I want to apologize to everyone and anyone who has tolerated my bellowing about how great the 206 is. I apologize for the gloating so much in this city, region and state. It's a nice place to visit (maybe) for a couple days, but really sucks to live in. I wish I could say otherwise. People in this region want to call themselves a first-class city, first-rate region, Gateway to China, Gateway to the Pacific Rim and other monikers. There is not enough Ezell's Fried Chicken, Dixie's Barbeque and "The Man" hot sauce, sushi, fresh fish from the Pacific or drugs smuggled in from Vancouver for me to change my mind. For a city, region, county and state to claim to be so "progressive," can't be further from the truth. Here's why.
Of course it all starts with sports. In 1995, my brother and I jumped on the couch and maybe broke it cause the Mariners were winning every night. They almost left. The public even voted down stadium funding, but somehow we made out of towners pay the bill for our new baseball stadium. The Seahawks (soon to be Seasucks) were packed and ready to go to Anaheim, but somehow Paul Allen (my favorite customer) bought the team and suckered the government into extending that tax out of towners pay to build a nice outdoor stadium which i feel lucky to go to sometimes.
Now the Seattle Supersucks. I don't like the Sonics. I love hoops. I don't like the Sonics. I'd rather have delusions of grandeur like Charlie Murphy and hope for the Seattle Super-HORNETS. This year has been like living the old sports movie, Major League. Cheapskate owner takes over the team and starts cutting overhead to save money, make the team sucks so bad and be unapproachable to the public that no one cares. The Sonics are probably taking cold showers, drinking sewage and practicing with deflated basketballs cause the ownership is so cheap. The Sonics suck. I call a buddy of mine,
finanay, to tell him thanks for beating my team. His hometown team sucks even more.
Everyone wants to keep this team that sucks. Well, a couple billionaires offer up $500 million dollars take or leave it. When Fine was visiting Seattle back in November, I took him to Seattle Center to show him the Space Needle and the Monorail, Monorail, Monorail, Monorail... sorry. Anyways, it's so depressing walking through the Seattle Center. Imagine Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Cleveland's entertainment district by the Browns Stadium, Quicken Arena and Jacobs Field and maybe Fenway, Wrigley etc. So vibrant, so many choices, so many opportunities to blow a paycheck but it goes into the local economy. Seattle Center is like Coney Island in New York: rundown amusement park, a crap monorail, just lifeless. I walked around Seattle Center for a moment with Fine and just sulked. As a kid, my mom would take my brother and I on Sundays after church to the Fun Forest in Seattle Center to go on the rides, play carny games, fatten myself up on cotton candy and corn dogs. My poor mom, I love her for her sacrifice and giving me a couple hours to be a spoiled brat, while walking around the Seattle Center in heels while my brother and I went on the rides, slides, laughed and enjoyed the waste of time, money at her expense. I miss that. And now, the place is just closed, lifeless, no earshot of children's laughter. It's just so depressing.
The aforementioned billionaires offered $500 million to fix some of this. The state doesn't want to talk about it. Typing this pisses me off. The State doesn't want free money. If someone came up to you and said here's $500 million, fix up this public piece of crap that you're in charge of, wouldn't you at least think about it? Private, free money. Instead the state of Washington legislature talks about providing health care for 700K uninsured which would come from taxing us proletariat, not the free private money. It's just so depressing to see what this crap state government has become. It makes me want to leave this state.
By the way, as of April 1st, visitors, y'all will a pay 9.6% sales tax for restaurants, hotels, rental cars, bars, which is being raised 0.1% to fund mental and substance abuse treatment funds. So visitors and residents will be paying for rehab for addicts, junkies and dealers for their destructive habit which they possibly will go out and buy their crack, heroin, meth, weed or 40 oz liquor anyways after treatment before realizing how awful their habit is.
I know this is awfully odd sports / government rant but if you see me and if I ever utter a word about how great Seattle is, I want you to rebuke me in the name of Jesus. Just rebuke me. Just tell me how stupid I am, how stupid the government is, how stupid the residents are, how stupid everything is and I'll just cower and apologize for my sin. Again, I'm sorry to every body over the past 7+ years who had to listen to the verbal diarrhea that I shoveled.
Again, there's not enough Ezell's Fried Chicken that Oprah can consume, enough of Dixie's "The Man" sauce for me to hallucinate on or other vice to cheer me up and exhibit civic pride.
Hope you enjoy paying for the crack addicts in Seattle when you stay and our non-existent monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail. And thanks for the stadiums, so far.
I don't mean to single out substance abusers. But here's more. Last year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final Four in Hotlanta, Georgia generated $44 million for the region in visitor spending. KeyArena is a mausoleum, literally. One of my favorite memories was in 1994 when the Final Four was in Seattle when we had another spacious crypt in the Kingdome, but at least it was a Final Four. Losing the Supersucks would mean losing those 41 dates when people pay $15 for parking. Dole out $20 for food before and during the game, and this is about 13,000-15,000 per game date. People will lose jobs, that paycheck won't be wasted on peanuts and cracker jack during the winter months. Just dog Seattle, please, call us backwater, uneducated, uninformed, stubborn, but don't say that the sports fans don't care about the Sonics. I've never talked about the Sonics, never talked about how horrible the governement is, how much foresight the bureauracy lacks. I'm rarely interested in politics, but this was the last straw. I'm just straight up ashamed to be a part of this city, $500 million to fix a run down part of downtown Seattle. Maybe I don't have all the details, but the highways are fixed yet, I still have no health care, taxes keep going up, cost of living is continuing to rise and finally for all of those who have never been here, it's cloudy and rained today.
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