Sea Tac to Tacoma

Three cheer for Sound Transit, who will make full leap and connect the airport to Tacoma. It'll happen in something like 20 years, but we've got to do it, and stopping it short in Fife just wasn't going to cut it.

So three cheers! If I were a betting man, and I am, I would think that once the Central Link is open and people start to commute from Seattle to the airport, people will start to really see the benefit of mass transit and by the time they get to the Tacoma line we will have approved even more funding to expand the transit even farther.

Here's hoping.

Lost Power

I haven't been watching a whole bunch of television recently (what with The Office, 30 Rock, Studi0 60, and Veronica Mars on hiatus) so I haven't blogged about it much either.

But I should mention that the last two episodes of Lost have been first rate after some hit and miss episodes before. Last night's was awesome! Fun to see some old characters make returns again, too.

Urban Waters

Good for the City! They've purchased the former site of the Crosswater Condos in a great public/private partnership with Urban Waters, a research facility for marine research. The non-profit works with UWT and the Port for research of the marine environment in an urban/industrial setting.

The city will use the building for their own soil and water testing and dock a few boats there as well.

Well done, guys. Here's the Trib article.

And how to help them?

The report also details seven high priority strategies, with a matrix on which population of low income households it would help and to what degree.

To help the extremely low income families, three strategies are considered to be the most effective:

1. Providing incentives to assist developers to create affordable housing including density bonuses, fee waivers, reduced zoning requirements, and expedited permitting. This is taken from numbers that show substantial cost savings in a multi-family development--roughly $10,500/unit would be saved if permits, utilities, and parking were waived or reduced. For single family homes, waiving permits, broker commissions, and closing costs would take $24,000 off of a 2030 sq. ft. home. And if you could acquire the land for free, and all interest on the loan, a house worth $285,000 could go for $129,000.
2. Create a new local dedicated revenue source for populations below 80% of the median income. This would mean possibly a housing levy (a la Seattle's levy), a % of real estate tax (like 1%), or housing trusts or land trusts
3. Tax relief for developers who build and maintain affordable housing. (an expanded version of what we already have basically).

Those are some cool options they've put together I'd say.

Who to help?

The task force tried to figure out where to best target their efforts.

Clearly a place to start are the Extremely Low Income households (defined as making less than 30% of our median income).

But the high priority focus will be on any household making less than 80% of the median income. But, interestingly, it does so with a caveat. The report notes that:

The Task Force ... came to understand the significant need for more moderate income work force housing [for housholds making between 80 and 100% of the median income]. One of the conclusions reached by many Task Force members was that when the supply of housing for moderate income families is limited, it places greater demand on the housing supply that would otherwise be available for low income families.

Well observed.

The Pierce County Housing Problem

The Housing Affordability Taskforce, which started last year, has released a final report. At a 127 pages, it's pretty thorough.

The report is comprehensive, which is reflected by the experience of those on the task force. Representatives included the United Way, Realtors, banks, Master Builders Association, Tacoma Housing Authority, Pierce County Housing Authority, and 4 different departments of Pierce County.

The summary is 8 pages, and you can start there if you're interested to see the general scope of their recommendations.

I'm going to devote a few blog posts over the next few days to the report because I think this is of the utmost importance for Tacoma (and Pierce County too).

So let's start with "The Problem," which they Task Force lays out pretty clearly. Here are the important points I've noted so far:

• 31% of Pierce County households are house-poor (they pay more than 30% of their income on shelter costs).
• By 2005, 50% of the houses for sale in Pierce County were too expensive for 60% of the households (again, assuming they don't want to be house-poor when they move in).
• On that same thought, the report says "Put another way, for 170,000 households, buying an average-priced home was not affordable; for 89,000 households, even buying a home in the bottom 10% of the price range was unattainable; and for 51,000 households, renting the average 1 bedroom apartment was out of reach."
• Regarding housing for the poorest in our county, the report says that individuals were turned away from shelters 38,000 times in 2006. And families with children were turned away 9,600 times. In both cases it was usually because the shelters were full.
• Along those same line, 43% of people who use emergency food programs in Pierce County have at least one working adult.

The reports notes that rising housing costs have made it harder for low-income families here. Here's an interesting quote:

The growing balance in affordability between King County and Pierce County
residents in recent years has caused more competition for homes in Pierce as
residents are priced out of the King market, accelerating the pace of
house-price increases.

