Soon I Will Probably Stop Griping

If you live in a city of about 60,000 or more, it's pretty likely that you have an --ahem!-- alternative newsweekly. I'm sure you know just what I'm talking about; here in Denver, it's the Westword. Seattle's got the Stranger, Portland has the Willamette Week, and even my hometown of Missoula has the Independent.

Almost without exception, these rags are characterized by the following traits:

1. Unabashed left-wing point-of-view
2. At least 85% of the page space is devoted to display ads
3. Headlines are almost always bad puns

But perhaps the single most defining characteristic of them all is the yearly "Best Of" issue. I'm like any other aging hipster in that I reflexively grab that issue and excitedly leaf through it on the toilet or on the bus, looking to see how the winners square with my own personal best-of.

However, for the past several years now, I've noticed a subtle but unmistakable feeling of being swindled or hornswoggled or something like that. Manipulated is probably a better term for it. Well, for starters, in the Westword, it's not a ballot process at all; the best-of winners are all chosen by the staff. At least in the Missoula Independent (which desperately needs a new design on their site), it was a voting thing, and you could at least feel some sort of participatory glee in voting for Andy Smetanka as Missoula's best writer, what was it, 103 years in a row (and deservedly so, reader).

But even beyond the disenfranchisement, I get a distinct feeling when I'm reading that issue that I'm party to a very cynical operation. At the very least, I'm sure it amounts to a slam dunk "sweeps week" of sorts for the paper. But I also suspect it's a big advertising coup as well, like maybe the paper figures out some businesses that don't currently advertise in the paper, gives them a best-of win, then says, "Yo, you won the "Best Brazilian Fire Escape System" award this year; you should probably take out a half-page ad to let everyone know about it!" And that reminds me of another thing about the Westword in particular: the best-of categories are so specific that you can't help but think there's some categorical gerrymandering afoot, i.e. the categories are created ad hoc for the desired winner.

Another likely scenario I envision is that it's a yearly backrub for the loyal advertisers, which I could probably even prove if I had the time or inclination to monitor the shit all year long.

In either case, and indeed, even in neither case, I feel quite confident that when I'm reading a best-of issue, I am not in any way witnessing a scientific or even empirical survey of local culture. Plus there's always the flotilla of "you voted X as Best Nautical-Themed Strip Club instead of Y, the obvious choice" letters for the following three issues. I can't quite figure out why anyone would expend the effort to write those things.

Almost forgot! The Westword made quite a boner this year: they had a Best Secret Rock Venue category and awarded it to one of those party houses that hosts rock shows. Or maybe it was an old warehouse. You know the type of place I'm talking about. In any case, it wasn't enough that they had to proclaim their eminent coolness by just knowing about the place; they saw fit to publish the fucking address of it, and so it was summarily shut down by the cops. As a veteran of playing at and attending perhaps hundreds of these type of deals in Missoula (highlighted by seeing KARP in Dave Parsons' living room, and having Three Finger Spread play a set sitting on my bed[!]), I can attest to how crucial a function these unofficial venues serve in a given rock scene. I think they serve a similar function in the rave scene (or whatever it's called now), but I don't have any first-hand experience with it.

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It Found This Shit Interesting As Well:

How To Correctly Use Apostrophes. I learned that the incorrect use of an apostrophe to form the plural (e.g. "Apple's 49¢") is often referred to as "the greengrocer's apostrophe."

...and this was strangely transfixing:

Timelapse footage of a trip through the Panama Canal

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