The next morning we drove to Seattle and went directly to the Greenwood Memorial Cemetary in Renton, WA where we worshiped at the Jimi Hendrix memorial.
I’d been there many times back before they built a shrine to him when he was still laying under a humble little headstone with a yellow left handed Stratocaster (they mistakenly put a right handed Strat on his new gravestone), but now he’s been enshrined beneath a structure of granite with his name adorned all over the place with a nice little roof and with his families graves surrounding the memorial. It’s a Hendrix family affair, and it’s a lot easier to spot than it used to be. Prior to this move one would have to locate the sundial and then look for the patch of worn out grass to find him. They have moved the sundial along with the rest of his remains, which I found a little odd. I suppose in directing people to his grave site one can still say “look for the sundial, he’s right next to it”.
After the Jimi visit we went across the street for beverages and snack chip units — I needed my Nacho Cheese Doritos fix and some java. While we were there we spotted an advertisement for some tasty McDonalds ice cream treats. The sign was instructing us and the world to “taste the difference”. Our question was “or what?”. After pondering for several moments we came up with an answer. Rather than keep it to ourselves we figured it would be good to educate the masses, so Lance found a tube of lipstick in his car (where that came from I’ll never know) and wrote out the answer below.
This is Lance posing with the Space Needle’s reflection. Quite a fetching character, don’t you agree?
The Experience –
Driving through Seattle is a wonderful experience if you can get past all the drizzle and mugginess. The scenery is second to none! What an amazing city. We drove across Lake Washington and went downtown to the Experience Museum Project .
After paying our $20 entrance fee and leaving my camera at the front desk (hence, no pics of what went on inside) we wandered around gawking at all of the art, music history and visual stimuli. If you get a chance and are a music lover this is a must see.
There are pieces of rock history in this place that left me with stiff nipples and hanging jaw. I loved looking at Jimi’s hand writted lyrics, letters written to his family when he was in the military, old outfits, paintings, broken guitars, etc. His handwriting is as artistic and interesting as anything he did. I found it fascinating that, when writing lyrics, he would correct his punctuation and spelling if he had made a mistake, as if he anticipated it being published one day. This is a man who would have been the best at anything he chose to do.
Upstairs there is a large array of musical instruments in tiny studio settings where you can go make as much racket as you like. Lance and I walked into a studio and I played a very nice set of DW drums while he created thunder on the bass and guitar. I’m not saying we wrote our swan song or anything but we certainly did make some noise.
One thing I love about that museum is the display of local Seattle music history and the worn out, over hyped, killed by commercialism and financial greed genre known as Grunge. I moved to Seattle in early 1990 when Nirvana, Soundgarden, Melvins, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney etc. were just local bands trying to make a buck or 2 gigging around town. We all know that history and the blame Nirvana takes for it. They were a great band just trying to make some noise but they were embraced by the money machine and squeezed dry until they were lifeless and impotent. What a tragedy! Another nipple stiffening layout for me to reminisce upon and reminisce I did. What a time that was in my life, and what a time I’d never want to repeat. Every time I think back on it my brain reels in agony from the abuse it endured. Fortunately it has made a complete recovery!
More coming on this grand adventure of madness and debauchery…
Our next adventure was to drive to somewhere that looked a lot like the middle of friggin’ nowhere, which pretty much looked like the rest of Idaho, and purchased some very illegal fireworks. The firecrackers were my favorite, but not Lance’s favorite as we tested their power in a closed vehicle while driving 80mph. Lance didn’t quite get his fingers inserted into his earholes quickly enough and suffered some temporary hearing loss for the rest of the trip. He’s OK now but he complained a lot about his hurty ears.
