The ballots are in, and the voters have spoken: Big Brother wears a vest. The Gnome—who’ll buy anything if enough billboards urge it (how else to explain all those Stuckey’s pecan logs in my wine cellar?)—took a stroll yesterday in my brand new, Old Navy- knockoff Tech Vest. The Pacific Place peeps could barely keep their hands off my well-developed pecs. Just another reason, o astutely trendy readers, why you should get your fashion tips from the side of a bus.
Or from a bathroom stall. Such is the case at Linda’s, where the Gnome’s-room toilet features the sage commentary: “Brown is the new black.” Somebody’d better alert the wardrobe team at Sub Pop, where an increasingly rawkin’ stable of bands—The Murder City Devils, the Hellacopters, and now the Go—will need to flick the fashion switch.
The well-dressed man will surely want to read up on the latest sports trends, and he’s now got someplace to turn: the new magazine Schwing!. The latest laughable attempt to capture that oh-so-valuable 18- to 24-year-old male audience (The Man Show, anyone?), Schwing! sprang from the loins of No Doubt drummer Adrian Young and Vandals bassist Joe Escalante. The premiere issue of the golf quarterly touts something called “grunge golf,” which is supposed to be a big pastime in—where else?—Seattle. What’s next, a survey of Tiger Woods’ flannel collection? A step-by-step guide to Krist Novoselic‘s use of a nine-iron on Bleach? A celebrity Pro-Am featuring Mark Arm?
The rest of the country might find it hard to believe, but Seattle has moved beyond 1990. One inspirational example of up-and-coming local artists is Piece of SoL, a smooth MC duo whose lyrics give you some food for thought. Opening for Spearhead last Saturday at the Pier’s second stage, these two poets (accompanied by DJ Vitamin D) nearly made the Gnome focus on something important for once. Then the zipper of my Tech Vest got stuck in a porta-potty door, and I snapped back into my usual state of navel-gazing. . . . You betcha!
You can reach the Metro Gnome at metrognome@seattleweekly.com
