Blog

All That Glitters West Coast Tour – Part 4

Charlie

We pick this adventure back up on Thursday, October 21, 2010, which started out as a gigantic Seattle cliche: cloudy with a chance of rain. But perhaps it was meeting and working with the infamous Waxie Moon and his cat Charlie that helped to break the clouds and allowed the sun to move in. In case you didn’t know, there was a documentary made about Waxie Moon, details of which can be found here. It’s thought-provoking and entertaining and I highly recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

After watching Waxie balance on one knee on a bar stool while wearing a dress I took his advice and stopped in next door for some hot chocolate. Don’t worry, I totally took pictures of the whole balancing on one knee on a bar stool in a dress thing. With hot chocolate in hand I visited what is known in Seattle as the “poor man’s Space Needle” in Volunteer Park. You see, I’m funding this whole project on my own, so the budget is limited. Given that reality, spending $18 to visit the top of the real Space Needle just isn’t on the list of things to do. So I was happy to hear that there was a somewhat similar alternative that was available to the public free of charge. The poor man’s Space Needle is a very large water tower with stairs on the inside leading up to the top. It was pretty nifty and provided a good view of the city. One day I’ll get back there to go up the actual Space Needle, and that will be a day when I have a vacation budget saved up.

Waxie Moon

The afternoon was a whirlwind of lunch at a Mediterranean cafe, homemade ice cream at Molly Moon’s, which is an ice cream shop, so really that makes it store made ice cream. Regardless, it was ice cream and it was delicious and it tasted like someone made it at home. Then I drove down to the real Space Needle and walked around a bit looking like a tourist while I craned my neck to look skyward and take some touristy photos. The Experience Music Project just so happens to be next door to the Needle, but again…no funds, no go. Next time!

At this point I was exhausted and I still had a burlesque show to attend later that night! So I skedaddled back to my room for a much needed power nap. Refreshed and a little bit more awake I grabbed yet another piece of pizza at Big Mario’s on the way to Club Motor where Burning Hearts Burlesque would be lighting up the stage.

RJB Photo

A few years back I was quite active on a blogging site called LiveJournal. (If you have a LiveJournal account, click here and add this blog as a syndicated feed to your friends list over there.) One of the connections and good friends I made there is a photographer by the name of RJB Photo. He’s not active there these days, but you can find him on Twitter here. RJB, aka Rob, is a very talented, creative and prolific pinup and burlesque photographer in Seattle and was scheduled to photograph the burlesque show that night. After years of interacting with Rob online I finally got to meet him in person. What a treat it was! Rob is one of the nicest and most upbeat guys I’ve ever met. He’s friendly, outgoing, supportive and great to hang around. I really enjoyed meeting him in person. Follow him on Facebook here.

Believe it or not, despite traveling all the way across the United States, this was the first time I saw a burlesque show on the road. Most people are shocked to hear this, but there is a specific rationale behind it. The All That Glitters portrait and interview sessions take around two hours, not including the time the performer spends putting on makeup, doing their hair and getting into costume. It’s a significant time commitment. And when a burlesque performer has a show, their energy and attention is usually focused on the show. So I stand the best chance to get the performer’s full attention for the portrait and interview when they don’t have a show while I’m in town to work with them. But when visiting a city like Seattle where there is a burlesque show happening every night of the week, I stood a pretty good chance of getting to see a show for once. And it was a fun show with a Halloween theme.