this man.

Set to a backdrop of unorthodox music and coffee (a.m.) or beer (p.m.), Blanchard is currently immersed in a compilation of his portrait penwork for an 80-page coffee table book to be published by his old buddies at Fantagraphics, for whom he worked during his years in Seattle. Beasts & Priests is due out in December, and will probably not be suitable for just any coffee table.

I guess that’s the true test of a coffee table.

   --Callous French

 www.jimblanchard.com
www.comicartcollective.com

www.loompanics.com

www.fantagraphics.com

www.whatsup-magazine.com

Roosevelt School

I always cry at these things. I’m not usually the only one. I’m not even always the only sniffling dad. But normally, not ALL the guys are crying. And almost never the boys.

And while there might have been a dry pair or two—male or female—in the Roosevelt Elementary School multi-use auditorium at yesterday morning’s traditional last-day-of-school assembly, it was mostly not so much.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

I’ve been to a few of these events. Eight of these same ceremonies, to be exact—having had at least one student at Roosevelt every school year since Vincent entered as a kindergartner in the autumn of 2003. Add to these eight the dozens of Veteran’s Day ceremonies, choir concerts, Martin Luther King Day celebrations and play performances, and I’ve shed a proud tear or thousand on school grounds over the years.

But I’d never seen anything like this.

In fairness, it was a particularly touching show, anchored by a 15-minute slideshow lovingly compiled by the three outgoing AmeriCorps teachers, who had been honored earlier in the program with bucketfulls of tokens of appreciation. There was other housekeeping to do—the crowning of the year’s BoxTops collection winners, and the lengthy distribution of the district track meet awards. The slideshow was the straw that broke the kids’ tearducts, but things had been moving in that direction for several segments, ever since the faculty had started getting in on the act.

Roosevelt is the only grammar school my kids have ever attended, so I don’t have anything to compare our experience with. But through informal research & observation, it does not appear to me as though every other K-5 administrator, faculty & staff has the level of enjoyment of-- and dedication to--their crafts as do Steve Morse and his team at Roosevelt.

Steve surely isn’t the only principal ever to have worn a tutu at school on a dare. Band directors shave their heads when their kids take State; coaches paint their faces for big games. There are Great teachers at every school in this country—mentors whose impacts on their students will truly last a lifetime.

But in scanning the faces on the risers as the faculty traded places with the student choir, I was reminded of what an amazing group this was. As they earnestly sang “I Hope  You Dance” as a final gift to their departing 5th graders, I paused on so many of them, fondly recalling the growth my kids had experienced in their care. The nurturing glow & unshakable patience of Karen Ottorholt. The grace & depth of experience of Kim Rutledge. The zeal & curiostiy of Russ Nuckolls, in whose classroom our kids had spent a combined three years. Terri McKee, from whom Edie in particular might have drawn the most confidence of any teacher she’s ever had at any level. But there were some missing faces, too. Gone were Pam and Janice, Tiffany and Donna.

But in pausing to consider each of these and other dedicated lifetime professionals, it occurred to me that it wasn’t just my daughter who was leaving this school—it was me, too! I’d spent a lot of time in this place. I’d ‘been there’ longer than many. I remember the first time I met the incoming 4th grade teacher Megan Thygeson at school—I thought she was a 4th grader! And now there she was on the riser— a faculty & student favorite— her future secure after several 11th hour contract rescues, gently rocking her 6-week-old baby in a front pack as she sang along with the rest of the faculty choir, this beautiful song about life’s opportunities and dancing when those opportunities present themselves.

I hope you dance. When you get the chance to sit it out or dance—I hope you dance…

And in the middle of it all—always in the middle of it—was Steve Morse. A year earlier, I’d looked into the fidgeting eyes of some PTA reg’lars outside the school when they’d asked if I’d heard about Steve. Ruling out what else their worried expressions might have meant in the humid split second that followed, I hastily hoped that he didn’t have cancer, but it sure was cancer. Prostate cancer. An early diagnosis in an otherwise healthy 52-year-old man, but still—cancer. School let out shortly thereafter, and then—nothing. I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to phone. No one appeared to know anything when I bumped into them at the supermarket, and it seemed morbid to chase information. Josie Estrada was officially designated interim principal. It didn’t feel right. We were apprehensive going into the autumn session, and we briefed the kids, who hadn’t heard anything, either. I braced for bad news every day. But none came.

