July 2011

On Sunday evenings a growing group of people, largely of Slavic descent have been meeting on the beach at Alki to worship, sing songs and offer an alternative to what they see as negative choices being made by some of their people in this area.

Led by Andrey Ruzhin of Mars Hill Church. the group is coordinated through their Facebook page where the lyrics to the songs they will sing are posted an hour before their assigned meeting time of 8:30. They ask that people have "smart phones" so they can view the song lyrics and sing along as they gather around a beach bonfire.

"We came up with this idea," said Ruzhin," to bring worship to Alki and unite mainly the Slavic community but a lot of Americans are joining too. We have noticed that a lot of Slavic people are hanging out on Sundays more than 200 people every week, when the weather is good and we want to make this something good for the community. When people can listen to great music, and at the same time, worship and sing to our creator. We believe in God, who is Jesus Christ and we are doing this every Sunday through the summer."

Debra George from the nonprofit group that is now handling Burien's animal control services reports the runaway pit bull involved in Thursday's biting incident has been found.

George from Burien CARES said the dog showed up at the back door of its owners Sunday night. The owners live in the 15600 block of Maplewild Avenue Southwest. The home is about four blocks from the 15900 block of 25th Avenue Southwest where it was spotted about 9 p.m. Sunday night.

George reported the pit bull has been turned over to CARES for treatment and and a required 10-day quarantine.
George reported the dog still had a taser dart in it when it returned home.

In the first media interview with former Burien mayor Sally Nelson, Nelson told the Times/News Sunday night that the dogs came after her with "a vengeance."

Here's our coverage from Sunday night with the first media interview with Nelson:

The case of a possibly dangerous pit bull running loose in Burien illustrates the frustrations of a couple of new Burien residents trying to be good citizens.

West Seattle Summerfest featured something new this year called HackCycle in which old bikes are dismantled and cut, fitted, and welded into highly creative and unique new vehicles. It's the project of HazardFactory an Industrial Arts studio in South Park that as they put it "produces work in which risk and the artistic re-direction of technology are key components."

They created a human powered band saw, though for most of the cutting, power tools were used.

A full range of tools were provided for those taking part. The founder of HazardFactory Rusty Oliver whose title is Chief Executive Lunatic talked about how it got going. "A long time ago I stopped into an industrial arts collective in San Francisco and I was exposed to radioactive isotopes and welding fumes and as a result I went into hibernation for about six months. When I came out of that I found myself compelled to collect every metal working tool possible and create a band of disciples that would help to spread the metallurgical ways."

The 78th annual West Seattle American Legion Grand Parade will run on Saturday, July 23 starting at 11:00 AM. The course is the same as in past years running south on California Ave SW from SW Lander St to SW Edmunds. The parade was made possible this year by generous donations of the West Seattle community, and especially the West Seattle Christian Church and the West Seattle Y.

Entries scheduled to appear this year include:

Floats & Royalty
Marysville Strawberry Festival
Miss Seafair Scholarship Participants
Port Orchard Fathoms O' Fun
Puyallup Daffodil Festival
Sequim Irrigation Festival
Seafair Commodores
West Seattle Hi-Yu

Bands
Calgary Round-Up Band
Kennedy Catholic High School Marching Band
Pacific Northwest Drumline
Seattle Schools All-City Marching Band

Clowns & Pirates
Keystone Kops
Lake City Vigilantes
Seafair Clowns
Seafair Pirates
Shrine Clowns

Drill Teams
Baby Dolls Drill Team
Emerald City Divas Drill Team
La Senoritas Saber Drill Team
Lil Senoritas Saber Drill Team
Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team

ArtsWest, planted proudly in the Alaska Junction of West Seattle, offers the Musical Theater Academy for those 8 to 12, the Conservatory Program for 12 to 16 year-olds, and the Apprenticeship Program for those 15 to 21. And the students seem to interact like one big functional family, perhaps because of the age disparity, not in spite of it.

The Apprenticeship actors are in rehearsals for The Rocky Horror Show Live, a stage production of Richard O'Brien's camp, cult classic movie musical Rocky Horror Picture Show, which, by the way, has played at the Admiral Theatre a few miles north on California Ave. the first Saturday of every month at midnight for the past decade. That movie was released in 1975 starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick. Since then, audiences still fill theater seats, dress outrageously, sing and recite the lines, and seem to work harder at it than the original cast.

