Let’s be for serious for a minute. I don’t write very often about exhibitions in Seattle. It’s not so much the result of disparate geography, but rather the fact that Microsoft doesn’t own 51% of my hog. In any case, I manage to make it up to Seattle semi-regularly each year and when someone tickles my critical chuttles, I’m going to write about it.
Thanksgiving this year in Seattle featured snow. Typically, it does not. And apparently this was extremely important to them. On Wednesday evening, I hit up Magic Gardens for happy hour and then tore out of town in my Chevy S10 pickup with something to prove. Interstate 5 was less crowded than I had anticipated, so weaving in and out of Subarus proved simple and engaging. Just north of Vancouver, WA, I snorted two Adderall off of my dashboard and smooshed “Deluxe” by Better Than Ezra into the disc player. As a delicious wall of four-chord ’90s alternative guitar distortion swelled through my speakers, I grew firm and filled the left leg of my Dockers chinos. It was the Thanksgiving weekend in the Pacific Northwest. And I was headed to the city where Tom Hanks’ wife died in Sleepless in Seattle.
When my wife dies I'm also going to start having sex with a volleyball.
Two friends of mine, motorcycle riders from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, had been autumning in the Emerald City since late August. Daily, they’d shoot me a barrage of unsolicited text messages flooding my telephone with a visual stew of mistyped addresses, incorrectly spelled gallery names and other disjointed would-be information about the goings ons in the Seattle art scene. Why they did this I cannot explain; we’d met in July in Cannon Beach while sipping Bud Lights with Lime, looking out at the ocean. Suspicious of their motives, I’d actually given them a false name and lied that my occupation involved custodial services at a Salem-based junior high. Giving them my number was my first mistake. Giving them pro bono spelunking lessons after a fifth of Beefeaters was the proverbial nail in the coffin. These hosers were on me good. And like the zebra mussel is to the hull of a Lake Michigan Coast Guard vessel, they would writhe and mate on my underbelly until my gut was raw and twisted.
Muffalo was an albino dyslexic with red hair tattooed across his barrel of a chest, and he wore a snowmobile helmet upon his Harley steed. His younger brother, Abraham from the Bible, was tall and lean but illiterate. They had been living for months in an extra bedroom of a quiet and polite homosexual couple in an area of Seattle called Ballard. The couple, Nixon and Bruce Christopher, seemed to enjoy the company of the biker brothers and consistently invited friends over to play Apples to Apples and experience their unique house guests. My arrival had been announced but a week prior via certified mail. After signing for the letter, Muffalo brought it back to the dining room (they were all dining at the time) and read it aloud to his brother and their hosts. The room, I am told, became unanimously elated and enthusiastic in regards to the prospect of my visit. Do keep in mind, dear reader, that at this point, they all believed my name to be Gobadore de Quiblinstone.
The entire city of Tacoma smells like a dead person's dick.
Passing through Tacoma, I punched the address into my Android cellular telephone’s Google Maps application. Ripping past the Tacoma Dome, I popped my pickup into a perfect nose wheelie and skidded around a Chrysler 300 filled with Asian teenagers. In no time at all, I’d arrived at the outskirts of Seattle, which feels like you’re entering the City of Oz if the yellow brick road were made of Boeing. In twenty minutes, I arrived at the home of Nixon and Bruce Christopher, the homosexual couple, and pounded on their door with great violence and vigor. It cracked open and a small dog dressed as Charles Grodin yipped and yapped, this way and that at my feet. My eyes wandered up the leg of a man clad surely in the finest leisure attire Banana Republic has to offer. Upon meeting his face with my eyes, I was momentarily blinded by the brilliant white of his toothy smile. “Come in,” he beckoned. This, was Bruce Christopher.
We dabbled in several games of trivia as I downed a six pack of Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lite. Around midnight, I completely blacked out. The last thing I recall was Nixon rapping a capella the entire soundtrack to 8 Mile. In the morning, I awoke to the familiar smell of toasted English muffins with jam wafting into my nostrils from the nearby kitchen. “What is this?” I mused aloud to myself, tiptoeing into the kitchen and spying a peek at Nixon as he dripped sweat upon the skillet. “Gobadore!” he chortled from behind his patchy beard and weary eyes. “Come and feast a niblet – don’t be afraid, my mother recommends highly EMWJs!”
“But wait!” I cried. “EMWJs?!?”
“Yes, my dear boy! English muffins with jam!”
OMG EMWJs LOLZ
Nixon and I exchanged knowing glances and I took a seat at the table, a shabby mid-century number that had, let’s be honest, seen better days. Spinning around likethat graceful top of which the Jews are so fond, he delivered a piping hot plate of taste in front of me with a flick of the wrist. “It looks compelling,” I managed to choke out between sobs. “Where does… is it… did you invent this recipe yourself?” He didn’t need to respond.
