Summer Fest

Summer Fest cometh. Let’s hit the downers first. Target #1, the poster:

We’ve had some really nice posters for events here in West Seattle, but this one is far below the standard. Nevermind the juvenile addition of an apostrophe to “Cafe’s,” which, when in tandem with the accent mark over the e, should have been an enormous, flaming, trumpeting red flag to whoever was about to print that thing. My real question is: Why is there a giant eyeball mounted atop a stalk of randomly stacked Pez candies? And what is it about the muted blue and dull red of the poster that is supposed to hearken to Summer, exactly? It looks like an invitation to a Winter time sleep expo.

Lemme show you a couple that have worked:

Alas, you can’t win them all. Who’s next? Oh yeah, the events. There is, OF COURSE, a Green Expo. Cool. Gardening is good. Fresh vegetables are good. The Occupy movement is – wait, what? On the agenda for the green expo:

“Is Current Economy Sustainable?
Occupy West Seattle invites you to speak up and speak out.”

This claims to be “a Garden and Sustainability Expo.” I suppose when you like to keep the definitions of the words that define you as vague as possible, then a “sustainability” expo can include a 45 minute political rant about the other most vaguely defined term in the Progressive vernacular: “Too rich.” And this is one of the great annoyances of my life – that the champions of the green lifestyle, that is the people who are the loudest about it, have claimed a loopy little affinity with political wankers like the occupy movement. Now a fella can’t recycle without his neighbors assuming that he hates people who make money. It’s a step on that path the liberals have laid out, the path that leads to the erroneous conclusion that only they are environmentally conscious, while conservatives just want a maniacal slash and burn going on at all times. Because they are willing to give a stage to people like the occupiers, they are able to make a completely apolitical thing – healthy living – a contentious and politically divisive issue. It’s sinister, clever, and stupid as hell.

SUMMER FEST!

It’s fun. There’s live music going on all the time, beer gardens, tons of cool booths to shop, street food, art for scoffing at, a three year’s supply of the word local, and lots of people having a good time. I go. I always go. And I’ll go again this year. Probably twice. Once for the fun, and once to heave a flaming ball of cigarettes, held together by a glue made of melted down no-limt credit cards and the ground teeth of a dozen rescued pit bulls, at the occupiers at the green life expo. Of course, I’ll be wearing one of those Vendetta masks when I do it, too.