As Wilde said, when asked when he would stop drinking so much alcohol, "when someone develops a more efficient way of getting it into my bloodstream."
(paraphrase)
Friday, November 19, 1999
A lair for the artsy: The Blue Moon Tavern in the U
District opened its doors on April 15, 1934. It became a
beloved hangout of poets, the Beat Generation and 60's
activists and gave new meaning to the phrase "lit major." In
the late 1980's, however, the Blue Moon was marked for
demolition and saved from the wrecker's ball at the
eleventh hour by a civic crusade with broad support (one
holdout: The Seattle Times). The tavern gained official
landmark status in 1990.
http://www.seattle-pi.com/century/notz19.shtml
Hieronymus says one of
his personal favorites is the Blue Moon Tavern
in Seattle, a literary dive where the
Beatnik spirit lives on.
Novelist Tom Robbins described the place as "a frenzy of distorted joy
spinning just
outside the reach of bourgeois horrors." It got two stars in the guide.
http://www.injersey.com/life/story/0,2092,261049,00.html
According to our friends at the famous Blue Moon Tavern in Seattle, Hale's
Celebration Porter improves your dream life, a ringing endorsement that
has always made us smile. Hale's Celebration Porter was brewed to
celebrate our 100th brew. Today, thousands of brews later, we're still
celebrating. After all, good Porter is the stuff dreams are made of!
http://www.epinions.com/fddk-Beers-By_Name-All-Hale's_Celebration_PorterJim David sold his share to his brother
Jack in 1959. In turn, Jack sold the Blue
Moon to Stanford Poll and Dr. Paul
Chilton in 1966. They enlarged the tavern
to make room for the hordes of hippies and
New Leftists who began to supersede the
Moon's traditional clientele of beatniks
and Old Leftists. The Blue Moon became
famous (or infamous) as a clubhouse for
Seattle's emerging counterculture. Former
Communist Stan Iverson (1927-1985)
reigned as its unofficial maitre 'd.The tavern was rescued from certain
eclipse in 1982 by "Three Fools, Inc.,"
comprising partners Gustav Hellthaler,
Robert Morrison, and John Caldbick. Two
years later, in 1984, the Blue Moon was
refurbished for its 50th anniversary and
won a new generation of customers.See Walt Crowley's Forever Blue Moon, The Story of
Seattle's Most (In)Famous Tavern Blue Moon Tavern, (Seattle: Blue Moon Tavern, 1992).
& online at HistoryLink,
Blue Moon Tavern, An Unofficial Cultural Landmark
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1001
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"Some nights the wolves are silent and the moon howls."
--- Bathroom graffiti in the Blue Moon Tavern, (Auntie Dave
believes he wrote it one dark eve; another version became
"Some nights the moon howls & the dogs lay low" )http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet/pm4/2werwolv.htm
Blue Moon Tavern
Hours: Opens at noon, closes late
Beer Selection: 12 taps, Northwest craft beers.
Source of information: Info from the Beer Travelers Page![]()
http://beertravelers.com/
http://www.beerexpedition.com/wa/wa_barrest.shtml
Uten eget mikrobryggeri men likevel verd et besøk for
de mer eventyrlystne er legendariske Blue Moon
Tavern (712 NE 45th Street), hvor Jimi Hendrix engang
var stamgjest. Fortsatt er det ingen som hever
øyenbrynet over en slåsskamp eller noen knuste ølglass.
Eksosryper passer baren, og et høyst blandet publikum
gir et spennende speilbilde av byen på godt og vondt.
