Back from the dead

SEATTLE, Washington - Yes, the blog was deleted for a while. I will not get into the details. I may or may not start posting again.

James Lipton was NOT a pimp, even if he thinks he was

SEATTLE, Washington - Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton is claiming that he was a pimp years ago in France, because he scrounged up clients for intimate congress with a female friend. He may have done this, but that doesn't make him a pimp.

The actual pimps interviewed in the Hughes Brothers documentary American Pimp clarify that procurement of clients is not the correct definition of pimping. Even most dictionaries get this wrong, as pimp Danny Brown notes in the movie:

In the dictionary, the pimp is a guy that solicits customer for prostitutes or brothels, and I've never done none of that.

The pimp serves as a business manager, consultant, and protector. They may instruct the girls on how to attract clients or how to maximize revenue, but actual procurement is left to the girls. The role, origins, and necessity of the pimp are discussed throughout the documentary.

Fillmore Slim notes:

First there was the hooker. Gettin' money - but didn't know what to do with it. 'Till the guy came along and showed her the part where... "let me manage your money" - they was managin' their own money, but they didn't know what to do with it. Then they had to get the pimp, he was for protection.

C-Note says:

Priests need nuns, doctors need nurses, so hoes need pimps. They need our instructions, they need our guidance, they need our protection.

Kenny Red adds:

If a ho don't get no instruction, she gonna' be headed for self-destruction.

R.P. notes:

Any bitch can get out there and sell some pussy. She can get out there and sell some pussy all day long. But she don't know the ins and outs and the ins and outs and the outs and ins.

Further evidence that Lipton was not really pimping was his statement that "We were earning our living together, this young woman and I, we made a rather good living, I must say." The pimps in American Pimp are very clear about who gets the money, when they are asked about what "cut" their women get:

Schauntte: "What cut they get? Oh no. They ain't get no cut."
Charm: "No percentage."
Bishop Don Magic Juan: "Zero Percentage."
Payroll: "Zero."
Kenny Red: "A bitch of mine better not keep a dime."
Fillmore Slim: "None. None."
Danny Brown: "If one of my women had proven to be stronger than me, a better manager than me, then she could have been the leader. But I was the master of the house, I was the leader of the program, so all the money came to me. It wasn't like I had part of the money, she had part of the money - that's like, a divided situation."

Pimpin' ain't easy, Mr Lipton.

The zoning junta was in a foul mood

SEATTLE, Washington - I have criticized the proceedings of zoning meetings before, but I did this based on media reports and not from personal witness. This is not journalism! So, I decided to attend an Early Design Guidance meeting for a proposed six-story, mixed-use building in my neighborhood.

I arrived a bit early. There were three design proposals taped to the wall, which differed from one another in their placement of the building's courtyard. The designer may be good at designing buildings but is not so good at English, as one design noted that something was "shaded for the most of the day, accept for high noon." I have a diagram that includes helpful comments like "live/work units?" (seemingly an orgasm-inducing phrase among planning types) and "ped friendly storefront" (it's a storefront on a sidewalk, yes, I guess that's ped friendly).

The zoning junta was in full attendance, seated in a row at a table. After some brief comments, the developer (who seemed to know he was already a beaten man) discussed his proposals for about 15 minutes. The board then started questioning him; it reminded me of oral examinations from high school.

The concern that emerged from the board at this time (and it came up over and over) was the "massing" of the zone and the "use of the envelope". Nobody was thrilled with the courtyard. When asked about whether the courtyard space could be used differently (e.g. for "jagged edges"), the developer noted that they "haven't designed anything yet." This is the EARLY design meeting.

The developer was also asked what "themes" from the neighborhood he had incorporated into the design. He was as evasive as an unprepared high-schooler on this, noting that the neighborhood had an "interesting pastiche" of stuff. (Of course, the way to get a neighborhood with an interesting pastiche is to have less restrictive zoning, not more restrictive.)

Comment from the dozen or so members of the public in attendance followed, with many concerns about the location of the parking entrance (in my view a legitimate concern) and one person that had a bunch of criticisms locked and loaded, from wanting "shadow studies" to "more landscaping" to changing the design to have "a lot less coverage" of the lot, to doing something about the "huge blank wall" on the south side of the building.

