Call me a curmudgeon, but this Southeast Seattle resident has grown to dread Seafair.
As a 16-year transplant I’ve never quite understood the local fascination with watching boats run around in circles, and even the thrill of the Blue Angels eventually wears out its welcome after years of having one’s house rattled by Navy jets. (If I had a nickel for every time the Blue Angels buzzed my backyard in full formation, I could buy myself a latte.)
Still, it’s not the annual festivities I begrudge, even if I usually choose not to participate. It’s the goddamn traffic.
My part of the city is normally blessed with multiple routes in, out and through the downtown, enough to cope with nearly any traffic situation, but for one weekend each year I might as well be living on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Up over the hill to the East of me is the lake, where absolutely everybody else in Seattle is now headed. To the North, the main thoroughfares and the surrounding side streets from Lake Washington Blvd. to Beacon Hill Ave. and everything in between, are blocked by an impassable glacier of traffic. And my usual western route to I-5 and the many options of the Duwamish Valley beyond is transformed from a five-minute sprint into a 45-minute slog through a swamp of equally pissed off drivers.
Cut off from even local amenities, my only escape lies to the South, where I intend to head off soon, before the annual Seafair sclerosis clogs those arteries too
I mention all this not just to complain (though I do like complaining), but rather to make a couple points. First, mine isn’t the only neighborhood subject to occasional or even regular invasions due to special events or local amenities. I live walking distance to a couple of pretty spectacular parks on a lake, a luxury that is well worth the occasional street closure or traffic nightmare. So I have no sympathy for folks who, say, choose to live near the Woodland Park Zoo, and then bitch about the parking, or who live near Gas Works Park and fight planned concerts there out of concern about the crowds. I have empathy, but no sympathy. Like me, complain all you want… but then suck it up and deal with it.
Second, this is likely the last Seafair in which the northern frontier is virtually walled off from me. This time next year light rail will be operating through the Rainier Valley, providing yet another route in and out for us luck Southenders… a route mercifully not subject to the whims of local traffic. A route, by the way, that will prove a fast and affordable alternative for Seafair celebrants from outside the neighborhood, who’d rather avoid traffic than help contribute to it.
Keep that in mind this November when you’re asked to tax yourselves to extend light rail through other neighborhoods.
Yeah, the Torchlight parade runs right in front of my apartment. After three PM you can’t even cross the street because there is no place to walk. This is especially difficult for me because I am disabled and need the curb ramp. Could I ask you people to at least leave the curb ramp open?
I went to the library about 4:30 that day. When I came out, even though the bus stops would not close for another hour, people were already starting to close the gaps. I asked some people to move. Boy, were they surprised when the bus lift came right out toward them.
Yeah, I suck it up every year, but folks could be a little more courteous, too. After all, people do live here. And sometimes we just want to go to the drug store before the parade. Don’t block our way.
The Blue Angels are a symbol of America’s freedoms; real Americans love and admire the Blue Angels.
16 years sounds like it’s been too long for ya. Hit the road back to Philly. Don’t let the door hit ya in the @ss. (We’d have a helluva lot fewer problems if those who aren’t at least 5th generation Northwesterners would all leave!)
But be consistent when ya go: Take the train!
“having one’s house rattled by Navy jets”
The government’s merely letting your neighbors know what they’ve got in case your neighbors decide to declare independence, form a rump government, annouce U.S. laws and taxes don’t apply to them, and raise confederate flags in their yards.
McCain reminds me of an angry little monkey banging two pebbles together.
@2 Is @ss a new word, a typo, or a misspelling of ass by a wingnut ass who (a) can’t type, (b) can’t spell, and (c) can’t read … ?
“Still, it’s not the annual festivities I begrudge, even if I usually choose not to participate. It’s the goddamn traffic.”
Although I love the weekly festivities at Drinking Liberally, the reason I don’t attend very often is because of the goddamn traffic. I have so many admiring fans, and my photo is worth so much to the tabloids (attracting hordes of freelance photographers), and I have so many process servers after me trying to serve summonses filed by angry Republicans who think I libeled them for accurately describing their character and intentions, not to mention the G.O.P. Party’s hired assassins, that it’s just not worth it shutting down an entire city for several hours just so a few hundred thousand people can gaze at 1 rabbit. I mean, fuck it, if they want to look at rabbits they should come here to Green Lake Park where there’s hundreds of us.
