As I started writing this, news came to me (via the Seattle
Times, which is of course the only Seattle paper of record and the
only local media source endorsed by yours truly) that two Washington
State troopers are under investigation for allegedly clubbing three
seagulls to death on Colman Dock. I have no love for seagulls, of
course—it was a seagull that stole the eye of my Great-Uncle
Angus, back in the Spanish-American war, after a tussle with a
bayonet-wielding Spaniard laid him low on the field of battle—but
the sheer dumb violence of this story has turned my stomach.
Personally, I suspect that certain members of The Stranger‘s
staff impersonated two members of Washington’s Finest and committed
that act of brazen cruelty in an effort to further diminish the meager
thread of trust that remains between our good state’s citizenry and its
law-enforcement division.
What, you may ask, do I have by way of evidence that our merry band
of inebriates and fornicators are embarking on a vicious path of
animal-cruelty-as-terrorism? I here turn my witheringest gaze in the
direction of Exhibit A: a story by one CHARLES MUDEDE about the time he
“Killed a Horse.” Though I haven’t been able to enjoy equine sports
since my third hip-replacement surgery—I’ll join you again one
day on your halcyon riding fields, Ted Turner, just you wait!—I
consider this despicable story to be an affront against the noblest
creature on God’s green earth, and enough admission of criminality to
warrant an investigation. I trust the district attorney will find a
phony state trooper’s uniform hiding in the back of Mr. Mudede’s
closet, along with a gull-spattered length of pipe. Exhibit B, as if
any further evidence was needed: His long, ignominious career has
consisted solely of paeans to animal cruelty and a twisted case of
police fetishism. Case closed.
After Mr. Mudede’s sickening confession, it’s time to bear witness
to a less outrageous crime against humanity. Stranger staffers
have pulled out their 10-dollar words and given them a
marijuana-stained spit-shine in order to celebrate the Capitol Hill
Block Party, which is, as far as I can tell, a time when Seattle’s most
unemployable reprobates gather together into one sweaty mass and then
pollute their own genitals with illnesses that haven’t been seen since
the Dark Ages. The guide that The Stranger‘s subliterates have
managed to produce is wretchedly typical: LINDY WEST somehow has
mistaken onomatopoeia for adjectives yet again; MEGAN SELING believes
that writing like a developmentally challenged fourth-grader is somehow
“cute” or “charming”; DAVE SEGAL finds the biggest words in his copy of
My First Dictionary and then applies them, albeit incorrectly,
to his pretentious descriptions of caterwauling; and BRENDAN KILEY is
operating under the mistaken assumption that writing about things with
violent metaphors makes him seem like a “tough guy,” when instead it
makes him seem even more lacking in manliness. Were it not for Mr.
Mudede’s atrocity of a feature story, this “package” would stand out as
the worst thing The Stranger has published in at least three
weeks.