And of course there was Steve on the first day of school, coffee cup in-hand and looking a little ashen, but still greeting everyone just like he had on so many September mornings past. Getting cancer these days doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die. We baby-boomers have grown up in the age of cancer, and are still adjusting to the miracles modern medicine have laced together where treatment & research are concerned. Of course people are still getting killed to death by cancer—at a rate of 20,000 each day. But the rate of not dying is climbing as well, and it seems like I have been personally touched by more success stories these past couple of years (including my own mother’s) than I have tragedies.

And ten months later still, on the last day of school, here was Steve Morse— looking his old self again. Before opening the teargates, the staff had given the students and parents (AND each other) a hearty laugh with their traditional re-working of a song from the spring musical, this year a drama-within-a-drama entitled Dear Edwina. Edie had shared the title role with her best friend Emma, and the two girls had been further honored by the opportunity to re-write the lyrics of one of the show’s songs “FrankenGuest” into “FrankenBoss” in which Mr. Morse played the role of a tyrannical administrator imposing impossible demands on his already-overworked staff, trying desperately to stay a step ahead of the budget ax and the goons from the State’s testing Gestapo. The skit was hilarious.

FRANKENBOSS—here’s the new math curriculum (throws stack of paper into the air)

FRANKENBOSS—where’d everybody go—to Haggen’s?!

FRANKENBOSS—I AM ALL POWERFUL!!

HE WAS A FRANKENBOSS…

I don’t know how many 5th graders (or  even parents, for that matter) realized how ridiculously funny many of these lines were. The body of the lyrics were written by Edie & Emma and were humorous to everyone; but Steve’s parts definitely came from him personally and were surely an inside joke to a staff that has stood behind him through some hard times and for whom he has stood up as well. There is a great mutual professional admiration amongst these educators, and it shows not only when they are exchanging a wink & a nudge on the choir risers on the last day of school, lampooning a principal gone mad upriver like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now when in fact he’s got the district & state and its “failing schools” list nipping at his shorts day in & day out. This faculty’s respect for each other and ownership of their callings shows every day in the classrooms & hallways of the school. Steve and his teachers genuinely care about each student at Roosevelt, as well as the families that support them. And this was never more apparent than during the stirring “I Hope You Dance,” Steve’s lyric sheet at his side, a proud captain singing the song from memory, his cancer in remission.

And after that, the piling-on of the slideshow. Sheesh… As the houselights came on afterward, I glanced around at a few of the parents standing or sitting nearby and it was clear there’d been an impact made on us. But like I said—that’s nothing new. What I was surprised to see was the knot of 5th graders in the middle of the auditorium clinging to each other through curtains of real tears. I’ve learned this past year that pre-teen girls have an appetite for social drama that often includes crying, but what was happening here as the younger grades peeled away leaving the graduating class to themselves & each other was a genuine display of hammering melancholy that was completely natural and not self-conscious in the slightest. Kids hung on teachers in groups, or hugged deep with classmates they might not previously have been that close with. This was not a cliquish group to begin with, but any subtle subgroups that may have existed seemed utterly dissolved as the 60 students moved around the group, greeting & consoling each other as the emotional pitch of the scene escalated. Noses dripped. Faces blotched. Lips trembled. The confident & matriculated had been thoroughly vaporized by this assembly, and they seemed quite uncertain of what in the world they were supposed to do next.

Eventually, they filed apprehensively out the back door of the building and into the glare of an all-school recess during which the weeping continued and in fact eventually began to spread to the underclassman of the school. Girls—and boys—of all ages bawling under the bittersweet weight of growing up. I’ve been to a lot of these types of events, and as a parent they just destroy me every time. But the kids, I don’t think the significance of these milestones really hits them until much later on, if at all—the privilege of perspective! But I’ve never seen a group of kids so caught in a moment, realizing AT THE TIME how important a move they were making, from being the biggest at a school of little kids to going to a middle school full of teenagers. They didn’t seem scared; they just seemed sad. They seemed sad to be leaving a safe place and heading toward an unknown. They’ll have each other next year, many of them, and some of these kids will be friends their whole lives. Others of them will probably move over the summer, and will never be seen again. What the future holds for any of these kids is completely unknown, and in that respect this is just another step in the great adventure.

 It’s enough to make anyone cry. But smile too…

MidDay Rambler 6/22/12-2/3/16

There was a point in all of our lives when we didn’t have any social media. Mine was later than many, and I only reluctantly signed on with FaceBook in order to support my blog—The Electric Kool Aid Real Estate Test. My intent was to take over the internet with a home-made WordPress site on which I posted indulgent creative writing odysseys loosely-based in/around my career as a real estate agent. When the blog was largely ignored, I just started re-posting cat videos just like everyone else.

