360Digest

We in real estate love the Open House and the Street of Dreams-type tours builders and developers sponsor every year. The Ballet or the Opera might do a designer showcase house for charity, or the local historical society may offer a tour of an architecturally significant property.

That’s fine for some, but nothing can compare with the annual “Home Bar Tour” put on by Terrence Gunn every year here in Seattle.

You pay your money and you get your ticket to the best two-day home tour and excuse for a party on wheels, and this time our “Dead Elvis Lounge” at our house on Capitol Hill is the first stop.

Here’s this years itinerary:

Friday, July 20th:
The first day of the event will take place at Pete’s Monkey Skull Voodoo Lounge (one of Seattle’s best — if not THE BEST — home bars). Check in/meet and greet will be from 5pm-7pm. During this time ticket reservationists will check in, receive their ticket and Aloha bag. DJ Terence Gunn will be playing Lounge, Exotica, Calypso, Hawaiian, Surf, Pop Jazz, and Latin throughout the evening. Complimentary appetizers and tropical libations will be available. At 7pm a backyard BBQ will take place, will plenty of food and drink for all. Round 8pm-ish Seattle’s own Atomic Powered Surf band, The Mercury Four, will break the musical waves. A raffle will take place round 9pm, followed by more live and DJed music. Please note: there may be a vendor or two at the event, but there will be no vendor’s section this year.

Saturday, July 21st:
The following day, beginning at 5pm and going until 11pm, will be a six-hour chartered tour of 4 Seattle-area home bars. Complimentary drinks and food will be provided at each stop. The meet up, departure and return location for bus boarding will be in (undisclosed location unless you buy a ticket!) Look for a large orange-yellow school bus and a gathering crowd of folks in Aloha shirts. Meetup time at Lincoln Park will be between 4.30pm and 4.45pm. The bus will depart at 5pm. Bring your ticket/boarding pass with you (provided in your Aloha bag the previous day). Please allow ample travel time to the Park so you will make the bus on time.

The Tour
Stop #1. The Dead Elvis Lounge (at my house!)
Stop #2. The Atomic Lounge/Cabana Bar
Stop #3. Fantasy Island
Stop #4. The Shrunken Head Lounge

This is the best party on wheels by far. And beats them dry Sunday Open House tours, hands down…….

Tickets: TerrenceGunn@Yahoo.com

Photos from the 2006 Home Bar Tour of the Monkey Skull Lounge

The Riviera Room

The Zanzibar

The Castaway Lounge

Andrei Codrescu, that is.

Mr. Codrescu is in town this week for a series of lectures and events and my husband and I hosted a party at our home for him last night.

Also in attendance was Anderew Miksys, photographer of exquisite photographs of a Lithuanian Gypsy community in BAXT, with text by Andrei Codrescu.

Tonight you can attend a lecture by Andrei Codescru speaking at Town Hall

And Friday night will be a fun evening of debauchery a la Codrescu at the Center on Contemporary Art, in the shadow of the Space Needle:

Writer, poet and bon vivant extraordinaire Andrei Codrescu brings his worldy wit and wisdom to Seattle as he talks on “States of Memoir, or How to Reconnect Old Brains to New Ones in Several Languages.”

Friday January 26, 7:30pm: THE BAXT PHOTOGRAPHS at CoCA
Acclaimed photographer Andrew Miksys, with the assistance of Andrei Codrescu, presents his intimate portraits of a Lithuanian Gypsy community. Book signing to follow. FREE and open to the public.

Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA)
410 Dexter Avenue N.

Friday January 26, 9pm: CODRESCU & FRIENDS at CoCA

Get ready for an evening of belly dancing, burlesque, poetry and debauchery at CoCA. Joining Andrei Codrescu will be the musical group Orchestra L’Pow, the belly dancing troupe Hipnotica, and burlesque dancer extraordinaire Babette La Fave. David Rauschenberg will provide all the DJ action, with Rick Klu as the evening’s emcee.

My good friend Cecilie Miller is putting on this shindig, and it should be a hoot. Gypsy wear encouraged, or at least a bangled bracelet or two.