Ballard

Zombie Pharmacy by Akira Ohiso

The retail space on Market Street, which the former Bartells occupied for years, will become a Planet Fitness. The area around the former drugstore was deactivated as fewer people used the parking garage and connecting walkthrough to shopping. A vacancy signals that dead security cams will monitor the space. Corporate is not watching when the merch is gone.

It seems this pharmacy will not zombify with its giant, unrentable space for small businesses. The Target space across 15th is still vacant but protected from zombification because it's in a lobby office building. CVS across the Market would zombify if it closed. The old FedEx space, which is a few blocks up, has turned.

The roar of fighter jets above the clouds is practice for Seafair, or one of our many enemies attacking us. I walk with Ellie to the FedEx in Ballard Blocks. We take 11th Ave NW and cross at Market Street instead of 14th because we don't want to walk by people shooting up in their legs or wherever they have a usable vein.

Primary Day is Tuesday, and many moderate candidates are running on public safety and homelessness issues. Near the Blocks, posters on poles say, “Violence happened here,” in response to sweeps along 14th. Requiring people to move while providing resources and emergency housing is not “violence.” It’s an imperfect choice, but one that is working to support people towards long-term safety and stability, one slow case at a time.

The King County Coroner’s office has a public daily decedent list. Each day, it is noticeable how many deaths are drug-related. The fentanyl and drug epidemic is part of the problem. Addiction recovery takes many starts and stops and ongoing support, not one-off grants and interventions. You could make the argument that doing nothing is “violence” or more accurately “civic neglect.”

After FedEx, we eat lunch at Trail Bend, a local taproom and eatery. August days seem to keep people inside, and the industrial zone has fewer trees, so walking here is uncomfortable. We walk full-block stretches of cement buildings and razor wire perimeters protecting heavy equipment and stacks of wood pallets.

As we pass Urban Family and Stoup, more people are ordering from food trucks and sitting under pandemic-era outdoor seating.

We notice new parents trying to fit their newborn into a lifestyle that has passed but don't know it yet. Ellie and I talk about our kids growing older and the grief we feel. It took some time and denial, but we are starting to accept the transition of our family dynamic.

When our oldest is at college, our younger kids will also feel the change.

On an empty side street, a drug-addled man folds in half and clambers without a destination. Another man sleeps on a strip of grass roasting in the sun. His belongings scattered around him: crinkled dollar bills, a lighter, loose change, an Arizona iced tea can, an unknown piece of greasy machinery, and 7-11 nachos.

Crows hover and snatch nachos on the periphery of the wheezing, sun-burned human.

Behind Ballard Market, a couch cushion is next to a halved watermelon. A security guard walks around the store, locked and loaded, but talks to someone familiar on his cell phone with domesticated nonchalance.

38,703.27USD

-1,033.99(2.60%)🔽

Summer Jeremiad by Akira Ohiso

Saturday summer nights are noisy. Sirens blare through intersections and echo off buildings along Market Street. Water response, fire, life-saving measures.

Last night a man yelled, “Get the fuck off my block.” Another man with feigned machismo responded, “I’m standing right here.”

Silence followed. New encampments on Market and the 14th Ave NW corridor seem to connect to late-night activity. After eight years in Seattle, the unhoused issues are acute.

My son says matter-of-factly, “Did you hear Trump was shot?” His rhetorical question is just more content temporarily streamed before his eyes. He follows with, “What’s for lunch?”

Local over global is a better coping skill these days.

In mid-afternoon, we drive to a strip mall in Northgate to get old-school ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I'm just sick of the bougie shops selling vegan and organic flavors when all I want is a soft-serve cone with sprinkles. Nothing says ice cream like goat cheese, lavender, and black charcoal.

Growing up on Long Island, I miss walking to the bottom of my block to Carvel. It was a drive-up Carvel built in the 1950s to cater to the burgeoning car culture as families moved from urban New York to the suburbs of Long Island.

It was a magical childhood experience to look up at a giant cone and the neon scripted sign: C A R V EL. Hand-painted signs of sundaes hung from the large pane windows. Staff, primarily high school kids, would slide open a window to take your order. On hot summer days, you could feel the air conditioning escape briefly before they slid the window closed to swirl a cone and then dip it in sprinkles.