I take back what I said about luring young Seattle-ites to Tacoma...

More later tonight and tomorrow.

Cherry Trees in Bloom

I nearly November I posted a cell phone photo of the Bellarmine cherry tree. It looked pretty good then, but--like all cherry trees in our area right now--it looks pretty great with the blossoms.

Yeah for spring!

More on the Condo Market

There's a spread in this morning's paper about the downtown condos. According to the paper and the study they cite, only empty nesters are moving into downtown Tacoma to fill the buildings, not any young professionals.

The vast majority are "luxury condos" because it doesn't take much more investment to turn a regular condo into a "luxury" condo, which would price it above a young professional's income.

On the other hand...

I've heard that Hannah Heights sold out of their penthouse level condos well before they had sold some of their other "regular" units. The demand was for the luxury and so they converted more of their units to upscale units (this is all anecdotal evidence).

Perhaps there just isn't a market for young professionals. Possibly because there aren't a lot of young professionals in Tacoma, specifically single ones.

Remember Richard Florida and the Rise of the Creative Class? Young people are very very mobile. And I would bet a lot that those young people who have transplanted to Tacoma to work at Russell or one of our other large employers and not yet sold on wanting to stay. Because that's the only reason you would buy is if you knew you were going to stay here.

So when the Tribune writes that "pricey condominiums exclude young singles" I don't doubt it, but it begs the question: how many young singles are there actually in Tacoma? How many think they'll be here in 5 years? My hunch would be we're talking about a very small group of people.

We'd likely be better off luring young single professionals who work in Seattle and promising them an urban lifestyle, complete with Link and Sounder service to their job and good restaurants when they return.

More on Exit133.com (who points out there are a fair number of condos in the $100K and low $200K range). The inventory on condos may also keep prices low enough to get some of those young professionals in.

All in all, I agree with Exit133: I'm an optimist.

At the Lake

A nice Saturday away ... the first Saturday I've had totally off since early February.

Feels good. Lots of rain, but it still feels great to be at the lake. Can't wait till summer!

Socialized Bike Rentals

When I was at Carleton, students created "Yellow Bikes" based on ideas from Amsterdam, Portland, OR, and other cities where they refurbished bikes and put them out for general use, cost-free.

As happened elsewhere, the Carleton bikes were in varying degrees of functionality and were frequently death traps waiting to happen. They were too small, the brakes didn't work, the seat was sharp, etc.

Paris seems to have come up with a novel public/private partnership to get around the problem but still provide bikes to its residents. They'll put 20,000 bikes on the street by the end of the year, which can be checked out from one of 1,450 locations. If you check one out, it'll cost you nothing for the first half hour, and each half hour after that it gets more expensive.

Their idea is not only to get people out of cars and taxis, but also some studies have shown that the quickest way around Paris is by bicycle.

It'll be interesting to see how well the whole thing works out. I don't know how effective it would be for Tacoma. Too many hills downtown? Maybe with a gondola going up 11th and 15th ...

The PSP Expansion

Thursday night Mary and I walked down to Puget Sound Pizza for some slices and to check out their new space.

Even though Jim had taken me through a couple times during building, I was still surprised that it was more of a bar feel than a restaurant feel.

We sat in a corner booth and overlooked the whole space and it did feel incredibly "urban" (a welcome change after my trip through Meridian). I think I would like more track lighting or spots to see some of the cool stuff that Jim's put up on the wall. And--I know this is going to sound weird--but the Pabst Blue Ribbon neon sign is really bright. I don't know why, but man it was bright.

We tried out the garlic bread (awesome!) and also got the Supreme for the first time (I'm usually a meat lover's pizza guy) and the veggies were awesome. Unlike the stuff you get from chains, it was pretty clear the veggies were chopped up that morning--good veggies too!

I'm guessing PSP is going to really start cranking up pizza production. More seating with a variety of options (bar feel or restaurant feel) plus more regular pizza delivery judging by the menus ($20 minimum delivery).

Another great neighborhood spot within just a few blocks!

The Horror, The Horror

On Sunday, Mary and I took a long trip out to Ashford, Elbe, and Eatonville to see the sights and take in the beautiful weather of the day. A great lunch at Scaleburgers in Elbe and we poked around Eatonville for awhile, too.