Goldy,
Yet again, you’re a total hypocrite. Where are your posts bitching about the impact of all of your whining protest marches, bicycle love-ins and other Gatherings of Mass Disruption?
So, as you say in your post, suck it up and deal with it.
[Picturing Blue Angels buzzing a latte-sipping Goldy’s house like Tom Cruise buzzed the tower in Top Gun.]
Despite the Seafair traffic hassles, things are better here than they were 16,000 years ago, when the streets were blocked by a mile-thick ice sheet. It was colder than hell, too. Those icy winds coming off a solid sheet of ice stretching all the way to the North Pole were fucking murder. We rabbits were all angoras back then.
I live in the U District. I want to go to Seafair but I am not going to because of the hassle of driving and parking. If there were light rail, I would have gone yesterday. And friday.
It’s good thing the Navy has airplanes. If they didn’t, they’d be bugging the Air Force to come land on their boats!
It’s tame and controlled compared to how it used to be. A lot more people showed up and there were no stands or admission charge. You staked out the same spot every year and might stay there most of the night to claim it. If you lived in the valley or on Graham Hill or Mt. Baker, you had it easy as you could walk to the lake. If you lived down by the lake you might host one of the best parties in the city. Or you might have your yard pissed on, year after year, by the same people. I know I had my favorite yard. By noon if you weren’t drunk, you didn’t drink. You knew every boat and driver – Miss Thriftway, Maverick, Hawaii Kai, Bud, Bardahl, Muncey, Slovak, Stead, and all the rest. Two kinds of people live in Seattle. You either grew up with a wooden hydro trailing your bike or you didn’t. You either get it or you don’t. It looks like Goldy missed out on something special.
McCain reminds me of an angry little monkey banging two pebbles together.
08/03/2008 at 12:08 pm
Actually he looks like a cement block. Either way they are both preferable than a liberal democrat. Judging by the latest polling most Americans agree. roof roof
Hey speaking of banging why hasn’t John “silky pony” Edwards come out against that National Enquirer report yet???? Hmmmmmmmmmm hehehehehe
@12, 13 – Best thing to do with a cement block is tie it around your neck and toss you overboard in the deepest part of Puget Sound.
A black reporter was ordered to leave a McCain rally on Friday. Wingnuts, tell me again the G.O.P. Party’s candidate isn’t a racist …
http://www.stopthinkvote.com/whatsnew/080208.html
15
Umm- Probably because he wrote for the Tallahassee Democrat. They probably would do that to any commie, pinko, mouth piece for the left, liberal who tried to come in. Just a hunch.
How many lying leftist do you think he should tolerate, he already let’s the alphabet MSM commies in.
Yeah, and fuck Bumbershoot! Goddamned traffic and noise from all those goddamned bands! And fuck the Independence Day celebration on Lake Union! How is one supposed to drive around that area, or get to sleep early?!?! And fuck the gay pride parade! Blocking off streets and making all that fucking noise! And fuck the U Dist. Street Fair! And fuck the Fremont Fair! I’ve never quite understood the local fascination with watching a bunch of plus-size women with hairy armpits and legs ride naked on bicycles.
Hey look, RR @14 suggested the killing of right wingers. I thought it was only evil republicans who did that, a la Ann Coulter.
Nevermind that lefties made a whole movie fantasizing the assasination of GWB, it’s only right wingers who do such things.
Imagine that, sophist, post hoc eqivocations coming from the left…
19
They can dish it out but can’t take it. You have to remember that a democrat is a pussy at heart. That’s is all you need to know. roof roof.
@19
Yep, that’s true. Roger Rabbit is advocating your death, but this is Goldy’s blog. Wouldn’t that make him an accomplice to murder?
19,20 He was just kidding… Anne Coulter humor you know – funny, ha ha!
Executing trolls for treason – heh, that’s just a joke too. Har har har har har
I’m pretty sure those shouldn’t be blocked. You might want to throw a few emails towards folks at the city.
Things change over time. It’s not ’79 anymore and we no longer need the Sonics (one down!) or Seafair (or the stoopid Daffodil Princesses down my way).
Hey Goldy,
If you think those couple of flyovers by unarmed jets suck think how bad it must suck to live in Iraq.
