MONDAY, MAY 27
Last Days' Hot Tip week begins with Memorial Day, the national holiday commemorating those members of the armed forces killed in war. But for Hot Tipper Jon, this somber day of remembrance was eclipsed by a small medical emergency--leading to a fascinating few hours of freak-watching in the waiting room of Group Health's "Urgent Care" facility. Jon refused to reveal the nature of his injury, although he insists it had nothing to do with a light bulb, a pool ball, or smeared peanut butter and a German shepherd. Jon is less reticent in specifying the traumas that had befallen his Emergency Roommates: "There was this one outdoorsy-type guy who'd wrapped his foot in what looked like an entire roll of toilet paper, then jammed the whole wad into a sports sandal. While he waited, blood kept seeping through the toilet paper, and he just kept slapping on more." Next to Señor Bloodyfoot was "a middle-aged married couple and their eight-year-old son." Jon was unable to ascertain which of the three required medical attention. "The parents just sat there reading magazines and ignoring the kid, who stared into space and occasionally banged his face against the aquarium." Rounding out the ER party was "a bodybuilder guy, who brought in this totally trashed--and trashy--lady. The guy was wearing puffy weightlifter pants, and the lady could barely stand up." When Last Days inquired if the lady might have been a hooker, Jon offered the adorable response, "No, she wasn't pretty enough."
TUESDAY, MAY 28
Today Last Days turns to a fiery Hot Tip received by fiery Hot Tipper Jason, who wrote to decry "the wholehearted rape of the English language" in the latest Burger King commercial. The ad in question features celebrity athlete Shaquille O'Neal strutting his way across a basketball court to a soundtrack of Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft," with lyrics rewritten to name-drop Burger King products and drive Jason crazy. "The lyric starts, 'Who is the man/That can jam over any man?/SHAQ!' They rhyme man with man! It's an outrage!--and it doesn't stop there," Jason writes, breathlessly. "The lyrics continue, 'Who's your captain on sourdough/bacon, and all that?' What the hell is a captain on sourdough? Since when is Shaq a captain? What the hell does this mean?!" Last Days admires Jason's passion, but we are unable to shed any light on the Burger King atrocity, as we are too busy being worked into a fork-throwing fury by the latest ads for Jack in the Box, in which a man in a clown head exhorts us to embrace our status as "AMERICANS"--meat-eatin', Injun-killin', E. coli-survivin' sons of guns living in "the best darn country on Earth." (True enough, but hearing it from a corporate clown makes us want to pull a Gaza Kaboom.)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 29
Today brought the launch of what horrified Hot Tipper Kris described as a "rain of frogs" signaling the end of life as we know it: Quick 96, Seattle's brand-new radio station devoted to playing "only the best parts of your favorite songs." Intrigued, Last Days tuned in to Quick and promptly had our mind blown. "Quick 96 was designed to address the short attention span of today's busy music fan," writes New Century Media President Michele Grosenick on the station's website. True to this promise, Quick 96 plays "an astonishing 426 songs each and every hour," by isolating and broadcasting the most recognizable seven seconds of hit songs from the '70s to the present. And while Last Days attempted to share our Hot Tipper's indignation, we were soon won over by the stunning surreality of the Quick format: seven seconds of, say, Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills" abruptly cut off by a robot voice announcing the song's designated number ("three-hundred eighty-seven") for easy title-and-artist reference on the Quick 96 website. Truly, in this age of sampling and sound bites, the existence and implications of Quick 96 swelled our brain with reveries on everything from the twisted course of musical evolution to the shameless purveying of musical crack, and our admiration only expanded when we learned the whole thing was a hoax. Two days after its launch, the fascinating Quick 96 reverted back to the far less fascinating the Beat, which had cooked up the ingenious 48-hour Quickfest as a promotional stunt. Congrats to all at New Century Media for executing Seattle's best pop-art trick since Dina Martina raffled off the Elephant Man.
THURSDAY, MAY 30
Today brought the publication of a new Stranger, in which Last Days wrote of the Catholic priest busted for making the popular date-rape drug gamma hydroxybutyrate, which we also identified as "roofies," "Belltown beauties," and "Mom's Little Helpers." But according to brainy Hot Tipper Scotto, GHB is not known as "roofies." "That distinction goes to another date-rape drug, Rohypnol," writes Scotto. "But by a vast margin, the single most dangerous date-rape drug remains friendly, legal alcohol." In other news, the GHB nicknames "Belltown Beauties" and "Mom's Little Helpers" remain uncontested.
FRIDAY, MAY 31
Nothing happened today.
SATURDAY, JUNE 1
It's been nearly 3,000 days since Kurt Cobain blew his brains out, but for one Hot Tipper in Queen Anne, that's exactly how long it took for the loss of one of our age's most gifted songwriters (and best male singer) to become anything more than a sad abstraction. "It's not like he was my friend of anything," writes Hot Tipper Wendy of her nebulous connection to Kurt. "So when he died, I was sad, but it's not like I missed him." But today, a chance encounter with a Cobain cover song kicked Wendy's laissez faire loss into something close to grief. "I was listening to the new Steve Earle record," Wendy writes. "One of the songs is a cover of 'Breed,' and it's fine, but all it did was drive home how brilliant Kurt was, and how sucky it is that he'll never make any more music, and I sobbed until I nearly vomited." Last Days thanks Wendy for sharing her brave tale of delayed reaction to celebrity death. We had a similar experience last month when we happened upon a video by the late pop diva Aaliyah--and realized that we had no idea who she was until she was dead.
SUNDAY, JUNE 2
The week ends with a Hot Tip from one of today's most talked-about terrorist networks, al Qaeda, which today warned the United States to get ready for another humongous attack. "Beware, America. Get ready. Get prepared. Put on the safety belt," said al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman bu Ghaith in a statement published in the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. "What is coming to the Americans will not, by the will of God, be less than what has come." Contacted for comment, God denounced bu Ghaith as a blustering, name-dropping freak, but agreed with his call for safety belts, which the Divine Lord and Master described as "always a good idea."
Thank you, Hot Tippers. Keep 'em comin' to lastdays@thestranger.com.