We drove out on Highway 7, which was pretty depressing for the first few miles. It's run down and kind of beat up until about the Roy Y. Little did I know what was to come ...

Instead of returning on 7 from Eatonville, we drove through Graham and on to Puyallup along 161, which turns in to Meridian Ave. I've learned to talk smack about South Hill for awhile now (I could see a lot of it from cool downtown Puyallup) but I had no idea how bad the sprawl had gotten.

From the WalMart in Graham on Meridian until the WalMart in Puyallup on Meridian it's about 8 miles according to Google Maps. Also according to Google Maps, it's a 13 minute drive.

Ha! That's a laugh. On a Sunday afternoon, Meridian was about the most congested, inconvenient street I've been on in a long time. It is big box after fast food after big box and after fast food the entire 8 miles between the WalMarts.

I understand that these kinds of stores can be necessary, especially give that cities rely on sales tax collection rather than a more sensible income tax collection. But at least in Tacoma they are all located near easy transportation points. The Meridian / South Hill area has few access points and a million bottlenecks. It's red light after red light as people get out of stores and back on to Meridian with no other place to go.

Certainly at Christmas 38th Street and the Mall area are considerably slower with the volume of cars they have to contend with, but even at Christmas it isn't as slow as Meridian was on a random Sunday.

What I feel bad about are the homes built in that area. They are new homes and are sometimes the only affordable option for families that want to own their own home (or at least, they're billed that way). But living there must be terrible. Sure the equity of the home is nice. But how much does the additional gas cost you? What is the cost of actually living there? Would the family be better off living in a more expensive home in North Tacoma with a shorter commute? Would the family be better off living in the Hilltop in a similarly priced home (but older and in a neighborhood with a bad rep)?

How much time would workers get back from their lives if they went for a smaller home closer to work? I remember when my friend Megan moved from Gig Harbor to UP in early 2003. We estimated that it cut her commute to downtown Tacoma by about 7 or 8 hours/week. She moved to a small apartment in the North End shortly after that and her weekly time spent commuting further dropped; where before her Gig Harbor commute was 12 - 13 hours/week, her new commute was less than 2 hours.

As to South Hill ... I am saddened at the planning that let a 9 mile strip of commercial retail strangle everyone who lives anywhere near it. I know the homes in the area have been appreciating pretty rapidly, but in a slumping housing market (which we are entering, supposedly) I'd wager that they are going to hit a wall faster than the rest of the region. It's bad out there, man. Bad news.

Tacoma has its problems, but it's got nothing on what South Hill is facing in the next 10 years.

Where does it all go? ... TAGRO!

Previously I wrote:

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water? I'm guessing Commencement Bay.

I've been given a correction to this by a friend at the City:

The solids all become TAGRO. Woo hoo! Tacoma rocks! Not only are we awesome recyclers, but we make the best biosolids product in the nation! But yes, the stormwater flows into the Bay.

And there you have it. Everything becomes TAGRO. It's like the circle of life around here. Maybe the City can donate some TAGRO to the downtown community gardens to help get it 'off the ground' so to speak.

Since that was about the lamest attempt at a pun I've ever made, I'm going to end this post.

Point North - My Answers

I should probably do my best to answer the questions and flaunt my ignorance of my local environment before challenging others to do so.

1) Point north. Easy. Which way's the North End?

2) What time is sunset today? Around 7, I think.

3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap. Rain freezes in the mountains, runs down to a reservoir in the spring, and then into Tacoma Water, and to my taps.

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water? I'm guessing Commencement Bay.

5) How many feet above sea level are you? My condo is probably 3 or 400 feet above sea level.

6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here? Cherry trees. But those aren't really flowers. And those little yellow and purple flowers that always seem way too early. I think they're violets.

7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours? Hmm. The Snake Lake Watershed is probably the next one to me. I don't know which one I'm in. A Commencement Bay Watershed I guess.

8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt? I'll take pavement for $500, Alex. Really, no idea. So I'm going to go for sand and rock.

9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves? I'm in a tribe? I'd say salmon for the Puyallups who lived here before me. Lots of fish, probably berries.

10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available. Huckleberries and blackberries in August. Hmm. Are clams plants? (Just kidding).