I ordered a Cherry Bonnet or a Butterscotch Sundae. On the walk home, I preoccupied myself with licking the melting ice cream before it reached my hand. My younger sister needed parental intervention to manage rivulets across her knuckles and wrists.

In 1983, The Beastie Boys released “Cookie Puss,” a rap ode to the Carvel ice cream cake. The song featured recorded crank calls to Carvel in a pre-digital era when a phone call could not be traced. Eventually, the *69 feature was available by the phone company for a fee, and you could call back the crank caller with gleeful revenge. Today, we dox someone.

I find solace in print media.

40,954.48USD

+742.76(1.85%) 🔼

Vantana Row on 14th by Akira Ohiso

I spotted the Vantana Row touring van parked on 14th Ave. NW behind Ballard Market (Town & Country) this morning. I will never call it Town & Country because it’s deeply wired in my 54-year old noggin and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Plus, a rebrand is always a sell out. 🤘

They played a show on Sunday, June 30th, at Add-A-Ball in Fremont, along with Fresh Produce, Fuuls, and I’ve Never Been Here Before. Their music sounds like a drum set fell out of the back of the van, along with the love child of Stormtroopers of Death and Big Stick, in a good way.

According to SF Weekly, the van is their home/studio/concert venue, and they are known to play inside and broadcast the show on live TV for passersby. It was before noon when I snapped this pic, so my guess is they were sleeping.

“People Have Cats” is dope. I have two. 🐈‍⬛🐈

🌻⛴️🔫 by Akira Ohiso

We attended the annual Edible Garden Tour in Loyal Heights, where residents open their yards for a day. We sign in at the Loyal Heights Community Center and receive a map. My favorite garden was not lush or well-tended but an overgrown patch planted in a defunct driveway.

On Sunday, we go to a wedding near Kingston, WA. We take the ferry from Edmonds. I sit and watch the dark green water, jade in the crest, and nebulous islands in the offing. The slate-colored horizontal slivers of land remind me of Clyfford Still paintings.

In Kingston, we kill time walking on NE State Highway 104, where tourists buy ice cream, coffee, and seaside bric-a-brac. A property management company caters to seasonal homeowners. Idle traffic waits for the next ferry off the island. A ferry worker brusquely directs confused but frustrated drivers to the back of the line.

Once outside the shopping district, we pass wavy open fields, sylvan patches, and clustered split levels with Home Depot deck furniture and aluminum siding.

The wedding is on a dirt road, and we park in a grass field. A lavender field is meticulously manicured, leading to a gazebo for wedding photos that are already dated. The grounds have a ranch-style house and event area. Guests arrive and are directed to a pond and the bottom of a hill where the ceremony will occur. Staff tests music, mics, and speakers and chills the whites and cucumber water.

The wedding is interfaith with a mix of Jewish and Christian traditions. When we talk to a Jewish attendee, sadly, she poses the question, “Jewish star in or out?”

***

Weed Woman was hacking away in the herbaceous borders of a Ballard Craftsmen when she heard the clang of metal. She picked up a gold-colored object that turned out to be an unused bullet. The headstamp of the bullet said S & B, 23, 9 x 19. “S & B” stands for Sellier & Bellot, a firearms manufacturer in the Czech Republic. “23” could reference the year it was produced or the production factory location. On a list of headstamp codes, 23 is listed as:

Unknown Factory, Hungary, Probably now associated with Magyar Löszergyártó Kft., Mátravidéki Fémmüvek, H-332 Sirok, Hungary

“9 x 19” is a 9mm bullet for Glock-style pistols.

Sunday at Fred Meyer by Akira Ohiso

A local non-profit asks for money and supplies. I decline in a time of decline. Most carts have a frozen wheel jammed with detritus or a freewheeling wheel spinning in the ether like an ADHD kindergartner. I grab a smaller cart - portion size- to limit the spending.

A song and dance of advertising greets us as we enter the turnstile security gates - cardboard displays of the current holiday. “Good morning,” says a caffeine-saturated employee. I say, “Mornin’” sheepishly like I’m in a Scope commercial.

We get essentials and lunch comestibles for the kids. Workers stock shelves, pushing U-boats through swinging doors. Lots of bedhead and flip-flops on Sunday morning.

