Better know a [Seattle] district – Fremont

I’ve lived in the greater Seattle area just about all my life. Except for some short stints here and there, I always seem to end up back here. As a sort of humble tribute to Stephen Colbert’s “Better Know A District” segment on his show The Colbert Report, I figured it was high time I get to “Better Know” the Seattle districts.

Today’s district was Fremont, where it seems a there’s a bit of art hiding in every nook and cranny. As I walked around I really felt like it was a place I could live near. Maybe not directly in the middle of, but near. It seems like a place where there’s always something going on. There were hip art galleries and Thai food restaurants everywhere, and a general feeling that something crazy or at least interesting was happening just around the corner.

Today, it turned out, there was something crazy going on. I guess there is a “zombie walk” every so often in the Fremont area, and today they were out in force. Everywhere I went I saw groups of zombies just milling about, sitting in coffee shops, chatting with other presumably dead friends on their mobiles, and even looking both ways before crossing the street! You can’t be too careful I guess… wouldn’t want to get into a wrestling match with a 2000lbs steel beast with all that makeup on… the EMTs would probably just take one look at you and toss you in a body bag without even checking for a pulse 🙂

I soon noticed that all the zombies were headed down toward the Fremont Outdoor Cinema, so I started ambling that direction to see what the horde looked like. A line was forming for zombie registration, and as I perused the crowd I fell upon something funny, but still had that kind of “too soon” feeling at the same time… a zombie Billy Mays. So here I was, surrounded by a horde of zombies a la Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, and here’s a zombie Billy Mays staring at me. I almost expected to see Farrah Fawcett, David Carradine, and Ed McMahon in there somewhere. What a string of celebrity deaths we’ve had in the last few months.

Fremont (almost free) Outdoor Cinema	I've never seen zombies wait so patiently
Zombies hangin on the street corner	Billy Mays pitching me on eating my brain

Aside from the zombies, there really is a lot of interesting art everywhere… and because of that, the whole area has a playful feel to it. The back alley sides of many brick buildings have painted murals, and there are a few seemingly randomly placed giant glass “lamp posts” here and there. There’s even a rocket attached to the side of one of the buildings.

One of the most famous pieces is “The Fremont Troll“, which is a sculpture located under the north end of the Aurora bridge. The troll was sculpted by 4 local artists back in 1990 and recently underwent a repair job due to all the people climbing on him over the years. One of the coolest things about it is the use of a real Volkswagen Beetle, which the troll is somewhat crushing with it’s left hand. As you can see, my keys don’t open the engine cover.

Another thing the area is also known for is its hippie style “naked time” loving denizens. It seems I was in Fremont just a little too late this year to observe the solstice parade. However I do have some (nude) photos of the 2006 parade, courtesy of Chris Yetter. Here are a couple for the guys [1] [2], and a couple for the ladies [1] [2].

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 12:51 am and is filed under Life in general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.