11) From what direction do storms generally come? I used to watch them come up over the Sound from Olympia at my parent's place. So I'm going to say South and West.

12) Where does your garbage go? Tacoma Landfill near Fircrest.

13) How many people live in your watershed? About a hundred thousand maybe?

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood? No idea.

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice? Wherever it sets tonight is where I'll point. No idea on the solstice.

16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move? I'd say the Nisqually fault, which I believe shook us all up in 2001. It's under Anderson Island I think.

17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water? No idea.

18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past? Mount Rainier was revered before, but I'm not sure that's in my watershed.

19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)? Frost to frost? At least 150 days I'd bet. 5 months maybe?

20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put? Goldfinch (state bird), Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Seagulls, hummingbird. I think they all stay put but the humming bird.

21) What was the total rainfall here last year? Too much.

22) Where does the pollution in your air come from? The port? Maybe. But probably mostly cars actually.

23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today? No idea.

24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here? Volcanoes.

25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years. Ivy. And parrots in Gig Harbor within the last five years.

26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable? No idea.
27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated? Hydro-electric, mostly. I think Tacoma Power has a dam out aways.

28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go? Again, I'm going to go with Commencement Bay.

29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it? Toward Mount Rainier, probably. No idea on the fire.

30) How many days till the moon is full? I think we're a few weeks away because it's a sliver right now.

The Bigger Here Bonus Questions:
31) What species once found here are known to have gone extinct? No idea.

32) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude? Provence, I think. Maine, too, maybe. The Twin Cities are close.

33) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago? No idea.

34) Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here. Probably the west coast of Australia. And ... England?

Point North - A Tacoma Quiz

This got forwarded to me a long time ago (long enough ago I can't figure out where I got it from).
Update: Actually, it turns out I stole it from Exit133, who posted it last July. Oops. Guess I'm way out of date.

But on the first day of spring, I thought it would be appropriate to ask Tacoma locals how much they know about where they live. These questions are hard, and I can't say I know the answer to more than half of them. But they should get you thinking about this very specific place.

How well do you know your home?

1) Point north.

2) What time is sunset today?

3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap.

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water?

5) How many feet above sea level are you?

6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here?

7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours?

8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt?

9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves?

10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available.

11) From what direction do storms generally come?

12) Where does your garbage go?

13) How many people live in your watershed?

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood?

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice?

16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move?

17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water?

18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past?

19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)?

20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put?

21) What was the total rainfall here last year?

22) Where does the pollution in your air come from?

23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today?

24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here?

25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years.

26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable?

27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated?

28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?

29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it?

30) How many days till the moon is full?

Bonus Questions:

31) What species once found here are known to have gone extinct?

32) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude?

33) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago? 34) Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here.

Second Worst Idea Ever?

The worst idea was turing High Fidelity into a Broadway Musical (it's already closed).

The second worst idea ever is Andrew Lloyd Webber writing a sequel to the Phantom of the Opera. SayWA???

The third worst idea ever is calling it "The Phantom of Manhattan." Apparently A-Llod (as I'm sure he's doing this for the money, just like A-Rod) started work on this with author Frederick Forsyth (who wrote the awesome book Day of the Jackal).

A-Llod turned away to write another musical and so Forsyth published "The Phantom of Manhattan"--a novel about the Phantom escaping Paris and running away to New York. (Me saying "SayWA?" right here is so obvious I'm not going to do it).

It is very common to hear theater folks making fun of Phantom. The main character is hardly ever on stage, they so obviously use dubbed music and stage doubles, all the music basically sounds the same ... but my biggest problem with it is that the book was so much better. Like way better. And the Phantom is an incredible villain, not just a lame recluse with a bad case of unrequitted love. Who knew a French book from 1910 would be so readable?

(Interestingly, the world wide box office for Phantom is higher than Titanic, making it--supposedly--the most lucrative entertainment enterprise of all time, according to Wikipedia.)

Anyway, the "Phantom in Manhattan" sounds really really really bad.

Funding the arts

How to fund the arts? Yesterday I made the case for an endowment, which certainly makes a lot of sense for non-profit theaters. The trick of it is that you have to raise a whole heck of a lot of money before it actually becomes worth it (hence my suggestion for a city-wide theater endowment).