Den spesielle Seattle-humoren fornekter seg heller ikke
her. Det er en humor som har fått en av av byens
strippe-klubber til å avertere med "50 beautiful women
& three ugly ones", mens et lokalt popband presterte en
sangtittel som "She won't get under me till I get over
you".http://www.nsbr.no/guide/byer/seattle.htm
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ALLEN GINSBERG
NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCESunday, April 13, 1997
4:00 pm EDT - 3:00 pm CDT - 2:00 pm MDT - 1:00 pm PDT
REMEMBRANCE BY MALCOLM LAWRENCE:
Well, for all intents and purposes Seattle stiffed at the Sunday AG remembrance. I wasn't at either the Anne
Waldman remembrance on Friday in Auburn nor at the Ted Joans reading in the U District on Saturday
[at Recollection Used Books
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/],
but the Blue Moon was pretty much a ghost town on Sunday. Just goes to show that no matter how much you can try and do
with the wonders of email and the net/web with only a few days notice it doesn't guarantee ANYthing. I tried.
I arrived at noon to start setting up and got a lot of very friendly, courteous help from the regular soundmen who
take care of bands at the place, who were very helpful considering they hadn't heard anything about what was
going to be happening until I got there, not to mention didn't know me from Adam. We moved one of the pool tables
out of the way and had a small PA all set up as well as a perfect little makeshift stage with a microphone, stool,
music easel, and movable lamp from which to read from. A photographer and journalist from the Seattle Times
showed up, waiting for a story and stayed for a good couple of hours. And even though we were all ready to go at
1 PM there was no sign of a crowd of AG admirers at all. ... show details
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Roethke
(RET-key; rymes with Teddy).Patron of the Blue Moon Tavern, where he
& his students sucked suds & wrote poetry in Seattle.
Professor Joseph Butterworth Butterworth's case was worse. In a specialized area like Old English, there is no work outside
academia, and Butterworth seemed unsuited for other kinds of labor. After he was fired, he could
not find any academic position even though he wrote letters to all 2,000 members of the Modern
Language Association. He eventually went on public assistance. Described as a "broken man" who
haunted Seattle's Blue Moon Tavern in the '50s, he died in 1970.
Kizer is the second--James Wright came first in 1972--to win the Pulitzer. Hugo, who died in 1982, won major awards and
became an influential teacher in his own right in the creative writing program he directed at the University of Montana.
David Wagoner, who studied with Roethke earlier at Penn State and joined him on the UW faculty, is among the most
prolific and prize-laden of American poets, a chancellor of the prestigious Academy of American Poets.All were part of what Kizer, in a 1956 article in The New Republic magazine, declared to be a new school of poets
emerging in the Northwest. Roethke was there for inspiration, painters Mark Tobey and Morris Graves influenced mood and
color, and art was created in an atmosphere of respect, criticism and support, she wrote. Part of the milieu was the Blue
Moon tavern in 45th Street, "a grubby oasis just outside the university's one-mile-limit Sahara," Kizer wrote, where "poets,
pedants, painters and other assorted wildlife make overtures to each other."
It is, we suppose, a heartening story, but it is a sad one too. Rader was
an earnest liberal in the 30's --- supporting such causes as Unionism,
anti-fascism, and the anti-Franco forces in Spain. He also detested
communism for its apparent need to infiltrate and destroy the
institutions of democracy. He was a good man faced with a slippery
bunch of people who saw him as the enemy, who told tales to prove that
he was indeed, a card-carrying "fellow-traveller." (Fellow traveller ---
along with "5th Amendment Communist" --- were phrases used to snag
people who had not joined the party, but seemed to agree with the
principles that the party espoused).While I lived in Seattle, I was introduced to one of the professors who
did not fight back. He had been a respected teacher of English
literature, but was sacked by the University because someone claimed
that he was communist. He spent his last years drunk to insensibility in
the local university hangout, the Blue Moon Tavern --- a ragged,
shabby, friendless old drunk.http://www.cts.com/sd/poo/newT.html
Anita's Book of Days -- Sunday, July 5, 1998
...Gonzalez one night at the Blue Moon Tavern, and Victor...
...though they were all part of the Seattle dance scene. Hal, whom we know...
McDermott, Terry. “A Collision of Sexual Eras at Blue Moon”, The Seattle Times, p B1 (April 4, 1996).
