seattle, washington

          the drive to seattle from portland is only three hours. it's a very interesting place this seattle. entering the city you can see the cranes in the ship yards that stick out like sore thumbs. then on your right are the stadiums. as my brother pointed out, it's a funny thing that seattle built a new stadium when their team(s) certainly haven't warranted it. which brings me to another point. corporate sponsorship of sports facilities. someday we will walk down the street and a stranger will ask directions, and our answer will be something like this.
          "oh yeah, go two blocks and make a left at the johnson and johnson library, then go three blocks and when you come to the rj reynolds community center, take a right. now go past the intel shoe store, and the philip morris play house, and you'll come to a split in the road. on one side is the l. ron hubbard school of dance and the other is NTB drug store. go tward the NTB drug store and just past it you'll find the microsoft shooting range. now, if you pass the walmart church of christ you've gone to far."
          ........so seattle is pretty & clean for the most part. and full of stuff to do. my parents came out from dc to visit my brother, and luckily it worked out that i was there when they arrived. so we went on a boat tour of seattle where they so graciously pointed out where all the rich folk lived and the net worth of their estates. we also saw the floating houses and this giant silver boat called the caligula....ok that wasn't really it's name. but it was something like that. had a great story where it was a ferry and then a fish processing boat in alaska. then left to rot on a sand bar. so some artist had it towed to seattle where it now sits waiting for the people with money to join him in his quest to fix it up. it really is a beautiful boat. silver with round windows all around the top. like a giant floating diner.
          the first night i was there i attended a party at a friend of my brothers. was a good party. i mostly sat and watched them do their thing and then we left. the next morning my brother got a call that the house we were at had burnt down so we went over to help clean up. luckily the down stairs which housed most of the instruments was not effected as much as the upstairs. so all his prized instruments were alright. even the baby grand upstairs was ok. smokie, but ok. a very strange sight. later in the week there was a benefit for a close friend of my brothers who had written a play that was being taken to nyc. so i played a few songs, and david with the burnt house played some, and my brother played some as well. interesting stuff. my brother plays ukulele and sings, backed up by bass and muted trumpet. very cool to see something different. and also very good to see my brother perform. good ol boyd.....