Finally, the board members deliberate among themselves, which you can listen to but you're not allowed to say anything. Some attendees pulled their chairs right up to the board's table, but had to stay silent.

Most of the board's focus was on the evils of the courtyard and how this "mass" could be better used in the building. While one member thought you could have a courtyard if it was "done smart", most of the others wanted to change the roofline of the building to make it lower on the east side, to have it agree more with the slope of the hill and fit in better with the shorter, differently zoned buildings to the east. To do this, and have the same number of units in the building, you have to get the "mass" from somewhere, thus putting the courtyard on the sacrificial altar.

The developer noted that one of the advantages of the courtyard was that it allowed all the apartment units to have at least 2 walls with natural light. The chair of the board said she lived for years in a small apartment in San Francisco with only one wall of windows. Well, if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for you!

This was roughly what I expected, some legitimate concerns (the issues of ingress/egress to the parking level and alleyway are legitimate, as this location is on a sleep slope on an arterial road) along with lots of issues that are only of external, cosmetic importance to anyone that doesn't live there - the landscaping and the roofline being most prominent. Removing or diminishing the courtyard significantly hurts the building's residents, and the resulting change to the roofline is only going to be noticed and appreciated by experts and the people that demanded it.

Usually there is only one Early Design Guidance meeting for a proposal, but it appears (I did not stay until the very end) that the zoning junta is going to demand that this developer go back to the drawing board, shift the "massing" of the building to please people looking at it to the detriment of people living in it, and come back for another EDG.

update: here is West Seattle Blog's coverage of the meeting.

Matt Drudge leaving Sunday night radio show

SEATTLE, Washington - One of the few constants in my life for the last 9 years has been listening to the Sunday night radio show of Matt Drudge. I was surprised when, two hours ago, Drudge announced that he was leaving the radio show. Apparently this story had leaked a few weeks ago but Drudge has not mentioned it on-air until the very end.

I'm listening right now. He has made some references to listening to talk radio in his childhood, and the fact that he still falls asleep to the radio every night; these stories are reminding me of my own experience with radio. I'm just like Matt Drudge, except the part about making a million bucks a year from a web site.

Some of my earliest memories of radio are from nights when I stayed at my grandparents' house. I would be assigned to sleep on a couch; after my grandfather woke up (at like 4:30am, what was he thinking?) I would move to his bedroom. He slept with the radio on, I believe it was the crackling signal of a Philadelphia news station. This got me into the habit; by 1980 I was sleeping with the radio set to Larry King's pioneering overnight radio show.

When I was a teenager, I listened to music like everyone else, but I also spent many weeknights listening to Bruce Williams's advice show on Talknet. In 1992, I worked the overnight shift in a restaurant on the Boardwalk, and while most restaurants played Top 40 radio, my customers had to listen to Larry King doing his thing.

In 1998, a bit before the internet was being widely used for audio, I purchased a radio from C. Crane that could record four hours of programming, so I could record Art Bell's overnight show and listen to it at work.

I don't remember if I was reading the Drudge Report before the Lewinsky thing broke. Maybe, maybe not. I do remember sitting with one of my professors in a pizza parlor in January 1998 as the media were picking up the story; the professor noted that Clinton "would be out of office in a week."

The Drudge Report has been my homepage ever since, and I've also been a regular listener to the radio show. When the show first appeared, I was amazed at how Drudge performed a relatively polished show right out of the box. He was devoted to the show; I don't recall him missing a single broadcast until 2005 when some bad weather knocked out power in Miami. New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve, whatever, nothing stopped him from showing up for his shift. In the past two years I have noticed guest hosts appearing more and more frequently.

Drudge is being coy about his reasons for leaving (almost as coy as he is about his sexuality); he claims he will be doing fill-in duty on other shows as the opportunities arise. He has a unique voice, and a unique mix of material on his show. But, I won't get too stressed; over the years, I've started and stopped listening to many shows, and you always think a show is essential to your life but you don't miss it when you stop. I had no idea how I would live without Don Imus when I left New Jersey in 1996, but within a week I simply found other things.

Some guy from Cincinnati is taking over the show, but I won't be listening. So I say goodbye to the show that was, as Drudge said, "the last word in weekend talk, eat your heart out Wolf Blitzer."