As soon as the words had slipped out of my lips I knew what I’d done. In the ’80s, Nixon had been responsible for archiving and preserving all recipes by a woman by the name of Eileen Moonbone. Eileen hosted a popular late night cooking show and was well liked by the general public. Those close to her though knew of a different person all together. Nixon had worked closely as her personal assistant for several years until one morning when he showed up late and found her naked in her office with an entire tin of Skoal spearmint chewing tobacco packed into her vagina. Rumors had been circulating since as to what happened next, but almost all agree that somehow the tobacco entered his urethra and somehow she became pregnant in the butt. No one had actually had the gall to ask Nixon directly what had transpired, but everybody knew that at least the butt baby part was true. I knew about the whole event because of a Facebook group I got encouraged to join a couple of years ago called “I Bet We Can Get 10,000 People to Like the Idea of Nixon Putting a Baby in a Woman’s Butt with His Sperm Even Though He is Gay.”
L-R, Muffalo, Bruce Christopher, Abraham from the Bible
A short scuffle between myself and Nixon broke out until Muffalo, Abraham from the Bible and Bruce Christopher skidded into the kitchen on a jet ski and broke up the action. I felt embarrassed in front of the group. While I’d simply come here for the company and to possibly catch an exhibition, they thought that I was in Seattle to accept the Janitor of the Fortnight award at the Pacific Northwests Amalgamated Custodial Union gathering on Friday. A man receiving such an award did not spend his days engaging in tactless endeavors like inadvertently reminding Nixon about his days with Eileen Moonbone. That was rookie shit.
Several awkward minutes followed until Muffalo tossed the most recent copy of The Stranger across the table to me. “Check out page 38, Gobadore,” he said with a wry smile. I flipped numbly through the pages; I was still feeling awfully sheepish about exhibiting bad manners in someone else’s home. When I got to page 38, I scanned across the page until my eyes caught what I knew had to be the source of his inner glee.
That evening, yes, Thanksgiving evening, there was to be a brand new exhibition opening at Eastern Tunnel, one of the hottest alternative spaces in the city. The ad was so exclusive and mysterious that it didn’t include the names of any of the artists exhibiting or even the name of the show. “This is supposed to be good?” I asked.
“Yeah, new guy,” chirped Bruce Christopher. “It’s the sickest place in town.”
“Well, what the hell is it? It doesn’t even have a show title!”
Bruce Christopher and the others chuckled, looked at each other for a bit as if to make sure that they wouldn’t be putting me in danger by telling me the title. The dog that looked like Charles Grodin left the room in shame. “What is the fucking show called?” I demanded a final time. Bruce Christopher sighed and deferred to Nixon, who typically handled matters like these. He closed his eyes as if to find the correct words as so many fluttered throughout his head. And what he said next dropped my jaw…
“Ecstasy: The Jungle Book.”
Donaldo el Pato conoce a una chiquita.
The rest of the day was pure torture as I played every scenario imaginable over and over again in my head. What could the title mean? Who was showing at the exhibition? Why can’t I stop watching Two and a Half Men? Dinner was an affair to be remembered, but still I found myself distracted and uninterested in the conversation. At 8pm though, we piled into Nixon and Bruce Christopher’s Dodge Stratus and hit the I-5 bound south towards Capitol Hill. Eastern Tunnel was located in a former USA Baby outlet on the corner of Broadway and E Mercer, kitty-corner to an impressive looking Gold’s Gym. Parking in that neighborhood is a fucking nightmare, but we managed to find a spot a short distance away near 13th and Thomas. The line outside of Eastern Tunnel was half of a block long and didn’t appear to be moving.
Gawd, I fucking hate Seattle hipsters.
As we approached the gallery, I told the rest of the boys to hang back a minute while I went up front to “check on the wait.” Little did this band of homosexuals and bikers know that I was about to drop a heavy-ass name on this door guy, and I didn’t want them to have to see him throw out his back when he tried to pick it up. Plus, if they knew my degree of celebrity, they might feel uncomfortable about their safety with me staying right in their home. The door guy was, obviously, Italian and looked like one of the mean ones. He glared at me menacingly as I sauntered past the line of hipsters and he then crossed his arms ceremoniously. When I reached him, I said nothing whatsoever, but pulled a crisp white business car from my blazer pocket. He looked down briefly and then did a double take. Thoroughly embarrassed, he unclipped the thick, red velvet rope from its stand and humbly offered passage. Turning to the guys, I waved them over and we all strode in like we rented the place.
Naturally, they pestered me for an answer as to how a janitor from Salem could pull that kind of rank, but I just pressed my index finger upon each of their lips, one by one and said, “Shhhhhhhh.” What we encountered next looked like nothing that I’d ever seen before. The title made sense. The air of superiority around the whole event made sense.