Another answer is government funding. This is tricky. Government frequently has some odd strings attached to their money. Also it can go away in a flash leaving a theater or museum shellshocked.

But there are some benefits. The London Theater scene is heavily subsidized by government funding and it's paid off immensely with lucrative exports of shows around the world that bring money back into the UK. British film also gets government financing which allows for films like the Queen which subsequently bring a whole huge amount back to the UK.

New York has an interesting answer to the lack of government funding: "enhancement money." Enhancement money is where a Broadway producer donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to a non-profit off-Broadway theater to raise the production values of a show. This commercial Broadway producer would also have the rights to produce the show after the non-profit closes it and the theater would retain the royalties of the show goes big and moves up to Broadway. If it doesn't do well enough to justify the move, the theater moves on to their next show and the producer is short a chunk of change.

We wouldn't have "Rent" without this kind of structure, and the non-profit theater that started it gets millions in royalties for the Broadway show (so the does the commerical producer who chipped in the $150,000 to get it going, I'm sure).

So perhaps we can start to see more money for the arts. Here's the Tribune's article from today about government funding through the NEA and Dicks' opinion on the issue. A theater company that could get some corporate money, NEA money, ticket revenue, concession sales, endowment earnings, rental fees, and individual donations would have a sound basis for moving forward and putting on interesting theater. But chasing a pie that big takes a lot of work. Maybe it could happen here in Tacoma again with a TAG II, but it will take a lot of work.

My Theater Utopia

Awhile back (like last month) the Tribune published a piece by Ken Miller, a former TAG board member, on his ideas to save TAG and Tacoma theater in general. I was pretty critical of a lot of it, but after TAG closed earlier in the month I thought I should piece together some ideas of my own about what could "save" Tacoma theater, although I'm not totally sure it needs to be saved.

But I do believe that a Theater Endowment would go pretty far toward insuring long-term viability of the theaters and prevent closures. I wrote a little bit about this in October of last year when the Empty Space closed.

The Tribune ran my suggestion in today's paper. It's still pretty utopian, but I think it would have strong potential of success.

I think I love my wife

Chris Rock's movie was very funny and also touching and rather insightful. Interestingly, Chris Rock directed, co-wrote, and starred.

I liked this movie a lot and appreciated its R rating; it needed to be an R to work as well as it did. The movie had some unexpected turns and good performances.

Well done, Chris!

More good news for St. Helens

From the Business Examiner Daily e-mail I read that the Walker is going to get a high end restaurant and lounge from Troy Christian, the first manager of the Tacoma El Gaucho and manager/partner at Masa and Asado.

The St. Helens neighborhood is getting very cool suddenly. The last few Saturdays I've walked to either Infinite Soup (Chicken Congee or Italian Sausage Tortellini being my current two favorites) or St. Helens Cafe (the fish is awesome) for lunch. Drinks at Doyle's, dinner sometimes at Cafe by the Bay (especially this summer with the deck), and I hear Stadium Bistro has a new lunch menu.

And now this! To honor the string of good news about the area, I'm going to start a new tag on my blog, St. Helens Neighborhood, to cover the all the cool stuff within just a few blocks from me.

Message in a bottle

7 years ago at this time, I was about four weeks into a six week sailing adventure in the Caribbean. It was through a school program called SEA--the Sea Education Association--an awesome program out of Woods Hole, MA. We visited Cuba, Honduras, and some other great tropical places.

Anyway, in the Windward Passage, the funnel of water between Cuba and Haiti, many of us threw overboard a message in a bottle, usually with a dollar bill attached to help pay for postage.

I found out recently that a friend from the boat, Holly, got a letter 5 years later from someone who found her bottle on a beach in Jamaica and wrote her a note.

I'm still waiting for someone to find my bottle, but I'm glad to know at least one of our bottles was found. If I were a castaway waiting for someome to find it, I'd be very tan by now.

Urban parking, con't.

Peter Callaghan in the Trib sounds off on the same subject: too much parking is bad news.

From his piece:

There are even those who think – as blasphemous as it sounds – that downtowns might be better off with less parking. Donald Shoup, an economics professor at UCLA who has studied the effects of parking requirements and free parking on downtowns, says it is not an accident that vibrant downtowns have scarce parking.

