Meg and Jeph's Late Reviews: Things to do in Seattle When You’re Old

Grunge
Technically, we were probably a little late to travel to Seattle to cover the Grunge movement, (we were so late that we even missed Chill Wave!); but lucky for you, we got there just in time for the launch party of Michael Lavine’s new photography book Grunge at Neumos. Because we’re old guys, we had a tough time staying awake until the bands came on (do concerts always start after 10pm these days?!), but it was kind of worth it. First of all, we got to hang around a bunch of retired semi-pro skaters who lived in a haunted house, and second of all, we got to see a bunch of chubby, aging grungers crowd-surfing in their old Sub Pop shirts. Even though Tad’s new band, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, was a bit creepy, Mudhoney was still quite lively and kept us entertained until we got too tired and had to go to sleep. We are still regretting that we didn’t stock up on Tad toques, though...

Coffeehouses
Meg: As a result of spending way too much of my youth watching Singles by myself, I always have this demented urge to hang around in “authentic” Seattle coffeehouses, waiting for Matt Dillon circa 1992. Gosh, I would even settle for Kevin Dillon! Instead, every time I need coffee in Seattle, I somehow get sucked into Seattle’s Best or Tully’s.
Jeph: Every once in a while I would get fooled and think we were in a real local coffee house, but then we would have the “Sixth Sense” moment where we realize that everyone around us was also a tourist. I’m starting to think that real Seattle residents don’t even drink coffee. More than likely though, we are just really bad at finding a decent coffeehouse.
Meg: Yeah, but in hindsight, the idea of a coffeehouse called Local Color, which features jazz, 3-dimensional mermaid art for sale, and is also “located in the heart of the Pike Place Market,” does sound a little touristy. Maybe next time I’ll try 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea on Capitol Hill. Their website says their coffee is “served street level”. Sounds edgy.

Pike Place Market
Just because you always see this place on History Television’s Waters of Death – Life After People and Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels does not mean that this place is overrated. Where else can you get a salmon pâté piroshky shaped like a real salmon and hang around an old-timey magic shop with original posters of Alexander: The Man Who Knows, plus see a bunch of jerks from Idaho asking where “those guys who throw the fish” are? However, we feel ethically required to warn you that it is only going to take a couple of days after people are extinct for this market to be overrun by coyotes and raccoons. Have you guys seen Life After People yet? Very exciting.

Juggalos?
We kept seeing these weird guys around town and we couldn’t really tell if they were hobos, weird punks, or some new type of gangsta. Were they just really poor juggalos? Who knows? One of them was wearing green and white striped tights with dollar signs. Usually there would be at least one dirty guy in his fifties in every group of them. Sometimes they would be rapping, sometimes just jumping around intimidating people. Some of these people seemed straight out of Omega Man. Feel free to pay them a visit at their home base outside of Nordstrom’s.

Walking around town
Jeph: I’m sorry that I lead us down the wrong path so that we ended up taking a five mile walk around Seattle.
Meg: It’s okay. I know that buses are really expensive for you. Besides, that was August, and this time you didn’t get me lost at all. Also, luckily, you got us into a safe place before the shooting spree that night. I am pretty glad that we just missed that by about 15 minutes.

Pizza
Most people don’t go to Seattle for their excellent “East-Coast style” pizza. But when we ordered Bambino’s at our hotel, it was great! And aside from the locally-farmed toppings and ingredients, it seemed pretty East-Coast to us. It was our favourite pizza in Seattle. Tom Douglas’ Serious Pie was pretty tasty as well, but the grimness of our server made Jeph awkwardly joke for the next few weeks that the place should have been called “Pizza and a Funeral”.

Tom Douglas
Not that we want to slam Tom Douglas at all. When we heard that Seattle had an Iron Chef, we felt obliged to try his wares. And we were so pleased by what we ordered at Lola’s that we spent way too much of our two trips to Seattle eating at Tom Douglas’ wide assortment of restaurants for every meal of almost every day. If you are not as willing to spend your entire cost of living allowance on a couple of meals like we are, at least try the caramel corn cupcakes at Dahlia’s!

World Fair Legacy
Who wants to spend any amount of money to go into the Space Needle? Wow, it is a giant, functional needle that extends all the way to Outer Space. We get it. Big deal. But it does look nice. We rode the monorail. It took us from city centre to downtown, and it was pretty cheap. The World Fair was over 40 years ago and Seattle still has a cool space-age sky train to show for it. How come we don’t get a cool futuristic legacy for having the Olympics in Vancouver?