What sort of images does “Earth Day” conjure in your mind? That’s a rhetorical question - you don’t have to comment. Just think about what sort of images Earth Day conjures in your mind.

It was with a sense of great amusement, therefore, that I arrived the “Earth Day Rocks Seattle” MySpace page. The song that plays upon entry (”Bullett” by DB Cooper), besides sounding like something recorded on cassette in a Liverpool basement bar thirty years ago, lacks a certain “finesse.” Probably not the best choice for the leading tune on a site publicizing an Earth Day concert at the Fisher Pavilion–

Masturbate me.
Yeah, masturbate me.
And then suck it from your thumb.
Like a dry desert, soakin’ up rain
Soakin’ up sun.

Don’t mistake this as “prudishness” on my part. Y’all know better than that. It’s simply a lack of tone, taste, foresight, and possibly brains which I am critiquing, here.

Addendum: It appears the opening tune rotates with each refresh. But it’s the first tune on the list. Most of it sounds like derivative metal to me, but whatever.

So today, as I left Thumbstore, bound for the Black Drop (a nice coffee shop where I occasionally set up laptop shop), I happened to glance across the street at the downtown USBank branch.

Standing on the corner of Holly and Commercial was a huge, hairy homeless Hagrid-looking dude with two shopping carts. I’ve had a run-in or two with this guy. He’s large and loud. Mumbles at a furious pace in amazing volume.

So he’s pretty odd to begin with. But today, he amped up his oddness by taking his shirt off on a busy corner, donning rubber gloves and first washing, then dying his bushy beard.

Thumb had already left the scene, but ThumbStoreShippingMgrFinger grabbed a camera and captured these photos.

After the jump, I’ve included photos and couple of remote conversations I had with ThumbStore employees during the event.

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1.) Justin Levesque of the Emerald City weighs in the Dalai Lama’s media-circus visit to Seattle, with “the most F-words ever” (for him, I guess - I’ve never watched his YouTube show before, but I can get more instances of the F-word into a single sentence after stubbing my fucking toe).

2.) Dave Matthews sharing the stage with the Dalai Lama at Key Arena in a clip aptly entitled “Dalai Lama with Dave Matthews.” In glorious Key Arena MumbleSpeak.

Now Dave can’t jack off enough to get rid of all that spiritual energy.

…The wonderful Wizard of Oz
Because, because, because, because, becaaaaaaause
Because of the wonderful things he does
If ever there was a Wiz there was
The Wizard of Oz is one because…
Because, because, because, because, becaaaaaaause
Because of the wonderful things he does

For Lemminghamsters and W. Washingtonfolk in general.

Tickets went on sale April 12th. August might seem a long way away, but my suggestion is that you get moving on this, if you really want to see them.

Liars opens.

Tickets 1
Tickets 2
Venue
Google Maps

Addendum: They play Vancouver, B.C. on the 19th, as well.

HERE

Their first gig is on April 4th, in Merrilville Indiana.

Lemminghamsters - two accessible venues:

Seattle:
Thursday, May 15, 8:00 p.m.
Kids In The Hall @ Wamu Theater, Qwest Field, 1000 Occidental Ave.
TICKETS

Coquitlam, B.C.:
Friday, May 16, 8:00 p.m.
Red Robinson Show Theatre, 2080 United Blvd, Coquitlam, BC
TICKETS

Spendy, as usual and expected. Not that bad. I initially got referred to a  “shamelessly rape you in the keester” site. Ticketmaster prices for both the Seattle and B.C. shows are just over $50.00, fees included

The ticket outlet I’ve included is not the only one, obviously.

Non-Lemminghamsters - for semi-complete tour dates and ticketing info follow this link.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
“THE KIDS IN THE HALL” RETURN TO THE ROAD!

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For rain-soaked Western Washingtonians, spring and summer are the blessed seasons. Particularly summer, because that’s our dry season. Unless you’re into winter sports, spring and summer hereabouts are the seasons where people throw off their raingear, throw on shorts and flip-flops and frolic in the sun, trying to get rid of the fish-belly-white pallor they developed during the fall and winter.

And there’s a lot going on throughout W. Washington/British Columbia/Vancouver Island/The San Juans during the blessed seasons. Yet, it’s been my experience in past years that I’ve ended up missing lots of cool stuff, simply because it is poorly publicized, and because there’s no central clearinghouse which attempts to provide a comprehensive listing of festivals, fairs, concerts, etc. Information on such events is scattered haphazardly across the Web, if it’s on the Web at all, and you literally could surf for hours before discovering half of it.

I’m tired of that routine. There’s no reason for it in this age of advanced information technologies, and so I have developed greatnorthwest.info to remedy the problem. The idea is simply to get all the good stuff into one place, in an interactive format (Google Calendar) where interested parties can add an event to their personal calendars with a mouseclick.

Check it out. The calendars are updated on a daily basis, and it’s only going to get better. Plus there are more goodies waiting in the wings.

Oh, I once knew a girl named Mary McCluskey
She was ugly as hell, but she had beautiful whuskey…

Here’s Porky, in “The Wearing of the Grin,” which, unbeknownst to Riverdance fans, was the inspiration for that dubious bit of odious commercialism.

I always wondered what that little dude was up to in the lower story.