I didn’t have to fight off unwanted friend requests from high school classmates, however, because I had registered at FaceBook as someone named Mid-Day Rambler— the infinitely glib pen name of my blog. I endeavored to have social media and autonomy too!

But eventually, Meta came looking for me. They said that if I couldn’t show them a birth certificate proving my legal name was Mid-Day Rambler that they were going to kill my page. And as much as I wanted to find out what that even meant, I also feared there was useful content attached to the page which I didn’t want to lose forever. There was four years of musing posted there by now and I didn’t want to have to comb back through it and cut/paste everything I was too anal and sentimental to lose forever.

In the end, I conceded— agreeing to kill The Mid-Day Rambler and play by Meta’s crooked rules. But first I had to write an obituary.

MidDay Rambler, the mysterious and enigmatic internet complainer and real estate blogger, has died after a brief yet courageous battle with FaceBook. He was 1,369 days old.

Mr. Rambler’s death was confirmed by his Administrator Jeff Braimes (Decatur High School class of 1982) in a statement hailing Rambler as ‘a pants-down Ranter of the highest order. A real malcontent.’

Rambler burst onto social media on June 22, 2012 with a FaceBook post reading “New here. How do I work this?” which was quickly liked by seven people. From there it was directly to the roof of the WWW. Weekly posts were often read by up to dozens, illuminating such topics as Aldo Nova, gnats in the bourbon and Major League Baseball. Rambler was known as a prolific Liker and poignant commenter, often chiming in with an earnest we know about this or LoL.

MidDay Rambler leaves behind 486 friends and a selective index of liked pages, including Michael’s Rare Books of Bellingham, Yardsale Bloodbath and Put Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He logs out for the last time with 178 pending tag requests and 6 pending friend requests.

When alive, MidDay Rambler always maintained he was only on social media to support his business and creative ventures, and not to “understand what was going on in the world” or “stalk his children.” But in the end, the digital record will show he was every bit as fucked up as the rest of us LoL.

Rambler’s inconsiderable internet legacy will be carried on posthumously through his blogs. The widely unread Electric Kool Aid Real Estate Test will be maintained by the Administrator, Braimes. And sicblog.com, the digital companion to 2014’s best-selling 3-dimensional paper book [sic] was programmed by Rambler during his life to discharge pre-scheduled content into the moist, eternal blackness of the internet for years to come whether or not anyone likes it on FaceBook. In many respects, it will be as if MidDay Rambler had never died, let alone lived. 

Reactions to the surprise demise of MidDay Rambler are pouring in from the four corners of the internet. “Oh yeah that dude,” commented Scott Weller from Salem, Massachusetts. “He had me at sodomy,” recalled Bellingham’s Aaron Jacob Smith. “LoL,” said Julie Isenhart from Bellevue. “LoL...”

 In an email, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders referred to Rambler as “a great American like you.” Comedian Louis CK called Rambler “a fathead” (which is actually a compliment in CK). Wilson Motors recommended a full 9-point service inspection and tire rotation. And calls to the ‘newsrooms’ of The Bellingham Herald and the Cascade Radio Group were not answered or returned.

How to Write Good

So I thought it might motivate me to write more if I attended a writer's conference. Actually, my wife thought it might motivate me to write more if I attended a writer's conference. My analyst agreed. So I took the first step toward attending a writer's conference— that step being thinking about attending a writer's conference.

After that I actually clicked on the link to the writer's conference registration page and read some of the bullet points and other blocks of type, but that got overwhelming rather quickly, so I closed the window and went back to merely thinking about attending a writer's conference. I was relieved when my phone rang, and even though I didn't want to talk with Sandra Salvo about her new listing on 40th Street, I answered the call so I wouldn't have to keep thinking about attending a writer's conference. The conversation was brief, but by then it was almost time for lunch, so I resolved to think more about the writer's conference later in the afternoon.

Next thing I knew it was Sunday.

My wife asked if I'd thought any more about registering for the writer's conference and I said yes, because I literally had thought about it. Then she asked if I had registered for it yet, and I said no but that I planned to. So after checking my email and vacuuming, I checked my email once more and then clicked on the registration page again. It was easier to get through this time because I'd already read most of it, and I easily  found the place where I'd left off a couple of days earlier. I got through it this time and minimized the form.

