The Gay Curmudgeon just called CHS out for not posting about Seattle’s Pride events.
It strikes me as odd that in the blog for what is arguably the gayest neighborhood in the 2nd gayest city in all of these United States that there are so few posts reflecting that diversity. It leads me to ask whether the Capitol Hill Seattle blog really reflects all of Capitol Hill, or just for the “Fancy Pants” part.
Now, now, GC — that wasn’t very neighborly to do. Why not just drop us a line or leave another comment? Anyhow, let’s go ahead and have this conversation in public for the benefit of all.
Top 5 Reasons CHS hasn’t posted about Seattle Pride:
- Every we time we’re about to click “Publish,” the Slog posts another update
- Commercial stretch is so short, parade would have to do 5 laps of 15th Ave
- Fear that Pride will add Blue Angels airshow to schedule
- Organizers rejected our suggestion to turn parade into soapbox derby down Aloha hill
- Gay and lesbian neighbors in our neck of woods — like other neighbors — focused solely on parenting, real estate
Also, a 6th and 7th reason.
Six, we don’t write about the whole of Capitol Hill. We write about our neighborhood and the occasional field trip. We’re hoping somebody eventually steps forward and creates a voice for Broadway — we’ve offered to help the guy writing for the PI’s CapHill blog start his own thing if he’s interested. If somebody else wants to step in and give it a rip, holler.
Seven, there are plenty of people writing about Pride. If we feel like we have something to add, we most certainly will.
–j/k
What??? Your blog is called “Capitol Hill” but you don’t cover all of Capitol Hill??? Then call yourself East Capitol Hill, or 15th Ave! Dumb dumb dumb. And arrogant too.
Boy, CHS is so popular that people want you to write more and more and more. This is sucess
Arrogant yuppies from Belltown/Queen Anne move to the Stevens neighborhood, and start a blog called Capitol Hill Seattle then only talk about things that happen east of 15th. The vast majority of people on Capitol Hill think of the area bordered by I-5, Volunteer park, 16th Ave., and Madison/Union St. as Capitol Hill proper. Broadway is the center of this area. The Stevens neighborhood, when thought of at all by residents of Capitol Hill proper, is usually thought of as part of Montlake…
The Pride parade for the last 20+ years has run the length of Broadway, ending in Volunteer Park. Not on 15th, although many years Dykes on Bikes has had a smaller event on 15th…
“Yuppies”, haha that’s so 1980. Calm it, if you don’t like what’s written here go read a different blog. Why the hate?
Humility is good. Arrogance, bad. Have to admit I forgot about Volunteer Park’s place in Pride history. As has been pointed out, we’re relatively new to the neighborhood.
Shouldn’t blogs be about something, not just about other blogs. (addressed to some of the commenters, not you K/J).
At the time, this seemed very silly to me.
Now I realize how prescient he was.
This blog has never claimed to cover all of Capitol Hill and therefore folks shouldn’t be disappointed when events/issues more closely linked to sections of Capitol Hill outside of 15th/19th don’t get covered fully.
J/K: You guys do a great job. I grew up on 20th by St. Joe’s and Holy Names and read your blog to keep in touch with the happenings in that part of the Hill since I moved to the other side. Keep up the good work!
It would be nice if the site name reflected its actual coverage area. It’s misleading to say the least, even if it’s sometimes mentioned.
And it also just seems polite that, given that the site’s name is taken from the city’s gayborhood, there would have been a link posted or something to recognize that craziness was happening that reflected a huge portion of CH denizens. The excuses seem a bit disingenuous.
Seriously, Anon @ 8:50a? Or are you just fucking with me? Come on. When people ask me where I live, I say “Capitol Hill.” I’m proud to live here. There really wasn’t anything around the Pride parade coverage for us to say — though the Volunteer Park angle is a good one. What I WOULD like to do is add a link to our sidebar to a blog (blogs?) that cover other areas of Capitol Hill but I’m not aware of anybody that (yet) does a good, consistent job of it. The Gay Curmudgeon is a good, angry writer. He could be a fun choice once he mellows out. Have a suggestion for something to link to to represent other parts of Capitol Hill? Leave a comment. In the meantime, we’ll link to the Slog until somebody steps up and has something to say.
*sigh*
“arrogant yuppies”?
“excuses”?
“coverage”?
“taken from the gayborhood”?
Funny – obviously “capitolhillseattle.com” was still available some time early last year.
Hmmmm…. all those “real” Capitol Hill folks who care SO much about how the “real” Capitol Hill is represented and “covered” on the web didn’t think to buy that domain and start the “real” Capitol Hill blog?
Yeah – that’s what I thought.
I guess since “capitolhillseattle.com” is taken, you’ll have to go with:
“The REAL Capitol Hill Blog About REAL Capitol Hill Denizens With MAJOR Capitol Hill Cred Who Live East of I-5, South of Volunteer Park, West of 16th Ave and North of Madison/Union and Who Are TOTALLY NOT Yuppies and Who Rarely, if EVER Think About the ‘Stevens’ Neighborhood (Which Should TOTALLY Really be Considered Part of Montlake and Should Totally NOT Have a Blog Called ‘Capitol Hill Seattle)’
.com
j & k, please ignore all those angry nutjobs talking about broadway. i’m so happy that you choose to cover the “backside of cap hill” where there is much more of a community and pleasant lifestyle. if someone wants to talk about broadway, they can start their own blog. i don’t even consider that the REAL part of cap hill. ours is the REAL hill, and i, for one am very glad you cover this area only. sigh, people need something to do with themselves…
j/k,
This is not about Pride specifically. Pride was just the starting point to consider in what degree the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, a blog whose name stakes out a lot of geographical and metaphorical ground, covers GLBT issues and all of Capitol Hill.