Don't trust the media to cover Marijuana - or "mental illness"

SEATTLE, Washington - An article at Huffington Post written by Maia Szalavitz discusses media coverage of a recent British study claiming causative link between marijuana use and schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses. Szalavitz makes the case that the mainstream media have overstated the results of the study to stir up a bit of "reefer madness".

A cornerstone of Szalavitz's argument is that marijuana usage has increased dramatically in the last several decades, while the incidence rate of schizophrenia has remained fairly constant. Being immersed in Szaszian thought, I immediately thought, "so what?" Since a diagnosis of schizophrenia consists of little more than a psychiatrist coming to the opinion that you have schizophrenia, the so-called mental health professions could raise or lower the rate of diagnosis as they choose. When the appointment book at the office is light they can always gin up some new "Autism Spectrum Disorders" or maybe start bringing in the infants for psychotherapy.

And when the media are not busy refusing to ask fundamental questions about mental health, they're happily occupied not discussing the correlation of antidepressant drugs and violence, including a stunning correlation of these drugs with various massacres of recent years.

Come on, Huffington Post, let's see you dig up the real dirt!

The petty totalitarianism of Zoning and Community Involvement

SEATTLE, Washington - I've never paid much attention to zoning issues before, but I've been following some recent zoning news in Seattle. It's now clear that the people on zoning boards (and the civilians that attend the meetings) get involved and endlessly harass developers because of some combination of (1) having nothing better to do, (2) needing their egos stroked, or (3) being opposed to the development and endlessly throwing sand in the gears as revenge.

Our first exhibit is a four-story, 12-condo mixed use building in the Admiral district. After a year of design reviews and negotiations with the zoning junta, the design is almost fully blessed. One of the remaining conditions: They want the roof of the ground-level parking garage to become some sort of "common space" for the residents.

There's already a resident deck on the top of the condo portion. Why the hell is it the business of the zoning junta what is done with the small garage rooftop? Are the going to scale the wall and have a barbecue? This is just busybodies being busybodies. (I have a theory on why the designer wasted money on the main roof deck and is about to waste more on the garage-top deck; that will come in a later posting.)

At the same board meeting, a proposed Petco a few blocks down the street got much saltier treatment. They've been slugging this one out for a while, as it would replace a restaurant (that is going to close anyway) with some sentimental value in the neighborhood.

Now, if you don't want a Petco on your street, fine, deny them and let them move on. But no, we're getting round after round of micromanagement of the design, tweaking the placement of trees, changing the placement of the parking lot, demanding a smaller building, demanding a bigger building, changing the roofline, changing windows to let more light into the store (!), and on and on.

Some people did protest that California Avenue is the "Main Street" of the area and that a Petco is unsuitable. One problem - this Petco is replacing one that is closing just a few blocks down the same street. The cat is long out of the bag on that, so to speak.

Last but not least we have the coverage in The Stranger of the "Townhome Invasion". Apparently developers have wised up on how to avoid the attentions of the zoning junta:

What's happening in Morgan Junction is also happening in other parts of the city. Townhomes are popping up all over Seattle as development booms, and some developers are using a process called "piecemealing" to expedite new construction. In piecemealing, a developer can purchase several small adjacent lots, file separate permits for each lot, and skirt the pesky public-comment period and environmental reviews that accompany major construction projects.

Of course they're trying to avoid the busybodies. But, to no avail - local resident Vlad Oustimovitch got a hold of the developer of some of the townhomes and browbeat them into making some changes, including lowering the height of several townhomes and modifying the landscaping.

As far as the height, I believe they did not change the number of stories - so how much could the height have changed? I'll tell you exactly how much - not enough to make a difference to the aesthetic, but just enough to make Mr Oustimovitch feel good about himself. And the landscaping - presumably they're trying to build townhomes that are attractive; I doubt they landscaped them with rusted-out car bodies. But they changed it... everyone feels good now.

As it happens, Mr Oustimovitch is a planner and architect by trade. So, there are only two kinds of projects that he has a say in - those for which he's hired, and those for which he isn't hired.

I hate to pick on Vlad Oustimovitch - I don't know him, he's probably a sweetheart - but he's the guy in the story.