Local musician and photographer Lexi Lutter responded to this sanitized, slightly saccharine version of Capitol Hill (yourcapitolhill.com), courtesy of our local chamber of commerce and Sound Transit:

yourcap.jpg

with this grubbed-up version (yourrealcapitolhill.com):

realcap.jpg

The fine print on the left:

Your REAL capitol hill.

We are a group of people who want to preserve what is left of Capitol Hill in Seattle. Not everything should be family-friendly. We work at bars and movie theaters and other shit jobs, and we like it that way. We want input from YOU. We’re sick of a small group deciding what this neighborhood should be. Email your upcoming outsider events, stories and photos and whatever else you think captures the grittier side of Capitol Hill to: yourrealcapitolhill@hotmail.com

Lexi explains in an email that the whole thing started as a lark, a jokey response to “something I see as a threat”:

I’m a photographer too and can’t stand the idea of the whole scheme they’re running with that thing. I think a few of the photographers running that site are quite talented, but are missing the point. I don’t want the world to think the only photography that counts needs to look like it came from vice magazine or an american apparel ad, but with all the sexiness stripped away. And I always prefer the sleazy to the tame, and I want Capitol Hill to stay that way.

I’d like to think there’s room for cutesy ice-cream parlors and bathhouses in the neighborhood, but Lexi raises the specter haunting Capitol Hill in her first post on the site:

To all you folks who hang out and live on “the Hill”, do you really want your neighborhood to turn into a daytime retreat for squares? How many more ice cream parlors do you need? … do you want all of your favorite real rock ‘n’ roll bands to be run out of their dive bars by a bunch of pussy beardos? Do you want other established businesses on “your capitol hill” to suffer the same fate as The Kincora, and get demolished to make room for condos, only to end up as a parking lot?

Good luck and godspeed to everybody.

See Lexi’s photography (including some hypnotic portraits) here.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

71 replies on “Your Real Capitol Hill”

  4. Pointing out that Lexi’s self-indulgent photos of her self-indulgent white hipster friends are utter bullshit and she has no career in photography isn’t cruel, it’s called advice. Now she can ignore that advice and either a. Look forward a life of minimum wage jobs or b. Move to Williamsburg, NYC where self-indulgent hipster photography has fans. If she chooses the later I hope she has a big trust fund back in Bumfuck, Iowa.

  5. 1 billion people on this planet live on less than a dollar a day, but how do you oppress a middle class white hipster on Capitol Hill?

    Open a fucking ice cream parlor.

  6. I have a few thoughts for Lex Luthor or whatever her name is.

    You are from somewhere else and a fairly recent transplant. That is fine. Many of us are from somewhere else. But please do not try to define Capitol Hill for the rest of us, or show everyone what is “real” and “authentic”. The fact it is, this is a neighborhood in a city. Neighborhoods and cities change. If they do not, they grow stagnant and die. The fact that you want the hill to remain as it was when you arrived is not only conservative and reactionary, but shows that you are the OPPOSITE of cutting edge. If the hill was overrun by day time invaders eating ice cream, then you, as a cutting edge personality, should have run from here long ago and taken up roost in the new, gritty, skeezy, sleazy neighborhood about which these day time invaders know NOTHING. But to sit and complain that “your” neighborhood is changing? You sound like my grandma. Until she died at the age of 88, she complained constantly that her small town had changed, that there were new people moving in, that the new people weren’t like the original residents, and that everything was changing, and that was bad.

    Now, I looked at your MySpace page. First of all, no cool person has a MySpace page any more. I mean, the cool people left that sad site YEARS ago. You put on there that you are a receptionist, and that you don’t make, or try to make, money from your art work. I can’t help but think that you are 1) jealous of people who make money and 2) a slacker who either can’t figure out how to make a living or is too lazy to move beyond a receptionist job. You write on this YourRealBlahBlah site something about ‘working shit jobs and we love it’, but that sounds like a defense mechanism, which is further demonstrated by your apparent contempt for anyone with money coming into “your” neighborhood. On that note, you might do some research on Capitol Hill. You’ll find that it was once one of the most expensive, exclusive neighborhoods in the city. Those mansions on Millionaire’s Row near the park aren’t new McMansions – they were built probably before your grandparents were alive, and most certainly before hippies, druggies, hookers and the other sleaze that you so love started invading Capitol Hill in the 70’s. And really – not all of us want to be rock-n-roll-grunge-throwback-heroin-using-skanks sitting in our shitty motel-style apartments with popcorn ceilings pining for the good ol’ days of Seattle, whenever that was (you wouldn’t know, because you weren’t here).