I found myself back at the thinking about the writer's conference stage. Even though I'd technically completed the reading the registration information phase, I didn't feel like I had the slightest idea what I would do or say at this conference. I opened my email and looked at my phone. I checked the weather.

Breathing a thin sigh I went to get my wallet.

Later that evening when I told my wife I’d registered, she was delighted.  My analyst seemed very encouraged also. Though I know it can't possibly work this way, a certain rogue part of me wants to believe that I can gain this type of enthusiastic approval by merely registering  for enrichment activities without actually engaging in them. Most of the time you can cancel registrations for a small fee, maybe $75. I could register for writer's conferences, business seminars, tax workshops, yoga retreats, and watercolor classes without ever actually having to attend them. Surely the resulting boost to my image would be worth a couple of hundred dollars a quarter! I don't need the skills or the experience— I just want that confirmation code!  Dragging the congratulatory email into a file titled enrichment or growth, I'd feel my confidence swelling and the admiring ( even envious! ) gazes upon me from all directions.

I can't believe no one's ever thought of this. If I was actually planning on attending a writer's conference or a firewalking seminar, this would be a good elevator speech. I’ll think about it…

Dear The Seattle Mariners

Advertising is a fact of life. There’s no getting around it, never has been. As a faithful listener to of baseball games on the radio, I willingly expose myself to hundreds of thousands of radio spots each summer. Pre-game, post-game, in-game: the ads roll by in 180-second chunks whether I or anyone else is actually listening.

And most of them I actually am able to passively tune out. The endless ads for garage doors, personal banking, HMOs and tribal casinos— they just wash over me like so much media exhaust. Shapeless noise, I no longer truly hear their messages and of course would never follow their instructions to phone by midnight tonight.

But this Billy Graham Association campaign was something different. Real live brimstone fear messaging, with an actual invitation to put one’s hand on the radio and pray with the voice-over. It just enraged me every time it came on, which was once-an-hour, all spring.

I don’t think I was the only one to write a letter, because the campaign didn’t survive the All-Star break. Fuck those clowns.

Seattle Mariners

T-Mobile Park
1250 First Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98134

                                                                                                                          Wednesday, May 12 2021

To whom it may,

I’m a 30-year radio devotee and a former season ticket holder. I’ve celebrated many memorable events at T-Mobile Park and before that the Kingdome. The sounds of Mariner baseball are the audio soundscape of my kids’ lives, the broadcast playing in the background of every summer night of their childhoods. I am genuinely true to the Blue.

But I am super bugged by this year’s Billy Graham Association ad campaign. As a fan, I have the luxury of not having to balance the team’s budget in a climate of diversified sports consumption in general and baseball’s shrinking popularity in specific. But honestly…

Where is the separation of Church and Sport? The UGM campaign is near the edge, but their message is at least one of inclusion. However, the sin scaring of this BGA campaign is fully not OK. Put your hand on the radio and pray with me? Where and when is this? It does not sound like the Pacific Northwest in the modern era. This sounds like bible belt radio evangelism of the 1930s to me— a time and place in which non-whites and non-straights were not welcome, or worse.

Is this really the association we want? I do not believe this message is one that is embraced by baseball fans in the Northwest.

Please pull these ads at once, even if it means having to tighten the rotation of the revolting EMQ campaign more than it already is.

Very sincerely,

Jeff Braimes, Bellingham

Dear Puget Sound Energy

You can get hurt falling out of a phone tree…

Puget Sound Energy
BOT-01H
P.O. Box 91269
Bellevue, WA 98009-9269

                                                                                   Monday February 8, 2022

To Whom it may,

 I know you guys have a monopoly and don’t really need for me to like you in order to stay in business and turn a profit. I also know that any ‘company’ with more than about one employee these days actively endeavors to make it nearly impossible for a customer to use the telephone to engage with a live person on the other end of the line. PSE is certainly not unique in this way.

But contracting to wigged out fear pushers from your root customer service line is an astonishing new low.

I had billing question that required more insight than any of the dozen FAQ canned answers would provide. So I dug deep into the PSE website and found a customer service number and dialed 888.225.5773. The recorded voice told me that if I was over the age of 50, I might be eligible for an exciting new offer and that I should press 1. As much as I normally enjoy exciting new offers, I really just wanted to solve my billing issue at the time. So even though I’m over 50, I pushed 2. I was immediately disconnected. I lolled and called back, this time pressing 1 so I could at least get on with it to billing.

