Results tagged “sunsetbowl”

• Seattle, do you realize what you are finally witnessing? The first baby demolition steps that will (fingers crossed) lead to the demise of the Viaduct.
• It took not even six months for Capitol Hill's defunct organic pizza joint Pizza Fusion to go out of business. Now as they auction off all their equipment and furnishings this Thursday, you'll have one last chance to snag some of the coveted Sunset Bowl memorabilia.
• Ferries are all the rage--Budget Travel Magazine names the Seattle-Bainbridge commute as one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the U.S. They forget to mention the ferry system will be jacking up their summer prices 25 percent this Friday.

• A little more stank than King County can handle, as they begin to battle the mass blossoming of the garlic mustard plant.
• What a charged season for public policy. Online political site Publicola wants you to share your fan favorite nominee for Lobbyist of the Year.
• Be nice to others because you never know who's packin'. A threatened mom of four was released today. She shot a 25-year-old man after a bus ride brought a verbal altercation and threat of an attack in Belltown.

• Our hearts and all our positive thoughts go out to Amber at the Rainier Valley Post and her neighbors. The RVP, which has been tireless about covering neighborhood crime, has had violence strike far too close to home. Amber's neighbor was stabbed to death yesterday by another neighbor, the victim's husband.
• Capitol Hill Seattle is still playing with Google Street View (no blame, we totally are too) and CHS stumbled upon an interesting scene on 12th Avenue street view. Looks like a parking cop is giving a lecture, surely an unpleasant moment for at least one party. It's frozen now for all to see.
• Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, West Seattle Blog is all about the next round of holidays. They have not one, but two posts about West Seattle Christmas lights, as well as a post about where in West Seattle to get your Christmas tree.

One lucky local photographer turned the rest of us into lucky photo viewers today by getting inside the mostly dismantled Sunset Bowl the other night.

There was little real reason to expect anything different during Sunset Bowl's last night of operation. We read histrionic predictions somewhere that hipsters would swarm the place; this never materialized. There were perhaps a few more people--though that place was always packed whenever we went--and some may have stuck around later, but by and large the clientèle consisted of the same combination of loud, scruffy, tattooed, pierced, well-groomed, young, old, middle-aged, beefy, wiry, scrawny, trashy, nerdy, slightly-off-kilter, and unironic miscreants that one normally found there. In short, the place was filled with bowlers, drinkers, and karaoke singers.

The end is near for Sunset Bowl and its patrons. The local bowling alley, which has been open for over half a century, is set to close its doors April 13th. (Officially 1a.m. on Monday morning.) So take the time this weekend to say goodbye and get in a few last games at the old Sunset lanes. Don't be surprised to see a few more teary eyes than bleary drunk ones this weekend. It is a sad day indeed.

A citizen-led group has been established in Ballard to save the Sunset Bowl from imminent closure. Save Sunset Bowl has already received 2,500 signatures from local voters to keep the bowling alley alive....at least until the summer of 2009, when the new owners of the property plan to break ground on a multi-use development.

Studying changing urban landscapes involves frequent disappointment and depression. Gin only goes so far to numb the pain. Being a resident is often no picnic, either. Market forces and decisions by real estate developers don't often jibe with the interests of the people who will actually be using that real estate or the residents near the area of the proposed development. It's easy to demonize "greedy" developers and "sell out" property owners, both of whom are often absentees. On the other hand, if somebody offered you $13 million for your property, we'd slap you if you said you wouldn't at least sleep on it.

Archie McPhee's latest bumper stickers, posted in Seattlest's Flickr Pool

We hope this isn't a growing trend. From the Croc to the Sunset Bowl to all of Seattle's bars, it seems as though any place of which beer is an integral component is endangered with stifling regulation or closure or even the wrecking ball. The very latest, of course, is a portion of the old Georgetown brewery just a scant few days after the 104th anniversary of Georgetownian incorporation.

When ever someone takes the time to type up an email to Seattlest we're prejudiced from the start to believe its contents (Seattlest readers being an unusually truthful and informed bunch), but this one is hard to swallow:

We were bummed we didn't make it down to Portland for Jim Blanchard's show at the Night Gallery (we were stuck at the Ballard Sunset Bowl where we overheard a guy in the bathroom piss AND puke at the same time, which can't be normal. Who pukes standing, while pissing?), but lucky for us the show is now on the gallery's site. There are some classics here - including the Afrouni-Teat, a version of which we already own - plus some new surprises like the image above, evidently titled Le Spider, 2006-2007 acrylic on stretched canvas, 20 x 20 inches.

We don't mean to steal Mary's thunder; however, her photograph moved us to write down some of the thoughts we've been having about the Ballard Denny's closure. We knew it was coming; however, just like the presence of vampires in Sunnydale, we didn't actually want to think about it. The light, the clouds, the darkness of the trees, and the Shell sign way in the distance all punctuate the loneliness of the now-derelict sign.

What can you say about something like Smokey Joe's Cafe that isn't self-evident from the hype that it's the "Longest Running Musical Review in the History of Broadway(TM)"? Either that does it for you or it doesn't. If you're (relatively) young, bent and jaded you probably won't connect with the graying clap-and-sing-along demographic excited by the highly polished but hammy renditions of popular top 40 songs from their childhood. Our friend Andy who tagged along with us described it as being "like American Idol for old people," and dared us to go dance with the one woman in the audience near the stage who was for a few minutes the only person in the room with the requisite cojones to stand up during the closing rendition of Stand By Me. Luckily the man she was with eventually stood up and clapped along next to her so we didn't have to get out of our seat to meet this dare.

A reader asks:

I gots a question for you, Mr. Seattlest. People at work are looking for a good Karaoke venue. You heard tell of any? Friends from work want to do it Weds. night. Looking for more "hip" than unhip; more top 40/seventies/big band than modern country, etc. Everyone knows there are lots in the Int'l District, but we're not looking for a William Hung outing, to laugh at furriners. We want to have fun our own selves.

Continue reading "Ask Seattlest: Where to Go for Karaoke?"

In the good ol' days, fascists satisfied themselves with simple, totalitarian pleasures like dictatorships, censorship, torture, and genocide. Recently their insatiable appetite for control-freakism has spread to new markets, such as office supply management, message board administration, and behind-the-back blog editing. But now it appears they have discovered even more new terrain to invade and impose their absolute dominion: Karaoke moderation! The fascist in charge of managing the karaoke room at the Sunset Bowl last Saturday (see photo above) led another assault against Freedom with some furious, memorable quotes:

“The sun never sets at Sunset Bowl.”

That's how the pot-smokin', CCR-lovin', league-bowlin' Dude describes the real-life Seattle Seven in the funniest movie of all-time.

We'll make sure to throw up a flickr gallery of this on Monday (or, gasp, take some photos ourselves) but aren't the pictures always such a letdown after the real deal? Tomorrow is the zombie walk that's bubbled it's way up on to even KOMO's radar. The dead become reanimated and meet at Sunset Bowl tomorrow at 3:45pm. They'll stagger and groan their ghoulish selves down Market and finally roll up on the People's Pub some time around six. Now that's a route that Seattlest can get down with on a Saturday night.

The news is as unwelcome as a 7-10 split: the owners of Greenwood's Leilani Lanes have sold to a developer who plans to raze the place and build apartments.

There are generally a lot of things at a bowling alley that are fun to look at: beer guts, mustaches, cool shoes. There are also some things that are fun to look at, but that you don't find very often at bowling alleys; dresses, for example. Well, at Sunset Bowl tomorrow the very same people sporting the bellies and mustaches will also be wearing the dresses.