That's embarrassing.

I hope you tore it down.

Whoever put that up needs to get a little bit more going on in their life.

Atlas is looking so stupid right now.

Time spent on making that poster, printing it out, putting it up could have been spent writing and calling the officials and law makers responsible for the all ages snafu.

Or did the person who put that up just want Eric's job?

I think a lot of this is related to a general feeling of antipathy towards the stranger among the vast majority of Seattle's music community, I think people were just waiting for a blunder as blatantly stupid as this one (and the resultant snide reaction to criticism of it) to really blow up. This has been around for awhile, it abated a bit during Jennifer Maerz's tenure for a number of different reasons, but I've seen it really come back in full force in the last few months. My feeling on the Stranger are complex and I don't all out love or hate them, sometimes they are great, sometimes they are awful, some writers seem legit and thoughtful, other seem like self important publicity whores.

I have to wonder though if the Stranger has ever seriously considered as an organization why so many people (music community people especially) absolutely despise them. And I'm saying consider as something beyond "Nyah! They're band is shitty and they're just jealous! Nyah!" or some kind of glib "If people don't hate us we aren't doing our job right" circular reasoning.

Ultimately, I think this is really a symptom of a musical community that feels dependent on an institution that often blatantly and gleefully mocks them and relishes in its position of local power, as small as that is in the larger scheme. I think the Stranger often takes a perverse level of pride in making people who are passionately engaged in something feel or seem stupid, irrelevant and worthy of ridicule. I think the Stranger is very good at forgetting that it takes months and years to put together something like a band or a venue or any other musical enterprise that may be flawed but is loved deeply and honestly by the people involved in it, while it only take a few hours to write something glib and snappy that can cut the legs right out from under that. That's a huge responsibility, and I don't honestly think the Stranger is taking that very seriously right now and they should. 5 years ago people really had had enough of the Stranger and it was pretty much Jennifer Maerz's understanding of the above facts that single-handedly saved l'Etrange from total irrelevance. Zwickel seems like a smart guy, he seems thoughtful and he's still learning the ropes on this town, so he gets a pass for a while, but I sincerely hope he takes this kind of thing seriously. The Stranger was founded in part in reaction to the glib self-importance of the Weekly and they'd do well to remember that. Not every alternative to the Stranger will always be as dumb as the Sinner or the Underground.

Don't expect to put an article like that out and expect people to not get angry when it causes something to happen.

To quote Ari Spool about the fire department's vist:

"The visit was in direct relation to the article Eric Grandy wrote this week about their semi-legal goings on."

ROFLCOPTER

Atlas should have worked with the city to set up a safe venue for shows. But I don't feel the criticism of Eric Grnady is completely unwarrented. His story could have focused on the good the people were Atlas were trying to do and left out the stuff about not being up to code. Eric has written about places where he has attended afterhours parties, places were many illegal activities take place, but doesn't put into print where they are. I can't help but notice more people are commenting on this than were at the relocated show at the SS Marie Antoinette. If you care about the music scene so much, why weren't you at the show?

wasn't the Egg Room fucking revered in the pages of the Stranger for years?
they didn't try to blow up that spot did they now?
it's too bad Stranger writers didn't get fucked up @ Atlas, they might still be open.

This reminds me of a time I was dancing at the Egg Room when one of the speakers caught on fire. My friend and I got the hell out of there but it makes me realize there's a reason why the FD has to take this seriously. Secret shows are fun and I highly doubt THE STRANGER killed it all...but what if Atlas was still open...what if a fire happened and people died...I'd feel awful if I was a writer at The Stranger and I knew something like that could happen.

What if I'm dancing in my living room and something catches fire? Could The Stranger have prevented that from happening? Is The Stranger going to save us all from danger? Fucking A. Is Eric Grandy a roving buzz kill now out to make sure everything is safe?

do a search on the stranger's site for "egg room".

it only comes up in a grandy article once that i could find. it comes up once in an article by kathleen wilson, and tons of times in the comments to a slog post.

that would show you that the stranger actually didn't give it much notice.

except when it closed. that is what eric wrote about. it's last night.

"Atlas is looking so stupid right now."
PLEASE do not turn "Atlas" into a genrealizing and collective catch-all term for the angry and/or immature posting (slog, flyers, whatever)that has been occurring.

Look at Matt Fuller's tasteful and sincere repsonse to Eric Grandy's recent Slog. If anyone has a right to be angry and expressive, it's Matt. But instead he made an articulate post in a far away city (he's on tour, for christ's sake) trying to make some sense of all this sludge. Kids are pissed and its understandable. Tempers are hot. However, don't mix these folks up with "Atlas."

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