“By prescribing massive overdoses of parking, planners are poisoning the city,” Shoup told Governing Magazine in 2005. “Automobile dependency resembles addiction to smoking and free parking is like free cigarettes … it will take decades for cities to recover from the damage.”

I'm starting to come around.

Yeah for the neighborhood!

Saw this great piece of news on Exit133 tonight. 402 St. Helens (AKA the Molester Motel) is going to become market rate condos after a full remodel.

Can't say how happy I am about this. I am all for putting more low income housing in the neighborhood (like the subsidized housing on Fawcett and elsewhere). But in the way it has been managed to date, especially with their deals with the Department of Corrections, it has been a serious detriment.

So great news, I'd say.

More downtown stuff

On Exit133 there is an open letter from one Andre Stone. I thought it presented a compelling reason to drop the city's stringent off-street parking requirement.

Here's Jane Jacobs on the issue of providing for easy automobile access to cities in her Death and Life of Great American Cities:

With greater accessibility to a district by cars, total cross-use of the district by people thus invariably declines, and this is a serious matter for a city, where one of the great jobs of transportation is to permit and encourage cross-use.

In other words, make it harder for commuters to get to work in their car, and they will choose options other than that, which will foster better use of the streets, the arts, and storefronts (ie, cross-uses).

So not only would eliminating the off street requirement make it cheaper to build in Tacoma but people would frequent the retailers, restaurants, and other merchants?

One word: sweeeet.

Condo market

I must say I am confused about the article in the Trib.

Apparently, there is 15 months of inventory of condos in the St. Helens District (my home).

What does that mean exactly? That it would take someone on average 15 months to sell their condo? That in 15 months, if we didn't build any more condos they would all be full? And what does that mean for downtown? I still say that a slower condo market is better for downtown as a whole because it makes other development more likely.

Either way, I think I'm just missing the point of the article. Can anyone tell me what kind of effect this would have on current owners?

Black Snake Moan

First, great title.

Second, great movie. Funny, touching, controversial, intimate ... it was a ride. The iconic image was, of course, of Christina Ricci chained to the radiator of Samuel L Jackson. It's a troublesome image, of course, for about a million reasons, but Black Snake Moan navigates smoothly.

It takes its time getting there, it deals soundly--and most interestingly--with what happens after she is no longer chained (won't say how she gets out).

It's a good movie with a rockin soundtrack. I say three cheers.

Do you wanna step outside?

That's not a threat. But you should step outside. It's unseasonably warm today thanks to think Pineapple Express thingy I'm reading about in the papers.

If meteorologists got to name everything in the world, I think we'd have a much more interesting time.

Elks Temple Update

Dan Voelpel has soem good information about the Elks Lodge transaction today. It's changed hands, but as he asks -- what's next?

Osama turns 50

Osama bin Laden turned 50 today. (That means he was a mere 44 on September 11, 2001, by the way.)

If Bush were really serious about nabbing Osama Bin Laden, today is his best chance. Just call up AARP and ask them where they sent their membership application for one "Bin Laden, Osama," born March 10, 1957. They know how to reach everyone on their 50th birthday.

Department of Justice

I'm not talking about the scandals we're getting out of the DOJ Office under Gonzales. But an odd story here in town. Apparently a bunch of barbers are getting investigated for price fixing their military hair cuts (at a whopping $7.00).

The reasoning seems to be that one barber distributed notice that rates would be going up and posted it at other barbers, I guess. It's a bizarre story and one where it seems likely that small business owners are getting investigated for no good reason.

But it's worth a read to see what the owners are having to go through. (On the other hand, if the owners actually did collude to fix the price of their military hair cuts, then I say that's absolutely hilarious that barbers are copying some of the worst traits from giant corporations. Well done, guys!).

Two night left for Molly Sweeney!

How many shameless plugs can I make for Molly Sweeney? Plenty, I guess.

But the last two nights we've been at 3/4 capacity which is awesome, especially considering the first weekend we averaged about 31% capacity, and the second weekend 41%. Clearly we were building, but seeing such a jump to our last weekend was great!

That's what word of mouth will do, I guess. And three great reviews.

Hope you'll come to the show!