I expected I’d be subjected to a taped exciting new offer loop while I held, but instead went straight to Jessica. At first, I thought maybe I’d dialed wrong from the start because she didn’t announce herself as Puget Sound Energy, but rather from someplace called Lifeline or something. Jessica proceeded to launch into a speech about how now that I’m over 50 I’m probably going to fall and I should have one of those buttons to hang around my neck. I’m not paraphrasing, rather this is exactly what she said. I tried to get a word in edgewise, politely at first like I always do— but Jessica would not yield. Eventually I tried interrupting her and finally shouting over her but she did not look to the side. I had to just hang up.

I tried again and this time pressed 1 but did not have to deal with Jessica again. So I don’t know if this is something you’re testing, or if you just sell a certain number of calls to these types of bullies but I guess I’m asking you nicely this first time to stop. It’s gross.

 Very sincerely,

 Jeff Braimes, Bellingham

USPS Dave

This window closed; call it a career. 
My main man Dave from the downtown Bellingham post office clocked out for the last time today, slipping quietly into retirement about an hour after this photo was taken. I don't know how long he'd worked for the USPS. I don't know if he ever walked a route or even what his last name is. Still, he was a person in my neighborhood. 
Dave handled hundreds of pieces of outgoing mail for me these past three years alone. Stack after stack of [sic]s but also the softball to my niece, a Beaver Inn baseball cap to M'ster and the hideous black rubber pompadour wig to my Godson Mark Jeffrey on the occasion of his graduation from high school. Dave never commented on these unwrapped items, instead faithfully advising me of my shipping options and diligently locating a place for the mailing label-- even when the "package" was a cribbage board or an ordinary river rock with someone's name and address written on one side. 
I'm so goddamned angry at my government right now. In times of peace, quasi-government agencies like the postal service might seem more like Big Brother. But this afternoon in my dusty & dated neighborhood post office, the winter afternoon sun shining in through the open door, Dave seemed more like a favorite uncle-- bound for a great adventure. Best wishes in retirement, Dave. You'll be missed... 

If Ferlinghetti reviewed The French Dispatch

The delicious chore 

                        that is 

                                     Wes Anderson’s new film

                                               The French Dispatch, so much like its 

                                                                             rich 

                                                                            and 

friendless predecessors with their gameboard chase scenes 

                                            and 

ponderous panning, equally 

     past bit parts & lineless leading roles

                                         offering Oscar-worthy performances 

                                                                                      using 

                                                                                        only 

                                                         their eyebrows and posture. 

With a gallery of 

  rogues  

so familiar but for the straightjackets and 

                         misplaced American 

                    accents not even compensating let alone over-compensating dragging on a                                                                                                                     cigarette. 

Homage upon endless homage 

                                     concealing 

Inside Artworld jokes that no one gets 

                                     within their 

                       Vanquished Folds, drunk on mouthwash 

 smuggled in by naked jailers standing statue-still through monolog upon endless monolog 

                                                                  with the visual phonetics 

       of a dreamscape 

    that flips forth-and-back 

              from color 

                  to 

      white-and-black… 

Mr. (W)Right and co-consipirators with names like 

              Roman, Hugo and Jason Schwartzmann

banging pans and pots in the echochamber of Andersonian 

                                approach avoidance, 

   vignettes of formalism shot long and slow and so close  

                                   that no one can tell if it is 

                                                                                     brilliant 

                                                                                           or 

                                                                                  not brilliant. 

Except the part where Tilda Swinton says the mad young artist 'tried to fuck her’ (after he’d decapitated two bartenders with a meat saw) is funny 

                                               because 

      she is wearing some false teeth that make her talk funny and it sounds more like ‘vhuck’... "

Cat MacIntyre, Humanitarian

Our whole lives, Patti & I have been lucky with neighbors. Never luckier than when we moved in next-door to Cat MacIntyre in 2016. Cat had lived a life of adventure and intrigue by the time we met her in her 70s,—still volunteering, protesting and learning while settled down quite comfortably in Sunnyland with her cat Misha. When it was time to move closer to extended family in 2020, Cat asked if I could find a nice family to buy her home for what she thought it was worth, which was about half of what it was worth. Money wasn’t particularly important to Cat, and she wished instead for a young family who wouldn’t otherwise be able to crack the inflated bubble market of our core Bellingham neighborhood.

In an act of radical coincidence, I was actually able to present Cat with an offer for far less than her home would have been worth on the fully-engulfed open market, and she graciously handed them the keys without a second thought. I didn’t get paid and Cat didn’t get over-paid— and that earnest young family is now my next next-door neighbor.

