Awesome day of Music and Mayhem!

Space Needle of DOOOOM!
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We awoke to the sun blazing through the windows of the van, and the severity of the heat was saying, "You fools! You have overslept -- do you think you will get any pancakes today? HA!" The sun can be a real jerk sometimes.

The architecture of the EMP is supposedly “controversial,” though we couldn’t quite figure out why.

Well-rested (tho admittedly hungry), we were ready to rock and so hopped in the trusty old minivan and headed toward Seattle’s City Center and the Experience Music Project, Seattle's interactive music museum. On the way, we walked through a lovely park that was dotted with cool sculptures and people hanging out, and we also saw the famous Space Needle, which reminds me of the aliens in War of Worlds. The Space Needle is definitely a unique structure which people can apparently ascend for a great view of the city – but, being terrified of elevators and heights, I chose to enjoy it from the ground.

Michael is not afraid of the Space Needle. He is a fool.
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The architecture of the EMP is supposedly “controversial,” though we couldn’t quite figure out why. The building is weird, yes, but controversial? I thought maybe it was shaped like a giant, guitar-strumming penis or something, but no. It’s just kind of lumpy looking. Anyway, it’s conjoined with the Science Fiction Museum, which our friend Jeff, a big sci-fi freak, would’ve loved, but we decided we’d rather spend all our time checking out the music.

We spent about 6 hours at the EMP (read the review for details) and had a fantastic time. I most enjoyed playing drums in the Sound Lab – I totally sucked at it, but that’s OK, the guitar’s my thing. Oh yes, and the Jimi Hendrix exhibit was quite enjoyable as well, especially seeing remnants of the guitar he smashed and lit on fire during that famous performance you see in every movie about the 60’s.

The lovely park
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After we had our fill of rock n roll, we went in search for more Seattle Coffee. We tooled around the City Centre for quite some time, and could only find chain shops, so we whipped out our city map and decided to venture into other areas. Capital Hill looked promising – or, at least sounded cool – so we headed over there and immediately found a nice little coffee shop called Café Vita where we met a waitress who seemed filled with rage at the appalling question, “how late are you open?” We hung out here for a bit, Googling for nightlife possibilities and sipping yummy lattes. We came upon a place called The Wild Rose, a lesbian bar that was apparently right down the street.

The "controversial" architecture of the EMP!
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The Wild Rose is the best lesbian bar ever, and definitely one of the best bars in general. The atmosphere was way laid back, and we quickly met a group of cool ladies with whom we chit-chatted for quite some time while watching them play pool. We did some drinking, tossed some money in the juke box, and had a great night of drunken silliness and fun—so great, in fact, that we would come back to the Wild Rose two more times before our trip was through! (Hey, good lesbian bars are hard to come by – at least in San Francisco!)