From the Jan 1 – Jan 7, 2004 issue

Columns

Letters to the Editor

Like the fish?
TO THE EDITOR: Great piece on that new club going up in Capitol Hill ["Moe's Is Back," Hannah Levin, Dec 25]. After a string of disappointments since Moe's closed in '97, it sounds like it might again be returned to greatness through an attention to detail and atmosphere not shown by the club's last few owners. Perhaps these lofty expectations worried the club's owners, though. It's the only reason I can think of that they decided to give it the WORST... NAME... EVER.

I've tried to come up with one redeeming or useful quality in the name "Neumo's" since reading the last Stranger and... NADA. Allow me to summarize the handle's primary faults:

(1) Impossible to remember.

Now, I'm just an intern, but when you name something you want people to remember and buy/use/patronize, isn't it usually recommended that you pick something memorable? I've talked to at least 10 people about the new club since your article came out and every single one of them said, "Yeah, the old Moe's--what's it called again?" Each time, we had to grab The Stranger and look it up. Even today I had to look it up just to write this damn complaint letter. And I've got a mind like a steel trap, bee-yotch.

(2) No one can pronounce it.

I polled a dinner party the other night and nearly everyone had a different guess on how to pronounce the word. No one felt certain enough about their guess to put money on it, not even the smart people. Worse yet? Not only will 9 out of 10 people not know how to pronounce it correctly, and therefore be less likely to say it and hype it to their friends, but 10 out of 10 people will be pissed off that they had to pronounce it at all, 'cause you can't say it without sounding like an asshole.

(3) Anyone who knows the correct pronunciation, for sure, is a fucking dick and shouldn't be going to cool rock shows.

Ultimately a name alone won't keep me from going to a good club to see music. But the owners of the former Moe's (sorry, forgot the name already) are starting out with a BIG handicap.

Paul Broderson, Intern

NadaMucho.com, Crappy Zine

MONORAIL CRITICS: QUIT BITCHING!
TO THE EDITOR: Dan Savage did a good job identifying the Dumbass of the Week in the 12/18 letters section, but made the mistake of buying into William King's bogus local vs. newcomer dialectic on the monorail. I've been here 20 years; my roots here go back 100 years. But it's not about how long you've been here, but what steps you'll take to preserve and enhance the character of the place.

King says Seattle "missed all the grandiose urban renewal projects of the '60s and '70s and '80s." The '60s' urban renewal gave us Seattle Center (hello?) and I-5 (which destroyed 8,000 homes and divided neighborhoods, is hellaciously noisy, and STINKS); the '70s', I-405 (thus, the Bellevue, Redmond, Sammamish, and Woodinville of today); the '80s', I-90 (thus, sprawl clear to Snoqualmie Falls). We have built a recklessly polluting, car-oriented infrastructure. We can't wish it away: We are going to have to BUILD our way OUT of it.

Monorail opponents need to get a life and stop exhausting themselves blindly fighting any alteration to this flawed paradise. (That goes for viaduct-lovers too.) To do nothing at this point in history is to support and make permanent the state of things as they are. (I am writing this on the Bainbridge ferry, on a gloriously clear and sunny day. The east edge of the Sound is shrouded in brown smog from Tacoma to Everett.)

Mr. King: If you want to preserve the "old" Seattle, fight the Regional Transportation Investment District's project to expand I-405 and the 520 bridge, buy local, eat organic, ride a bike (or bus, if you have a lot of time on your hands). Send a check to People for Puget Sound or the Washington Wilderness Coalition. Quit yer bitchin'. Make something good and new happen instead of wearing yourself out fighting the monorail--a good, new thing that IS going to happen, with or without you. Or maybe you're just another well-connected rich guy recruited to write anti-monorail letters, and, like monorail-fighter Henry Aronson, you want to stop time in the year you bought your view condominium.

Grant Cogswell

OLD-TIMERS FOR THE MONORAIL!
TO THE EDITOR: Mr. King suggests that only "newcomers" to Seattle want mass transit, that it's "large-scale public works projects" that will ruin Seattle's livability, and that it will be an unsightly, massive boondoggle. Well, what can a native Seattleite say to that? A few things....

I have lived here--here, exclusively in the Green Lake area--for 39 years. I have six brothers and sisters, and I can assure you that all of us, and all our native friends and family, regard the monorail with pride and hope to see and use the completed project regularly. We have lived here through all of the growth, not just the last 10 years. We DO understand the impact, both pro and con, of this project, and we STILL SAY YES. How many times have we voted for this and WON? We have APPROVED the tax burden. We have debated and argued and deliberated and then started all over again. How goddamn long do we have to wait for something to be completed? I will rent a backhoe and dig the first piling myself!

Ken Barrett