Ever since I made the fateful decision to serve as public editor of The Stranger two decades ago—a decision that still haunts me when my bursitis shakes me awake, like clockwork, every morning at half past three—I knew this day would come: CHARLES MUDEDE has written a feature... about... trees. Not just any trees, but the trees for which he feels some kind of deviant sexual attraction. One can only picture him flitting across Seattle like some giddy teenage girl, trying to figure out some way to mate with the arboreal objects of his affection, in utter and flagrant disrespect for the laws of God (and, for that matter, nature). I am reporting this fetish to my good friends on the boards of both the American Psychiatric Association and Weyerhaeuser; one can only pray that one group or the other will stop this immoral monster before he molests every plant in Seattle. Mayor Nickels: Lock up the Arboretum before Mr. Mudede feels the urge to undulate again.
As we wait for the long arm of the law to make things right between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, perhaps it is best to ignore Mr. Mudede and cast our eyes elsewhere. For instance, in the section of the paper devoted to "art," JEN GRAVES writes, for the 300th consecutive week, about "public art," which is perhaps the single greatest contradiction in terms I have ever encountered in The Stranger (except for "drug-free journalist," of course). It is clear from reading the piece—a chore that, even with the assistance of a dictionary, a bottle of aspirin, and a full carafe of gin, required over an hour of my life that will never be returned to me—that Ms. Graves believes she is some kind of crusading journalist like my good friend and fellow enemy of indecency Ken Schram. Ms. Graves: You are no such animal. The only reason the average reader of The Stranger would read your piece is if they misunderstood the title, instead believing it to be about—God forgive me—"pubic" art instead.
In the "music" section of the fish wrapper, DAVE SEGAL writes about a Mexican recording artist so obscure that only Mr. Segal has ever heard of him. I'm not suggesting that a Stranger writer is manufacturing a fictional singer for his own sick amusement, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Quack quack, Mr. Segal.
Elsewhere in the paper, LINDY WEST attends a banquet to celebrate the ending of a local cinema jubilee, then spends the entirety of her column scribbling about—dear lord—"pimps." If you are so interested in the shady and wicked world of pimpery, Ms. West, might I suggest that you begin by renting clients to your coworkers? I hear Mr. Mudede has trained his eye on a particularly saucy shrub in Discovery Park, and you could potentially make a fortune off of his deviant desires; after all, profiting off of people's base sexual cravings is what The Stranger is all about, correct?