TGC: “It strikes me as odd that in the blog for what is arguably the gayest neighborhood in the 2nd gayest city in all of these United States that there are so few posts reflecting that diversity. It leads me to ask whether the Capitol Hill Seattle blog really reflects all of Capitol Hill, or just for the “Fancy Pants” part.”
CHS: “Now, now, GC — that wasn’t very neighborly to do. Why not just drop us a line or leave another comment? Anyhow, let’s go ahead and have this conversation in public for the benefit of all.”
Neighbors talking civilly about things they all care about is always neighborly. I’m not clear why a post on my own blog to start this conversation isn’t public or appropriate while a post on your blog is. Isn’t the joy of blogging on the web how easy it is for blogs to link to each other, as I did to you, and get a dialog going? Hey, I posted on my blog, you found it lickety-split and here we are. Eureka, it works!
While we are all channeling our inner Miss Manners, it’s good manners to make your complete response to an originating post in the comment thread of that post wherever possible. You would have taken a dim view of me if I’d made a content free post on your Blue Angels thread and instead directed people to my own blog for the actual response – as you have just done – and rightly so. Sauce for the goose, j & k…
I think the Top 5 lists are fun too, let me propose the “Top 5 Reasons why CHS hasn’t posted on GLBT issues”:
1. We thought GLBT was a sandwich order
2. GLBT isn’t our tribe and we don’t know anyone in that tribe living in this neighborhood
3. We thought all the dapper women and buff men were out-of-towners auditioning for a reality show
4. Typing GLBT is just too hard. Why isn’t it LGBT or TBLG or BLTG anyway?
5. We can’t post on GLBT issues unless the Blue Angels crash into an Coffee Klatch at Fuel for grieving GLBT Rainbow customers
Now, let’s to the heart of the question that I raised:
CHS: “Six, we don’t write about the whole of Capitol Hill. We write about our neighborhood and the occasional field trip. We’re hoping somebody eventually steps forward and creates a voice for Broadway — we’ve offered to help the guy writing for the PI’s CapHill blog start his own thing if he’s interested. If somebody else wants to step in and give it a rip, holler.”
My goal was to raise a serious question about the degree to which the “Capitol Hill Seattle” blog really represents all of Capitol Hill and the community living there. Now that we all understand that you are blogging just about “your neighborhood”, it would be useful for all of us to know what that neighborhood is. Is there a boundary that you consider your neighborhood that we should know about? Is it a named sub-neighborhood of Capitol Hill like North Capitol Hill or just a few blocks around where you live?
Understanding your actual scope vs. the expansive naming of your blog “Capitol Hill Seattle” is, I think, a legitimate question for a member of the Capitol Hill community to ask.
I’m very pleased to hear that you are so open to other voices and encourage their growth. If and when other bloggers step up to own their sub-neighborhoods on Capitol Hill, as you have, is your plan to relinquish the overbroad “Capitol Hill Seattle” moniker for one that is more accurately scoped to “your neighborhood”? Failing that, would you be open to adding these other sub-neighborhood bloggers under the “Capitol Hill Seattle” umbrella so that the voices could more accurately reflect the diversity of the whole Capitol Hill community?
Neighborhood blogs are an excellent community resource and I’m watching their growth with keen interest and excitement. For all you neighborhood blog junkies, take a look at outside.in a great way to view posts about your local neighborhood. CHS is already well represented there, but what other blog dealing with Capitol Hill neighborhood news and issues should appear there as well?
Thanks,
~GC
P.s. The presumption that I’m “angry” and that I’m “attacking” CHS is entirely misplaced as a neutral reading of the post on my blog will attest. I’m a CHS reader and a member of its community who is raising some legitimate questions on my own blog in a respectful, but hopefully thought provoking way. j/k set the rules on the CHS blog and commenters who aren’t interested in a constructive discussion on the issue may be better served by taking a deep breath and moving on.
my dear pisher who writes the CHS Blog-
in response to:
… “Top 5 Reasons why CHS hasn’t posted on GLBT issues”:
1. We thought GLBT was a sandwich order
2. GLBT isn’t our tribe and we don’t know anyone in that tribe living in this neighborhood
…
people of “that tribe” are living in the neighborhood, indeed on your block (which we have reference to by poking around on your blog and fumbled links).
maybe next time a topic which you dont care to address comes up, you could just say so. simple. i, for example, dont care to discuss the olympic sport of curling or the tv show “bevis and butthead”.
regards
Wow, such sarcasm…I posted a perfectly reasonable, unemotional comment and you post back…a verbal hissy fit? I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time and it’s always struck me as odd that your blog is titled ‘Capitol Hill’ but is tied to a very small, specific area. I think it’s pretty reasonable to question that. Really, pointing that out…it makes you react like that? Wow.
Also, as I said, it would have been neighborly to at least have pointed out the drama with a link or something. Nobody’s condemning you, it’s just a bit weird. I read this blog, seattlest, and seattle metroblog at work since they’re pretty consistently SFW and it was only by chance that I discovered for myself what was happening. The Slog coverage alone could have kept me happily occupied at work for hours.
I don’t know, this all seems…really overly melodramatic. Why such the strong reaction? I dunno, maybe you’re frustrated because people are critiquing your baby? But it’s an interactive community, it’s just how it is.
Yes, perfectly reasonable and unemotional. We posted about the various neighborhoods of Capitol Hill a few months ago. I’ve added a link to the top of every page — look for the CHS Neighborhood Map link. Hope this clears things up for you.