publisher's desk
Sonic Old People: Stranger Owners Turn 40

When I moved to Seattle as a young man I already felt like a forty year old curmudgeon. To me 1990s Seattle youth culture was laughable and a majority of the musicians and other creative types flocking to town were shamefully untalented hair farming tattooed bohos to be ridiculed. Now that I am actually turning forty I realize that I was one of those people too. And nobody exploited this mass migration of posers like me more successfully than the Stranger, which grew out of nothing to become a multimillion dollar entertainment guide for young, beautiful and rich hipsters.

The owners of the Stranger are now also approaching forty, which makes their attacks on the "baby boomer" Seattle Weekly seem hollow. We all love the Stranger, and you will see them mentioned constantly in the Messenger, but now they are old - just like the Volvo-driving, Doonesbury-reading, organic-food-eating out of touch hippie boneheads they mock at the Weekly. Old!

The business model for an alternative weekly newspaper has long been based on oldsters exploiting a continously updated pool of hip twentysomethings to keep things young and fresh, with nightclub ads to pay the bills and hooker ads as gravy. But can a group of fortysomethings really claim to be in touch with the young trendsters that ad agencies crave?

A forty year old hipster is not the life of the party. A forty year old hipster has a lot more in common with a grey-ponytailed liberal boomer than with the designer drug-addled kids of today.

Speaking of sonic old people, here is my half-baked theory about the order in which members of the Beatles will die based on what drugs they are associated with. Baby Boomers take note!

John Lennon - Heroin
It is well known that John Lennon had dark periods of heroin use. People who dabble in injectable opiates know full well that they are communicating with the dark side, and that they might die young. October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980 (asassinated)

George Harrison - Cigarettes
The introspective Harrison was a lifetime smoker who killed himself very slowly. February 25, 1943 - November 29, 2001 (lung cancer)

Ringo Starr - Alcohol
Ringo has a history of serious boozing but is currently sauce-free. July 7, 1940 - projected day of death: June 20, 2015

Paul McCartney - Pot
Sir Paul is a longtime pothead and we all know that marijauna is a fairly harmless drug. He and his American doper counterpart Willie Nelson could both live to be well over 100. Sadly, McCartney is now a greedy corporate shill for Lexus and other multinational brands. June 18 1942 - projected day of death: May 2, 2051

-AM