Abs: The subject at the Blue Moon Tavern last night was sex, 30 years after it was let loose, and the
headliners were Dan Savage, the sex-advice columnist, and Tom Robbins, the novelist. The Barnumesque
pairing of the man who made “Hey Faggot” a term of endearment and the man who brought Jesus back from
the dead only to lose the body in the catacombs was guaranteed to bleed the Blue Moon keg pumps dry.Haines, Thomas W. “Author Autograph Tiff Ends In Settlement”
(Reports on the resolution of the court case
brought by Nicholas Palmer after T. R. signed the book Fuck Yes, see Streiffield, 1994),
The Seattle Times, p B3 (May 2, 1996).
Bods vs. Beers: The grand old Rainbow Tavern is now a no-booze
"showgirls" establishment. It's nice that some guys are finding drug-free
entertainment, but from a hetero-male standpoint it's disadvantageous
that we're getting more places to look at women, but fewer places to
meet them. (Most of the picketers outside it, claiming it demeans
women, were men, mainly regulars from the nearby Blue Moon.
Imagine Blue Moon people calling someplace else sleazy!)
Richard Hugo Letter to Kizer from Seattle:
... show details
It's close now
to the end of summer and would you believe it
I've ignored the Blue Moon. I did go to White Center,
you know, my home town, and the people there,
many are the same, but also aging, balking, remarkably
polite and calm. A man whose name escapes me
said he thinks he had known me, the boy who went alone
to Longfellow Creek and who laughed and cried
for no reason. The city is huge, maybe three quarters
of a million and lots of crime. They are indicting
the former chief of police. Sorry to be so rambling.
I eat lunch with J. Hillis Miller, brilliant and nice
as they come, in the faculty club, overlooking the lake,
much of it now filled in. And I tour old haunts,
been twice to Kapowsin. One trout. One perch. One poem.
Take care, oh wisest of condors. Love. Dick. Thanks again.
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Some Alumn:
Ross Lavrov
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Stan Iverson, a suspected fixture:A Stan Iverson bit.... I found this email in some internet forum a few years back, with reference to Stan & the Blue Moon Tavern back in 1960)
Stan was also a suspected flag burner. When he wasn't drinking the Moon dry, he was often found aboard the Ora Ellwell,
where many a Mooner visited or partied over the years, or rather luguberiously working over those fine doughballs at Morningtown Pizza.
Scott White (1950-2006):I work full time. I used to protest full time.
![]()
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/ScottWhite/scottWhitePacificMag1.jpg
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/ScottWhite/scottWhitePacificMag2.jpg
From the Daily Bleed Calendar, October 19, 1996 -- US (More or Less):
I was a little worried when I got to the Blue Moon
Tavern in Seattle [today] . . .
Sorry, We're open! Not only was my luggage lost & I was trusting United Airlines to
get it to the bar (& me) that evening, but the crowd didn't look like
your usual Stale Urine fan club: mostly older, single men in their
late 30s or early 40s. I was guessing that hard-rockin' '70s bands
would be more their style, not experimental performance art
industrial nerds.
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/bleed/calmast.htm
http://www.blorf.com/su/reviews/connie-blue-moon.html
The Stranger: Live Music Listings (01/27/00)
... TAVERN -- Killer Bees BITTERS CO. -- Willow, $3 BLUE MOON...
...$5 BIG FOOT INN TAVERN -- Killer Bees BLUEMOON...http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/lifestyles/html98/deaf_020598.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/html98/poll_20000205.htmlBlueMoonTavern Online
...front windows of Seattle's Blue Moon Tavern. Since...
Description: Since its founding in 1934, the Moon has become a beacon for generations of free-thinkers, radicals,...
...People do more at the Blue Moon than just drink beer and talk, but...
...up-close-and-personal! Sunday is Grateful Dead Night- Seattle's acclaimed...