Elsbeth Robinson passed away quietly in her sleep Saturday, July 2. She was the wife of Gerald S. Robinson, publisher of Robinson Newspapers in King County.

Born in Bochum, Germany, Elsbeth survived a war-torn era as a young woman. She is survived there by her sister-in-law Brigitta and her niece Sandra. After WW II, she met and married a G.I. and moved to the Seattle area.

She is the mother of three children, Carla Warsow, Linda McDaniel and Michael McDaniel (Barbara) from that marriage. They live in the Seattle area. In 1968 she married Gerald S. Robinson following the death of his wife, Lee. The combined family then numbered 10, with five boys added to the mix. They are Mike (Julie), Kenneth (Debbie), Timothy (Eileen), Patrick (Kim) and Scott (Mauria) Robinson, all of the Seattle area.

She was a devoted wife and Super-Mom to all the children, always thinking ahead and concerned about their well-being.

She loved to travel to Europe with her husband and friends. She was a meticulous homemaker and loved her cabin in Sequim and her home on Puget Sound.

West Seattle filmmaker Jamie Chamberlin who toured Europe with ZZ TOP in 2008 for his documentary Double Down Live on that band's double DVD of the same name, just returned from another European tour. This time he documented Seattle legend Duff McKagan and his band Loaded. Other band members include guitarist Mike Squires, drummer Isaac Carpenter, and bass player and West Seattle resident Jeff Rouse.

While Chamberlain has been filming Loaded around West Seattle and in L.A. which will contain 10 songs from their new releasee, The Taking, he joined them on their European tour June 1 to June 24 to document them, and to crew on a new reality TV show pilot called "King of the Roadies".

"It's like 'Deadliest Catch', but this is about guys who live behind the scenes of the rock tours with drama, personalities, guitar techs, pushing cases, moving stuff," said Chamberlin, with three new arm tattoos, two basic, thick crosses and a third, a more ornate cross, he grabbed in Lille, France to add to his muscle-bound menagerie.

Competitive eating made an appearance at the 2011 West Seattle Summer Fest on Saturday, July 9 as eight contestants took on the gastronomical feat of swallowing down as many veggie hot dogs as possible in five minutes.

Instead of using water, the traditional bun-wetting liquid of competitive eating, contestants were given a hearty Georgetown brew to help get ‘em down.

Owners and employees from establishments including West 5, Georgetown Brewing, Chaco Canyon Organic Café and Fresh Bistro, along with a few adventurous bystanders took part.

Rob Roy from the Fresh Bistro emerged victorious, stomaching seven dogs.

The quote of the competition came from a concerned bystander:

“Oh god, that guy’s gonna puke.”

Luckily, no one puked.

To kick off the slideshow, please click the photo above.

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDESHOW

JULY 12 Update:

Brownpapertickets is reporting today that $15,395 was raised at the benefit.

Hundreds of supporters, including friends and family of West Seattle-raised Amanda Knox gathered at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo Friday night for a benefit concert, silent auction, and to wish her a happy 24th birthday in absentia. Guests sang "Happy Birthday" and then her grandmother, Elizabeth Huff, who lives in Arbor Heights, blocks from where Knox was raised, cut the cake. This was her fourth birthday spent in jail as she was 20 (late edit) in November, 2007 when she became a suspect and was imprisoned in Capanne Prison in Italy for the murder of her college roommate, Meredith Kercher there.

The sentiment in the room was optimistic. If she wins her appeal she could be home before October, and celebrate her 25th birthday in Seattle.

Over ten thousand dollars were raised toward the end of the night, proceeds going to the Amanda Knox Defense Fund, but a total has not yet been calculated.

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDESHOW

The fabled Seafair Pirates landed at Alki Beach at 12:45 p.m. today, Saturday, to a crowd of thousands. This landing was unusual as the ship carried the pirates right up to dry land due to high tide. In years past, they would have to leap into the water and wade across to the beach in their cumbersome boots lifting supplies over their heads.

Mark "Keelhaul" Jensen is the PR director of the Alki Pirates and was monitoring the crowds along the beach for safety reasons. "We have a little surprise," he said. "It's a dry landing for the pirates, but for the free pirate toy kits we gave away squirt guns. It's going to be a wet landing anyway. It was 2003 I believe when the tide was high, but not this high."

Bruce Bentley is Vice-Commandant, 2011 Seafair Commodores,and has lived in West Seattle for 25 years. He chaired the Seattle Parks Commission for amost four years and is on Parks Oversight Committee.