There are often hideous sounds, not to mention smells and sights coming from our home. We have been lucky to draw neighbors who either emit same or else just like us for who we are. Like Cat.

This is my nextdoor neighbor Cat. She is nice. Not only has she put up with the often startling sounds and smells coming from our house for the past 5 years, but she also is attempting to single-handedly defeat the local housing crisis by selling her home to a rad young family for a fraction of its fairly obscene 'market' value. This is after signing over not only her first but also her second Covid stimulus check to worthy local non-profits like Kulshan Community Land Trust and Bellingham Food Bank. 

"I'm on a fixed income," she said at the time with a shrug. "I don't need this extra money." 

The concept of 'extra money' is not one that gets much play in these pre-apocalyptic times, but Cat put hers where her mouth is every chance she gets.

We'll miss her, but are looking forward to getting to know our new neighbors who wouldn't otherwise be able to establish permanence in Sunnyland or probably any neighborhood in Bellingham without Cat's mercy and grace. 

And the best part of this feel-good Friday tale is that we're having a garage sale to offload Cat's 'extra things' next weekend. Come by on Saturday for some bargains or even bring something of your own to sell-- we'll have plenty of space. And of course, all proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood, duh.

Mark Fuckin’ Connolly

This is Mark. He is nice. 

We’ve been friends a long time, nearly 40 years. It doesn’t seem possible, I know. But I’ve done the math more than once, and it always comes out the same. It’s not like we grew up together or something. Our parents weren’t friends. We just know each other from college and apparently that was 40 years ago. 

Mark and I were in the journalism program together at WWU in the mid-1980s. We had both fled The Western Front, rattling down the hall to the decidedly more permissive and stony offices of Klipsun Magazine where we were not only allowed but in fact encouraged to write and publish longer form stories about bathtub ramen, academic freedom and punk rock angst in Anacortes. We had keys to the building and were largely unsupervised. 

It was during this period that Mark introduced me to a drug called Tequila. On a Friday night during the winter of 1985, a group of his friends invited me into their elder’s circle around Mark’s kitchen table in Mud Bay. In the center of the table was a bottle of Two Fingers (when it still came in the black bottle) and a salt shaker. When the tequila was gone, we repaired to the Fairhaven Picture Show to watch Stop Making Sense. I’m quite fond of both Tequila and the Talking Heads to this day, and I have Mark to thank for the introductions. I only wish he'd also taught me to dance like him... 

Mark visited me in New York during the summer of 86 when I was there on an internship, sleeping on the floor of my tiny dorm room on 5th Avenue. He gimme the cash to give to Monte, but then I had to repay Mark—so I went with Lori to what was called ATM. Eventually I had to pay her back, but not till later. I’d never seen a cash machine before. We didn’t have the internet. 

Mark and I text now, but back in those days we wrote letters. With pens on paper we wrote dozens of letters and licked the stamps with our own tongues. It’s not like I saved them all, but I still have several in a box that once held shoes—postmarks from exotic locations like Taipei, Tukwila, Natick, New York City, Kamakura and of course Bellingham. Handwritten letters, can you imagine? 

We still read and edit each others’ writing. I’ve read a number of Mark’s excellent screenplays and he is currently struggling through my novella. I value his wisdom and insight. We’ve been friends a long time.— 40 years! But the point of all this is that Mark paid off his fucking house today. We walked in to the Fairhaven branch of WECU, sat down with a rep, and he made the final payment of $405.

I’ve heard of this happening in mythology, but have never seen it in-person. He could have just sent the money electronically, I guess. But, like sending a letter through the mail, he walked in and paid in-person. I dared him to do it with cash, but it was getting late and we were getting thirsty. The event itself was fairly anti-climactic. I didn’t think a small WECU branch would have a marching band hidden in the vault just waiting for members to come in with their last mortgage payments, but I thought there’d at least be confetti or some balloons or something, man. Instead Mark was handed the small white receipt in the picture and a shrug that someone from the real estate division would be in touch on Monday. Maybe Tuesday. We went for beers. 

Now that he owns outright the cabin I sold him on Gooseberry Point 19 years ago, he will retire from his job and book passage to Tokyo where his wife Yoko is waiting patiently. He’ll be back in 90 days to work on a spouse visa while telling himself comedy jokes before bed on Gooseberry Point. But once he gets that visa, he may be out of here for good. 

Safe travels and congratulations, Mark Fuckin’ Connolly!