Yeah, Michael is right. Any big event or celebration or parade or sports team a person doesn’t like shouldn’t exist, even if other people may enjoy it. This goes for anything. If even one person objects to the gay pride parade, they should shut it down. If one person complains about the July 4th celebration at Lake Union, we should close it down. The money that goes into that show should be spent on the hungry and homeless, anyway. And do we really need a Fremont Summer Solstice freak show? Shut it down! Many enjoy it, but some don’t, therefore it shouldn’t exist!
Goldy!
Bikes are way cheaper than light rail,* allow you to zip right through traffic messes, and you don’t have to wait years to get your bike built.
*Just giving you shit. I’m supporting ST2 and a vote this fall.
@27
Exactly! No, not really.
The Sonics, Seafair and the stoopid Daffodil Princesses and parade have all had money troubles, dwindling crowds and trouble getting many folks to care about them.
I’m a Puget Sound native and a descendant from some of the first settlers in the south sound. As far as I’m concerned people like me who talk about how it was back in the day and how we want to, “do it like it’s always been done” are part part of the problem*. It’s time to throw out the old and bring bring in the new.
*I’ve been known to talk like that every now and again.
@16 I agree. McCain has no use for a reporter who works for a paper called the “Democrat” (even if it’s owned by a rich Republican). Furthermore, he has every right to discriminate against black reporters, because they might be biased against his racist campaign. Therefore, no reporters get in the door unless they’re under the strict control of Herr Goebbels and Wingnut Propaganda Central. As far as McCain is concerned, the presidency is a private sinecure, kind of like the CEO of a privately held corporation, whose powers will be secretly exercised for the personal benefit and gain of his friends and supporters. Consequently, it’s none of the public’s business what his policies will be after his Greedy Oil Party steals another election.
@30
From what I read one reporter got the boot and one was asked to leave after asking why the first one got the boot. Leaving one reporter.
McCain’s folks don’t seem to understand that if no one reads about you in the paper that’s a bad thing. Lets not help him out on this one.
Personally, I think one big celebration lasting a week long in the middle of summer is a nice idea – even if it does cause some traffic hassles.
Remember, the Hydroplanes became so popular here because post-WWII you had a unique combination here: lots of people who enjoyed the water and boating, combined with people who knew how to make sheet metal work on curved surfaces, and lots of surplus aircraft engines and mechanics who knew how to adapt them.
Now, talking about parking: when I was in college I had an apartment within walking distance to the University. Unfortunately, that meant it was within walking distance to the stadium. At the time, my college had a stadium that seat 95,000+ people, and it was sold out for every home game. So if you needed to get out of your driveway anytime between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on the day of a home game, you had to sit in front of your driveway to make sure nobody blocked it with their car.
“I might as well be living on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall”
Huh ? That wall is down since 1989. Thanks to your Hero Ronald Reagan….so why are you living in the past ?
Tsk tsk tsk
I wonder if Goldy would complain as much if the Democratic National Convention was here fucking up the commute.
I had to commute 3 of the 4 days the Blues were flying. On two I had to drive around the south end of the lake to get to work. On the third I hung out and waited to go home from work because of the bridge closure. A minor inconvenience.
It’s one weekend a year. Waaaah.
#9 Noble,
Get a bike.
34 Consider last week a taste of what it’s going to be like all the time when they slap heavy tolls on both bridges.
Look what I found in todays Tacoma paper. It’s time to let the old stuff die off.
Might want to have a conversation with your governor, or county exec’s……
Thank goodness people have the right to bitch and complain! Also, thank goodness that the Seattle Seafair honors the military because you sir do not. You do remember those guys right? The ones that fight all over the world to ensure you have the right to show your grattitude by throwing it in their face for one weekend a year? Heaven forbid you actually get off your ass, ride a bicycle or carpool downtown, and shake the hands of those are overseas complaining about bullets going by them or losing comrads. They have something to bitch about sir.
Here’s an idea for you…instead of driving south, take a short little permanent drive north and stay there. Then, you won’t have to drive through all the traffic of people who are going to show their appreciation for the life and liberties they have you ungrateful American.
Instead of complaining about traffic, take a trip out into God’s country by yourself and take time to think about how lucky you are to be where you are. Think about how lucky it is that the planes flying over your house are doing just that…flying and not dropping anything on your house.
Maybe then you will be happy to see the ships and hear those planes buzz your house a few times a year.