REDUCED stickers on expiring poultry. SALE end cap hocks cinnamon swirls with nacreous icing. CMYK glitch on the packaging has me thinking it's a cheap outfit pumping pastries out in an unmarked warehouse. Boxes read ICING, CINNAMON, BUN MIXTURE.

If you look at the ceiling, you realize the vastness of the store: endless industrial lighting and security cameras. When humans can't go outside anymore, I imagine a world of spaces like this with connecting tunnels and skywalks. Perhaps Vegas.

BIPOC Door Dash workers clog checkout lines.

“Sorry, I’m in your personal space,” I say to an older man in front of me as I start loading items behind the checkout divider on the sliver of conveyor belt.

“No problem. I'm a retired fisherman, and I'm used to being in close quarters,” he says.

“Well, I think we need more people in close quarters these days.”

“You’re right.”

The cashier talks to us about a Baywatch reboot sans Hasselhoff. The bagger went to take a shit so I bag. An armed security guard in a bulletproof vest ✔️ receipts with a ballpoint pen.

The digital lottery machine accepts credit cards.

Unabashed America.

Market Off Market by Akira Ohiso

Anker Ballard Flats has a new business coming into their ground-floor retail space. A new sign says, Market Off Market. I have not found any additional information about this business. Is it another brewery, a mini grocery store (15-minute neighborhood energy), a restaurant, or something else? There is a new retirement community across the street, which might support a local milk-and-eggs market.

The location is also across from Gilman Playground, a community gathering space for dog lovers (illegal), sports leagues, families with young kids, summer camps, high school kids smoking doobies on the bleachers, and pickleball enthusiasts. A general store would do steady business.

by Akira Ohiso

Someone unscrewed our neighbor's ∩ bike rack and stole their electric bike. The rack was found a few houses down. Ring cams are everywhere, but thieves know nothing will happen like coddled college protestors. The revolution will not be televised, but criminal activity will.

My ring cam mostly captures circadian domesticity, which is not engaging content for the app. 👍💬 Viewing shared footage of trespassing, vandalism, and theft might make us believe the community lacks civility.

Negative filtering is not only a cognitive distortion but a media distortion.

Some of the best moments of my day are the serendipitous greetings and short conversations with strangers I encounter. I learn so much about the community from these brief interactions. Conversations are often less defended, less performative, and more honest.

***

The fledgling Japanese Maple has grown. It started as a small rooted twig near the next-door plot where a house and trees once stood. Maple tree samaras travel by wind and propagate in other locations. Ellie pulled the twig and transplanted it to an area where it could thrive best.

The lot is fenced with discarded cinder blocks from an old foundation. When it rains, a declination and hollow collects water and looks like a tiny pond. Crows drink and forage during the day, then leave for the night to wooded areas to roost.

Sometimes, we find tin foil pieces in the same area outside our front door. According to the Audubon Society, “Curious crows will often fly off with an object, then lose interest and leave it behind. If the crow happened to leave an object where humans put out food, those humans might get excited and lay out even more food”.

Crows are food-motivated and intelligent, so the “gifts” are learned behavior that helps them obtain more food.

***

UPDATE: A Seattle Police officer knocked on my door; he found the neighbor's bike. Our neighbor was unavailable, so they told the police to drop it with me if the bike was found. While the culprit dropped the bike and ran, justice was served.. A big “thank you” to the Seattle Police Officer.

A Succession of Weeds by Akira Ohiso

The Safeway vestibule that is no longer accessed accumulates human filth. An armed security guard walks the perimeter, moving people: two men dissectings a bike, sleepy people slumped in a car, and a tweaker performing a monologue - Shakespeare in the parking lot.

The planting strips are bare. Plants that once filled a corporate landscape plan have since died because no one has been paying attention. The green scheme is just an ornament to drive profits without integration into the community. It’s a one-off project that can be ignored. I don’t see a gardening crew on retainer.

The strips are dumping areas for SDOT construction signs, dog pee, packaging and wrappers blown by cars, and discarded memoirs of unwell minds.

And yet, I see this bare patch -in contrast to cement and asphalt- as ugly when it should be the other way around. I’ve taken the well-manicured position instead of nature’s fighting against the death blanket of cement and asphalt. So let ugly dirt be and let nature have its course without human intervention - a succession of weeds.