DAY THIRTEEN: SEATTLE - HUGO HOUSE -

So we drove to Olympia and had what seemed like a week there. It rained. It felt like Eugene. Wet. Cold. Grimey kids in the street with dogs on ropes. We stayed in a cheerful hotel called The Governor where the people all seemed to hesitate for a moment before addressing us in their cheerful hotel tones.

(PICTURED: Amos Mac, publisher of Original Plumbing Magazine.)

The show was at the Voyeur. Very nice staff. They fed us. They had cool shit on the stereo (Flipper "Sex Bomb Baby") and unrelated 80s videos playing on various broken TVs.

Audience was rain-soaked. Standing in the back of the club it felt like a not very responsive crowd but when I got to the front and stood at the mic I found myself surrounded on all sides by a carpet of floor-sitting queer kids, I realized how full it was... and though they didn't say much, they were weirdly attentive and there was a lot of love in that room. Magical even though quiet and subdued. I read from GIRL, the relatively subdued Chapter 17 about Cybil playing soccer. Not trying for anything. And it kind of worked. Reminds me of my music days. Some days the audience doesn't want a show... they just want the music ....

Afterward sitting around in the dining area, watching college-aged Olympians drinking Rainer Beer and shooting the shit and being cute and young ... not a care in the world.

We make fun of the gold mining pioneer look that is popular out west right now. Much of what we see is somehow related to McCabe and Mrs. Miller.


Then into the van and up to Seattle. Checked into the Roosevelt Hotel which is nice... then up to Hugo House for the gig. Oh the cute Seattle-ites. The show shaped up nicely. Hugo house was cool. Nice literary folk running things. Girl at the front desk, NOT wearing low rise jeans but some other kind that sat way high up her waist, and looked AWESOME. Not that I spend my days looking at girl's jeans or anything. But I hate low rise, always have .... and am eager for next thing.

Then the show started and we suddenly realized we had THE PERFECT AUDIENCE. Don't know why. They loved EVERYTHING WE DID. We were standing around in the back, looking at each other with bewilderment, what had we done to deserve this? Everyone KILLED. We could do no wrong. People were laughing, making out, crazed screaming at the stage. By the time we were done people were exhausted, wrung out, high on life. The best show yet, it was called. And it was!

As a people watcher and youth culture watcher it was also one of the best shows too. Loved the people. The cute dykes. The old-timey young dudes with their bushy beards. Imagining what it would be like to be young and to have moved to Seattle, from Bumfuck, USA. Wearing weird shit. Drinking coffee. Talking about poetry. The BIG CITY! Great fun.