Dear Logger: Maybe Patty Lent Will Enlist Goats to Run the Bremerton Foot Ferry

All illustrations by Jessica Randklev.

Dear Logger: After your surprise return from a five-year bender, I’ve reluctantly kept an eye on the news coming out of your zip code. I must say, the city has come a long way in half a decade. For example, I recently noticed the headline: “Bremerton may enlist goats in battle against waterfront rats.” Naturally, I thought this would be a story about a kerfuffle between the city and boaters in the Bremerton Marina. Then I remembered that there are no boaters in the Bremerton Marina.

Nope, turns out that Bremerton’s city council is poised to employ goats against the rats in the blackberry bushes near those fancy new condos downtown. Councilman Jerry McDonald is proposing the city rent goats to mow through the bushes and expose the rats to predators. Says McDonald: “Goats eat everything, clear the end, and then we don’t have anything else to worry about.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice if all Bremerton had to do was release a few goats into the city so that you wouldn’t have “anything else to worry about”? If all it would take to rid Bremerton of its vermin were a few goats, I think the city would have been cleaned up — and the taxpayers spared a pretty penny — a decade ago. But that’s almost beside the point. Maybe the councilman is onto something. Maybe goats could be employed to assist the city elsewhere — they’re about as competent as the creatures running your town.

Heck, maybe Patty Lent could hire a team of goats to operate a passenger-only ferry between Bremerton and Seattle during the next football season? She could use all the help she can get. Lent’s call to run the foot ferry to the final two Seahawks home games was about as successful a call as throwing to the end zone from the 1. Come to think of it: Once the goats are done with Bremerton, perhaps they can help the Hawks in the Red Zone.

Reluctantly yours,

— Winslow

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Dear Logger: Congratulations, You Found a Way to Get New People to Bremerton: F*&^ing

All illustrations by Jessica Randklev.

Dear Logger: I’m sorry to hear fate dropped you back where you belong. But, if we’re being honest, you must have seen it coming. Now, let me breakdown my response in the listicle fashion that is the only way you people know how to communicate:

1. I knew things were bad in Bremerton, but only in Bremerton is word that the EPA has listed your neighborhood a superfund site filed in the good news bin. But, to your point, I’m glad Bremerton has found another federal agency to dump money into it. Now that Norm has left congress and taken his pork with him (he hasn’t been far from cured meats in three decades), and no private money is making a go of it in town, you’ll be looking for plenty more opportunities. Wait, I guess you’re right: Jara has found a way to lure Bremertonians back to the mothership: booze. Real shocker there. Bremerton needs another place to tip a glass about as much as it needs another above-ground artificial reef. Oh, well. Give the people what they want, I guess.

2. I don’t see how you label what’s going on in your town as “progress.” Far as I can tell, it’s more or less same-o-same-o. For example, I looked up that new bank you spoke so enthusiastically about and found this headline: “Kitsap Bank’s new building could be seed for Wheaton Way revitalization.” What year is this? Still beating the “revitalization” drum? Let’s be clear: “revitalization” is Bremerton’s “shovel ready.” If Cary Bozeman taught us anything, it’s that if a Starbucks with a tunnel can’t revitalize a town, a new branch of a regional bank ain’t gonna do it.

3. And I really don’t think I should have to say anything here at all, but I’m glad you finally figured out a way to grown Bremerton’s population: f*&^%ing. I’d congratulate you, but, no, I don’t think I will. You’ve decided to bring a child up in a town where the preferred topic of conversation among parents is “how to we get our children out of the Bremerton school district?” My advice to you is to, as the kids say in Portland: put a bag on it.

Reluctantly yours,

— Winslow

 

Dear Old Man Winslow: Bremerton’s Back! New Bank! New Starbucks! New McDonald’s!

All illustrations by Jessica Randklev.

Dear Old Man Winslow: I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. I guess I don’t have any good excuse. I mean, I did leave Bremerton for a few years, and kept myself busy doing “city” things and making babies. But now I’m back.

When was the last time you were in Bremerton? You’d be amazed at all the progress: the streets are narrower, there’s a movie theater, and Carlos Jara, a 2009 mayoral candidate, put in a great new bar called the Toro Lounge. And I haven’t even gotten to East Bremerton yet! There’s a new McDonald’s, a new Starbucks and a shiny new Kitsap Bank!

Oh, and, you remember that polluted strip of land at the end of my street? Good news! The EPA finally named it a superfund site, which means there’s going to be all kinds of money to clean it up. It’s all looking up over here.

Hope you’re well. Type at me soon.

— The Bremelogger

 

A Note From the Editor

Yeah, so about this blog …

 

Thanks For Coming!

