up in the Northwest we've got it good...

This afternoon, I'm going to take a few moments to recognize a very influential moment in my life... the early 90's. I speak of this because not only am I pumped about going to see Pearl Jam tomorrow night, but I've noticed a trend this year in the return of plaid (which in my book, never goes out of style), and I feel like adding Northern Exposure back to my netflix que. Maybe it's just me always having a little infatuation with the Pacific Northwest long before I knew that all these things were interconnected here.

I mean, when Pearl Jam first came on the scene in 1990, I was 10 and living in Ohio and still rocking out to Madonna (which I still do) but suddenly all these bands came out in the early 90's like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins and I found myself in an alternative love. Add in flannel, plaid, boots, lumberjacks, pine trees, animals bigger than deer, kayking, biking, Ken Griffey Jr., Sleepless in Seattle, snow capped mountains and good coffee and good beer - long before I could appreciate it - it's really it's no surprise why I ended up where I did.

So, this is my tribute to the early 90's and the great land I love to call my current home... the Pacific Northwest, mecca.

Northern Exposure

A big part of my love affair with the PNW lies in the many seasons of Dr. Joel Flieschman and his adventures amongst the cute, weird, and lovable people of Cicely Alaska (the show was actually filmed in Roslyn Washington). Add in that the character of Maggie always reminded me of my friend Beth, I loved Chris in Morning at KBHR and that I loved the Red Hook neon beer sign that hung on the back wall at the Brick, I made a point to watch it whenever it came on TV.

Northern Exposure taught me lessons about relationships:

And lessons about randomness:

PEARL JAM

So, I've always got to give Pearl Jam kudos for being anti establishment and big company. While I kinda scratch my head as why the band that eschewed Ticketmaster would team up with Target for the promotion of their new album (read some of the hubub here)... I'll overlook that cause I like the new tune, the Fixer. For once, Pearl Jam has released something in the past ten years that reminds me of how much I loved rocking out to Ten.

So, I bring you this new tune that I love rocking out to, the Fixer:

And here is a classic older tune or theirs Alive. I really wanted to post the ground breaking video for Jeremy, but all those wouldn't allow you to embed them. So, you'll get this instead:

PLAID

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Delia's has a great selection of plaid shirts for women this fall, but I always got mine from LLBean:

BEER

And in case you were wondering, Red Hook Beer still uses this logo:

MOVIES

And yeah... after seeing Julie and Julia last weekend, it reminds me that no one can make a cute movie like Nora Ephron. Sleepless in Seattle was the first one of hers on my radar. She even spoke at a SCAD graduation one year that I was there.

Another great movie set in the PNW was Kindergarden Cop. Never again is someone going to say "It's NOT a TUMOR!" without an accent ever again.

BASEBALL

And even though I was a Ken Griffey fan from back in the day and was uber excited to see him get traded to the Reds (on February 10, 2000... no doubt, my birthday to be exact) Seattle is where he belongs and I'm so glad that he was able to go back and that I was able to go up to Seattle and catch him the other year with my good friend Tig while he was still playing with the Reds.