Crocodile Cafe, ‘living room’ of grunge, closes
SEATTLE — The Crocodile Cafe, a dingy nightclub that became a second home for Seattle musicians during grunge rock’s heyday, has closed, its booking agent said Monday.
Eli Anderson wrote on the Web site of the weekly newspaper The Stranger that the club’s owner, Stephanie Dorgan, broke the news in a voice mail message over the weekend.
The announcement sent pangs of panic and nostalgia through the local music scene. Many of Seattle’s most famous bands — Nirvana, Mudhoney, Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie — played there, and musicians lauded its sound quality, its intimacy and even its food.
“It was the living room of the Seattle music scene,” music writer Charles Cross said. “You would see Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love hanging out there. It was the place that people in the music scene went.”
Details were scant Monday about the future of the building in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, which has been booming with upscale condominium construction in recent years.
Olympia: Gregoire urges housing help
Gov. Chris Gregoire and top legislative leaders are proposing a $50 million increase in the state’s Housing Trust Fund, with an eye to helping flooded areas and low-income people.
The governor is asking for a major new expansion of the housing program, with up to $10 million earmarked for low-income housing in areas hit hardest by recent flooding. The plan also includes money for short-term loans to buy property for low-income housing.
Gregoire also wants $6 million to expand the Washington Families Fund, which works to find affordable housing for homeless families.
Olympia decorates with LED lights
The Christmas lights in downtown Olympia are blue — and green. Crews hung 445 strings of new, blue energy-saving LED holiday lights along 118 downtown trees.
It’s the first year for the cool-burning lights that use less energy than incandescent bulbs.
The Olympia Downtown Association paid for the lights that are more expensive but should pay for themselves in electricity savings over 20 years.
Tacoma: U.S. attorney picked for Iraq job
An assistant U.S. attorney whose day job is defending federal hospitals from medical malpractice claims will soon find himself in a very different role: heading the Justice Department’s operations in Iraq.
Phil Lynch, 56, has been appointed to a one-year stint as “rule of law coordinator” in Baghdad, meaning he will oversee efforts to advise judges, lawyers and police in Iraq’s nascent, overwhelmed legal system. It’s a tall order in a country where judges and their families live behind 12-foot blast walls and thousands of detainees are held without charges.
“We in the United States know if someone’s arrested, they’re going to go in front of a judge who’s going to make a decision about whether they should stay incarcerated,” Lynch said. “Iraqis don’t have that tradition. … When the population of Iraq understands that the judges will follow the law and apply it equally to everyone, we believe that will have a tremendous impact on ending the insurgency.”
Skier falls to death near Mount Baker
The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office says 59-year-old Robert K. Lee of Glacier apparently fell off a cliff near the Mount Baker ski area.
His body was found Friday by the ski patrol and he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Sgt. Doug Chadwick says footprints in the snow indicated Chadwick was alone and looking for his skis when he fell.
The site is separated from the ski area by two rope barriers and warning signs about the cliff.
Hoquiam: Storm’s windfall boon to mill
The howling storms that knocked out power along the Washington and northern Oregon coasts also brought a windfall, you might say, to Grays Harbor Paper LP.
Cleanup since the storms hit at the start of the month has yielded a bumper crop of blown-down trees and tree limbs to burn as “hog fuel” to produce steam for generating electricity at the mill in Hoquiam, company president Bill Quigg says.
Grays Harbor Paper has had a three-megawatt generator for years, and its recently upgraded 6.5-megawatt generator uses sawdust, cleaner shavings, trim, bark and just about anything else that can burn.
Bremerton: Baby removed from mother
An 8-month-old boy has been removed from his mother after being left naked in a restroom. Police say the 20-year-old woman was shooting pool.
Police say another woman found the boy in the Bremerton Lanes bowling alley restroom Friday night. She waited more than half an hour for the mother to return, then called 911 to report an abandoned baby.
Officers wrote that the baby appeared to be well-fed but was naked and had raised, red, pinhead-sized marks all over his body, as well as severe diaper rash.
Others at the bowling alley say the mother often left her baby naked in his stroller while she played pool.
The baby’s grandmother told police the marks on the child were probably flea bites.
Associated Press
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