I know, I know, it’s been a week … we’ve been recovering from the debate and that incredible set from Finn Riggins. Thanks to all of you who came, who asked questions, who drank beer, who ran for office, who played music, and whatever else was going on at the Hi-Fi last week. Let’s do it again, folks. Hey, look, you can re-live the whole thing thanks to KitsapSun.com.

 

Tonight! Bremelog.com’s Presents a Debate Between the Two Candidates For Mayor, and a Set From Finn Riggins at the Hi-Fidelity Lounge

See you all at 7 p.m.(ish)!

 

Dear Old Man Winslow: Does Jay Inslee Have to Be Such a Pantywaist?

All illustrations by Jessica Randklev.

Dear Old Man Winslow: How are things at, what’s that cash-only, obnoxious joint called?  Blackbird Coffee? I trust the apple pie is particularly sweet and the mood is perky and smug. Did you happen to see Joel Connelly’s column over at SeattlePi.com, today? Turns out your U.S. Rep, Jay Inslee, played Pres. Nobelma in a game of hoops. At first, Inslee sounds like he brought a pair: “We were runnin’ and gunnin’, crashing up and down: It wasn’t gentlemanly. We did what we had to do,” he tells Connelly.

It sounds like Inslee’s fighting Obama at the hoop here, doesn’t it? Kind of like how he’s fighting for y’all, right? Then things get reveling. Toward the end of the piece it is revealed that Inslee, claiming to have guarded the chosen one a little too closely, called a foul on himself. ON HIMSELF! You must be kidding me. Is that how he’s going to stick up for your Island in the face of pressure from the administration? That’s worse than Seattle nice. That’s Bainbridge wuss. Congratulations, Winslow, you’ve got a fighter in your corner.

— The Bremelogger

 

Bremerton Patriot Throws Some Love in the Bremelogger’s Direction, (Thankfully) Snubs Old Man Winslow

Local music and arts taddle tale Bill Mickelson is spread the word about our upcoming mayoral debate/show/cocktail hour, Wednesday, at the Hi-Fi. In this week’s North Kitsap Herald, Mickelson writes that Bremelog.com has arranged “an intrinsically Bremertonian, quasi-revolutionary mayoral forum.”

Obviously, this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about us. It’s glad to know that 20 dollars as far as they used to.

In a separate article, Mickelson gets to the bottom of the “Why the Crap is Moen?” question, detailing the write-in candidate’s run for mayor. Here’s Mike Moen’s campaign site.

Thanks, Bill. Your check is in the mail.

 

Dear Washington State Ferries: Are You Going to Wipe Bainbridge Island’s Ass, Too?

All illustrations by Jessica Randklev.

No, WSF, that wasn’t a rhetorical question. I’m actually curious to know when you’re going to bend down, and pull off a square of that industrial pulp you pass off as TP and clean some Bainbridge ass.

Back in the day it was your run- of-the-mill, garden variety ass kissing. When Bremerton’s high-speed ferries were disturbing the shores of millionaire Islanders, Bremerton lost the boats. When a ferry on the Bainbridge run goes down, you take a boat from Bremerton and patch up the Bainbridge run, and let the Bremerton riders deal with the consequences.

When you buy a ticket at Seattle’s Coleman Dock you have a choice of going through turnstile A or turnstile B. Through turnstile A you have passengers headed for Bainbridge Island who have the ear and good graces of Washington State ferries, a 30-minute ride aboard the newest boats in the fleet, boats that have NEVER run between Seattle and Bremerton.

The customers who go through turnstile, B, to Bremerton live with the fact that if they want to leave Seattle after 10:30 p.m. they have to wait until almost 1 a.m., they’re used to finding alternate modes of transportation to get to work because one of their boats has gone down. And after a particularly nasty week, recently, at least one Bremerton commuter decided he’d throw in the towel, and would move back to Seattle.

So, I guess it is only natural that when you decided provide live music to one of your routes, you would pick the route with the ass you’re most accustomed to kissing. Live music on the Bainbridge run every Saturday through December? Are you serious?

Let me propose an alternative: Instead of throwing a bone to Nordstrom set catching a joy ride into the city on the weekend, why don’t you set up some live music for the men and women on the 5:30 p.m. boat back to Bremerton on a Friday. Bring a couple of guitars into the cafeteria and you’ll find an exhausted, forcefully patient group of individuals who deserve more than a thank you from the WSF brass for all the missed boats, hard landings, and erratic service you’ve dished out.

Instead, you’re doing more for … Bainbridge? Why?

— The Bremelogger

 

Our Favorite Piece of Art at First Friday’s Art Walk, Courtesy of Mary Doyle

Mary Doyle shares a studio with her squeeze, Bub Pratt, in the basement of the Amy Burnett Gallery, 296 Fourth Street.