An open letter to Haggen’s Food & Pharmacy

An open letter to Haggen’s Food & Pharmacy:

We’ve been through a lot together, Haggen’s— but I’m leaving you. This time for good. Don’t try to follow me.

You still pretend to be a local store, but you’re really just Albertsons with a green logo now. I know the grocery business is cut-throat, but the noncompete nonsense keeping that Birchwood location dark is criminal. For-profit food deserts are not OK, especially now.

I’m changing my pharmacy to the no-name place run by friendly immigrants down the street. I’ll get my produce from the Co-op (real community), my meat from Carne (humane) and my Pop Tarts from WinCo (solid employment practices). You’re odd out.

Not that Albertson’s Inc. is going to fold because I’m not shopping with you anymore. But you might check my numbers. I’ve been buying wild in your stores for 20 years even though I knew it was wrong. Casual overpricing is one thing; exploitive neighborhood freeze-out is another.

Tell Joe Albertson that if he lifts his hex off Birchwood I’ll come back. Meanwhile, I gotta go break up with WECU now.

Farewell.

Jeff Braimes, Bellingham

Party in the Western Mountain Ashes

TODAY is one of my favorite days of the holiday season. It's a day that can't be scheduled with a calendar, or even by the weather. You never know when you get out of bed if it's going to be the day or not, and sometimes until as late as dusk it might seem like just another early December day. But when the birds start to get their drink on, you know it's that day.

It's as if every berry in the neighborhood has suddenly ripened in the exact same instant. Like one minute it's just a regular winter day and then the next minute it's the manic day the birds get drunk. The berries on the Western Ashes out our dining room window are favorites for sure. But the birds are also ravaging the shade trees on the parking strip and beating the bushes across the street-- just bouncing from branch to branch kicking up a king hell racket, half-mad on high-proof fermented juice. If the birds were armed, they would shoot their guns in the air. They don't give a damn...

Late this morning we watched with delight as the Robins and Sparrows raided the last of the Ashes. The Flicker danced atop the crown of the Habsnag, clearly out of his fool bird mind. The little green humming bird zipped here and there doing her usual speed freaky pattern and even the Red-Breasted Sap Sucker showed up to peck fiendishly into the upper reaches of the Douglas Fir as if to say 'there's got to be some more of that shit in here, man! Gimme that!'

The party raged into the afternoon, but eventually the still dried up and the birds crawled away to sleep it off. Tomorrow is New Year's Day for them-- a day to rise late and ice their tiny aching skulls. Tomorrow will be a day of reflection and of listening sheepishly to the stories of the crazy capers they hatched the day before, when they were blind drunk and free. Tomorrow we won't see much of the birds, as they slowly return to their regular bird routines-- just killing time till next year when the leaves have rid the trees and the berries are once again ripe for their fleeting pleasures.

Fidel Castro 8/13/26 – 11/25/16

Revolution is a fetching ideal for those who can afford it. But as uncomfortable as DJ Trump makes me, I am still probably a little too cozy to-- you know-- 'take up arms' or whatever you guys call it. Not as so in Cuba in the late 1950s.

Whether 50 years of Castronomics elevated the high of the average Cuban is, incredibly, still unclear on the Monday after his death was cheered in Miami and solemnly mourned in Havana. As confounding a figure as has ever pounded a podium, Castro made a career out of thumbing his great nose at the omnipresent hovering United States, brushing off assassination attempts like dandruff. He in turn treated his lesser adversaries to much more effective brands of merciless retribution. It was Fidel's way or the highway-- a highway often stocked with hammerhead sharks or lined with firing squads.

My mother's future husband Arthur Bender was a 20-year-old sophomore at Rutgers during the holiday break of 1959, and with a few more days to kill before returning to the books, he and 3 buddies piled into a car and drove down the eastern seaboard to some stockcar race in Sebring, Florida. Back then you could just do shit like that on a whim. One thing similarly led to another and before the boys knew it they'd taken a dare flight from Key West to Havana where they stood amongst the cheering throngs as Castro's freedom fighters rolled west into Havana atop the very tanks that had vanquished the forces of the previous badass dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

But even revolutionaries like a good photo gag, and a few of them paused to yuck it up with the young Americans on their way to the Havana Hilton. Stick em up, Yankee...

Americans can say what they want about Fidel Castro, but it is worth noting that we just elected Donald Trump to be our president. It's unlikely he will be 'in power' for 50 weeks let alone 50 years, but with comparable morals and only a pale fraction of the conviction, intelligence and personality of Fidel Castro, he could really leave a lasting mark.