The front half of the large open gallery space was almost completely empty, just concrete floors and a few pillars spot lit with exceptional care by somewhere in the neighborhood of six taxidermied raccoons with halogen bulbs for eyes. Midway back through the space, there was a kind of elevated floor of the same concrete material that resembled an enormous, half-room stage. We walked slowly towards it, drinking in the complexity of the raccoons and their unholy glares. Parked at a diagonal angle at the front of the elevated section was what appeared to be a Budget Moving Truck painted completely white – windows, tires and all. Over each headlight, which remained unlit, was skillfully affixed a “No Fat Chicks” sticker, the collective effect resembling something of the all-seeing eyes of God. The rear loading door was fully raised, revealing a cubic holding cell barren save for a pomegranate resting perfectly centered with a blue Bic ball point pen stabbed into it at a forty-five degree angle. Closer inspection revealed a strip of paper, a fortune from an after dinner cookie at a Chinese restaurant. It read, “That for which we long may in turn make us short.” I plunged headfirst into a sea of profundity. Never in my life before this have I wept openly at an exhibition.
Needing a minute to collect myself, I parted from the group and headed for the restroom where I splashed handfuls of cold water upon my sweat-drenched brow. When I exited the restroom I meandered back to the front of the gallery in search of an exhibition catalogue, something to give me a sense of context about the beautiful, transubstantiative work. To my surprise, there wasn’t one. Nor was there any vinyl text of any kind in the gallery to tell me who had produced the work contained therein. Panicking, I looked around at the rest of the attendees, all of whom were milling about here and there sipping boxed wine and jiving monotonously. Sheep, I thought. But if this was the intention of the curator, to leave me with only my taste and loins to examine the exhibition, then I was determined to play by the rules. A fool will not be made of me in a city like Seattle, not ever.
As I passed through the crowd I caught a glimpse of the guys wandering behind the parked truck. Climbing over the short elevated floor, I stood again and joined them just in time to feel my eye vagina filled with the black cock of conceptual and formal perfection. Running for some twenty yards across the entire back wall of the raw space was a closet hanging rod maxed out to capacity with soccer jerseys from across the globe. Every country was represented at least thirteen times, and it created a kind of wall of Umbro and Puma that dazzled and glistened in the florescent lighting of the space. We inched closer slowly, not wanting to lose the piece’s intricate gestalt from our field of vision. Eventually though, we had to succumb to its alluring majesty and we got so close that we could smell the sweat and grass on the jerseys themselves. Abraham from the Bible, not realizing the err of his ways, reached out hypnotized and touched one from Spain located dead center in the rack. Reacting instantly, I slapped his hand back and shot him the look of death. “Don’t ruin this for me, ” I forced out through clenched teeth.
Only a moment later, one of the gallery employees walked up smiling. “Care to have a touch, gentlemen?” Taken aback, we all stammered trying to explain that our friend here was new to the art world and didn’t understand the severity of his infraction. “There, there,” laughed the attendant. “I think if you try it again, you might be surprised by what you find.”
Abraham from the Bible reached out again but with two hands this time. The rest of the gallery kind of fell away for a moment and my hearing seemed as though I was underwater. In slow motion, he parted the Spanish jersey from an Albanian one and then pushed both of them aside with the satisfyingly slick sound of the hangers sliding against the metal rod. Behind them was a drawing, the quality of which no English words can do justice. It was a simple, 8.5 x 11″ piece of copy paper with a lone figure drawn in the center. A thin and wide-eyed Anime woman stood in a runway model’s pose, hand on hip and lips pouted. She wore a romper of navy blue and stared straight out of the picture plane. For a second time, I found myself crying violently and I fell to the floor of the gallery. Two more attendants rushed up, one rubbing my back and the other guiding my dry lips to the straw of a Hi-C Ecto Cooler. I sipped thankfully and managed to compose myself. “Hey,” one of them remarked, “Aren’t you Tann-” I cut him off quickly with a flick to the dick. His friend got the message and they slunk away.
Nixon and Bruce Christopher looked genuinely concerned and helped me to my feet. “Is it too much?” they asked. “Yes,” I replied. “I haven’t been moved like this in ages. I feel… born anew.” Muffalo put his arm around me and messed my hair. We walked out, exhausted, onto E Mercer and towards the car.
When I awoke the next morning, I knew that it was time to return to Portland. Before I left, I hopped onto my laptop and scoured Seattle blogs for any tidbit of information about the show that I could find. All that I encountered were similarly confused writers, commenting on one another’s pages with the same questions. Nobody knew whose work was in the show or even who had curated it. On my drive back to Portland I masturbated several times to podcasts of The Splendid Table, trying to forget the closest thing I’d ever known to God Himself. It’s been almost a week since the show and I still haven’t heard any new information about its authors. If any of my readers up in Seattle have even the slightest tip, do send it my way. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to write about another exhibition after this again . What the fuck would I say?