    In summary, rather than rant at the changing environment around you, BE THE CHANGE. If Capitol Hill is overrun by people you hate, then you need to go make waves somewhere else. Otherwise you just sound like an old grannie, complaining about all the newfangled trends that are ruinin’ all the good stuff that you used to think was so cool. I will tell you that, when I moved to Capitol Hill from parts unknown in 1994, complaining about all the new people invading the Hill and all the changes was *already old meme*. It was seriously the neighborhood pastime – 16 year ago. And I garan-dam-tee you the complaining about newbies had been goin’ on LONG befoe that. To do this in 2010, when you arrived here in fuck knows whatever year, is just really, really sad. The really cool people in this town, whom I am guessing you don’t know, are out rockin’ the scene somewhere else, instead of griping about how their old hood just ain’t the same no more.

    And a note to Brendan: You call anonymous commenters cowards, and yet you work for a paper and blog that allows anonymous commenters. If you hate it so much, turn them off, or advocate and make a bit stink at the Stranger for real name, confirmed ID handles only. Otherwise, as your bossy boss would say, STFU.

  7. I’m having a hard time with Lexi calling out other photographers when the photo she used in her blog of the gal shooting up was lifted from my friend’s flickr photostream. Without attribution.

  12. It doesn’t matter how long she’s lived here. She’s entitled to a sense of humor and taste, and she apparently thinks of lot of this neighborhood’s aesthetic is humorous and tacky, and worthy of ridicule. I find the Capitol Hill nationalism flaring up in response pretty funny, and the ‘bumfuck, Iowa’ bashing pretty out of line with the liberal atmosphere hanging around the ‘hood. I think think she’s talented, and I’d rather look at her photos than the one on the side of the Chloe Apts. Thanks for stirring the pot, Brendan/Lexi!

  13. @ 54 and 62: I’m 31 and I’ve lived here for 7 years. Not long at all in the grand scheme of things. Which is why, if I was pretending to be an expert on the “REAL Capitol Hill,” I would heartily encourage you to call my bullshit. 😉

  14. I really like how serious you all are taking this. Lexi is laughing her ass off at all the free publicity right now. good work my friend!

    and to everyone involved in Yourcapitolhill, sorry but the idea is trite and sanitary and worthy of ridicule. seriously, all she did is call you guys sellouts, its not like she called you a fucking child molester or anything. grow up.

    and finally, can we all just admit that Capitol Hill really sucks, but its better than Fife?

  15. I’d guess if Capitol Hill stayed the same. . . all of the current hipsters will have to move out eventually. . . I mean if we’re gonna keep it real you can’t have old people crowding out the scene.

    A token old-school at a party is okay for flavor (note the bearded old dude or “double glasses” dude Lexi photographed) but if EVERYONE is over 30. . . that won’t work.

    . . . So if Lexi is 27 now, how much longer does she have until she has to move out under the current regulations? 😉

  16. @63 “…..I’d rather look at her photos than the one on the side of the Chloe Apts.”

    If you haven’t noticed, she’s using other people’s photos for her website, not her’s. Not a single one.

  17. I agree.

    Move to Georgetown while you can, before the rents rise due to proximity of light rail. And think about how hard it’s going to be to get to the station when it gets cold and rainy here.

  18. Wot a dum byotch. And now on her web site she’s all “whatever, it’s all just a big goofy joke”. Um, girlfriend, your joke’s a big stinkbomb. I recommend that you take the site down before everyone on the Hill knows that you’re a big douche. Presuming that they don’t already. Like, rock and roll forever, dude! Fuck ice cream! It’s a big joke! Yaaaahhhh.

  21. hey,

    inviting these photographers to contribute to this site
    was an attempt to support the local art scene
    and to try and avoid a avoid a corporate aesthetic.
    i didn’t realize i was turning them into shills for ‘the man’
    whilst simultaneously making capitol hill super square.

    sorry lexi, next time i want to portray the REAL capitol hill
    you’ll be the first person i call…..sorry…..i forgot…..getting paid for
    being creative is so very…..un-real.

    love and thanks

    chris

    dumb eyes

    p.s. your so right …methadone and coke snorting unicorns are high-larious. make sure you continue keeping those laughs real.

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