Bob Simmons 6/18/30-6/15/19

The civilization lost an MVP this week. Bob Simmons has been my hero since the day I met him, and I know he's cast a similar spell on many of us. The man did everything well, but perhaps nothing was as lasting as when he'd clap you on the shoulder, look you deep in the eye and say "Gee, it's good to see ya." You always knew he meant it, because Bob weren't no bullshitter.

He was of my parents' generation, but he never seemed old to me. He had the curiosity of a child and the enthusiasm of a teenager; the knowledge of a grownup and the wisdom of an elder. I learned of his death on Father's Day-- ironic, as I felt a stronger connection to him than to any man in my blood family, my own son excepted.

It was an honor to serve as his & Dee's Realtor. Not because being someone's Realtor is so great, but because I got to spend so much time with them! For eight years we looked at houses in Bellingham. Sometimes not for six months at a time while Dee was trouncing cancer. Other times we'd see three houses a week. For eight years! The distinct & exclusive pleasure of driving the streets of Bellingham with Bob & Dee was mine. "We'd better see it, Jeffer," Bob would say. And we would...

The first one hundred + houses weren't right. But somewhere in the first third of that second hundred homes peeked the bashful but very earnest home on Toledo Hill where Bob left his things before going to the hospital and ultimately to hospice to die on the 62nd anniversary of the marriage to his very beloved Dee. His grandson was married bedside with Bob's only son officiating. You just can't draw it up any better than that...

As if Bob, Dee & I weren't spending enough time together in 2013, they graciously sat for a series of interviews to inform a two-part blog entry spotlighting them as my favorite clients of all times and nominating them for greatest love story of all times. DISCLAIMER: this first entry has more real estate detail in it. If you hate real estate, kindly skip to the second entry which is more about Bob & Dee. I re-post this only to demonstrate my affection for this grand couple and for Bob Simmons in the wake of his passing.

I'm sure he'll get some good sun in that great pea patch in the sky...

Mick December 2012—July 2019

Hello family and very close friends. Some grim news from BraimesWorld. We wanted you to know without having to tell the whole internet that we've lost our stoney cat Mick Mars.

He'd been missing a few days and Patti I walked with some fliers only for a block in two directions Monday night. A neighbor from across the alley phoned yesterday to say he'd discovered the remains of a black cat in his yard on Friday morning.

There've been coyote sightings in the neighborhood and there are always racoons. We gave Mick as proper a burial as possible in the backyard. I think if you'd given Mick the choice between his freedom and his safety, he'd have taken the freedom.

Mick was preceded in death by his mother Scout and is survived by his sister Razzle of the family home in the 2600 block of Ellis Street, Sunnyland. He was one of the famed Sunnyland Cats-- a yawner and an ear-scratcher and if he'd worn socks (he didn't) he'd have worn them high because he didn't much give a damn about anything. He will be missed...

Razzle December 2012— February 2024

Just a limited audience note to say that Patti and I had to let go of Razzle today. She lived a charmed life and realized a death to match-- with a sudden diagnosis, brief struggle and dignified passing in the arms of her deepest admirers.

All pets are special, but Razzle had a certain verve that made her a favorite of friends and strangers alike. Pedestrian commuters would veer many blocks out of their routes in order to drop by and pay their Razzle tax on summer days when she would lay lazily in-wait at the end of the concrete walk. Indeed, it seemed at times there was a waiting list to pet Razzle. She had a wide network of acquaintances that Patti and I knew nothing of-- a secret life!

She loved family, fire, and laps-- and would sit in one until the metaphoric cows came home. She never met a real cow (as far as we know!) but didn't seem to mind the deer. She did not have patience for mammals her own size, namely dogs and other cats-- with the exception of her late brother Mick. In her youth she would hunt and kill all manner of neighborhood rodents, birds and snakes. She ate them, too, sucking out the eyes and brains of her victims and bringing the tiny trophy skulls home for us to fuss over. She also enjoyed the occasional scrap of mild cheddar cheese.

Razzle was always an indoor/outdoor cat, and though she did not have free range these past 5 years (once the raccoons figured out how to use the cat door), she lounged and toileted outside until the very end. We were comforted that she wanted to be outside as much as she did these past 5 days, despite the foul weather. It seemed she was trying everything she could think of to sooth the aching in her kidneys. But in the end there was nothing she or we could do. That's just how it goes with pets sometimes. Eventually...

She was one rad cat. She is missed already