Slacking In Seattle on a Very Good Friday

Andreas and I started our day, as always, at All City Coffee. Seattle takes its coffee very seriously, not surprising for the place Starbucks originates. I've finally learned how to offer my plain old midwestern coffee after having difficulty ordering it in Oakland and elsewhere-- what we midwesterners call "a cup of coffee", people on the West coast call "a drip." Now that I've learned to speak the language of West Coast baristas, my visits are a lot less frustrating.

After coffee, we took off to explore the cd stores of the Capitol Hill section of Seattle. I'd been looking for a cd by The Sonics, a legendary Seattle garage rock band that appears on the Nuggets garage rock set no fewer than three times. We finally suceeded-- I found a copy of "Introducing The Sonics," which was actually their third album, and has "The Witch" and a couple other favorites on it.

A big bonus: I found a used cd of "The All-Time Greatest Hits of Roy Orbison." I'd nearly worn my friend Matt's vinyl copy of it in college, and had long ago given up looking for it on cd.

On the way there, we were driving past a hotel and realized that we were surrounded by people in all kinds of weird costumes; it dawned on us that we must be driving past the hotel Geek-fest was being held at.

Up in Capitol Hill, we ran into Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was from here, and the guitar he played at Woodstock is in the Experience Music Project, a rock and roll museum that's at the foot of the Space Needle. One of my next couple of trips, I'm going to bring my son here-- to see the guitar (he's a big Hendrix fan) and just because he'd love this place.


By the time we got back home, his wife Lynn was home. We headed over to the nearby Pig Iron Bar B Q.

I had worked for years at the NN Smokehouse, arguably the best barbecue in Chicago, so I'm dubious when someone raves about a particular barbecue. I'm happy to report that the brisket I had was outstanding.



Of course, the company was pretty good too.



One last great score was a t-shirt I bought in Capitol Hill. It had to do with one of the funniest bits on Saturday Night Live in recent memory. All I can say is that "I got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!"