At the Mandolin

Having some lunch at the Mandolin today and I notice what appears to be a bar being built in the center of the coffee shop. Will buckets of ice and Corona be served from here this summer? We shall see. It certainly looks cool.

Trib's TAG update

Here's the update about TAG's closure on the Tribune's site from this afternoon if you want to see their coverage. I figured I should link after my previous post.

Thanks, TNT!

TAG Closed -- Coverage Still Pending

Dear Trib,

I hate to be "that guy" who complains about their local newspaper because I'm usually not. I really like the Trib and I like your website and you have been good to the Horatio with regular coverage. So, guys, I say this with love ... but did you miss the fact that a Tacoma institution 28 years old closed on Sunday?

TAG's closure broke on Exit133 Monday at 4:00. The Business Examiner had it in yesterday's BEDaily. And the Tribune hasn't run anything yet.

I fully expect a long, in depth article from Rosemary sometime this weekend or shortly thereafter on what happened. That's what the Tribune is for and best at.

But recently you've really jumped on the Breaking News bandwagon and done a fine job putting breaking news on the homepage. Yesterday, in fact the page was crawling with breaking news updates about Libby's verdict, traffic snarls and accidents, robberies, concerts ... I checked it multiple times during the day to keep up.

Which again leads to the question, why no "Breaking News -- TAG closed for good" published Monday night or Tuesday sometime? It doesn't need to be more than a couple paragraphs just letting the public know. The details can come later with the full spread.

In fact, last October I think that the closure of the Empty Space in Seattle prompted a breaking news update on the site. But not for TAG?? It's getting to be kind of a big hole in your coverage, guys.

With all respect,

Erik Hanberg

Old Theaters Don't Die ...

... they just fade to black.

I hope there are still enough embers buring that a new TAG--likely called something else--can rise up in the new few years, as it sounds like after "Proof" TAG had to shutter its doors yesterday. It's a very sad end for a theater and an old Tacoma institution.

We'll probably hear more this week. Until then ... Goodnight, sweet Prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Red Light District

Tacoma's likely getting red light cameras. If you've read the blog you probably could predict that I'm against it. And I'm being predictable. I think it's a bad idea and yet another excuse to catch people on cameras.

That said, the Tribune article about the cameras has this note:

Red-light camera tickets are treated like parking infractions: They are not
considered moving violations and do not go on your driving record.

SayWA? Running a red light and getting caught on camera is not a moving violation? If you're sitting in a parked car you're not exactly liable to hurt someone. If you're cheating on a yellow or running a red light, you've moving pretty fast.

I'm not in favor of the cameras, but if you're going to have them, be consistent. Running a red light is a lot graver than a parking infraction and should be on your record.

Also on Exit133 and Kevin Freitas.

1,000 Days Author Dies

I didn't mention this before, but Arthur Schlesinger died last week. I only have read one of his books: A Thousand Days, about the Kennedy White House.

I rather like his profile in the NYT that was published today. Here's a fun quote to ponder.

Mr. Schlesinger was plainly confident that [Robert] Kennedy stood up to such large terms, and his narrative clinches that claim. It is hard to imagine our more recent leaders being discussed in such lofty terms.

Might they be unworthy? Well, the Kennedys may have been, too, if we measure them by the standards now applied to political figures. The point is not that our leaders have shrunk, but that, in some sense, our historians have.

And it concludes:

If our own anxious age is to attain similar heights our historians must help lead the way.

I know several history majors who will rather like that quote.

Up late at the Europa Bistro

Last night after Molly Sweeney got out, the cast and crew headed to the Europa Bistro on Proctor for late night appetizers and good wine.

Alfredo, the owner and chef, was kind enough to let us party past 1 a.m., and we dined on some incredible food all the way through.

I've been to the Europa Bistro before, but this was such a great evening, I thought it was worth a big shout out. Thanks, Alfredo!

Backstage at Molly Sweeney

Well, I'm not actually backstage. I'm enjoying listening to the show from the lobby while I take care of some e-mail marketing for the show. So it seemed like a good time to say 'hola' and catch up.

I finished Andrew Sullivan's "The Conservative Soul" earlier today. I'm seeing "Proof" at TAG at the Saturday matinee. Plus I'll be at the three shows of Molly Sweeney, of course.

Gotta run to turn on the lights for intermission, but I'll keep you updated with some reviews and the like.