I met Dan and Jim at the U. District Safeway, where we discovered a produce section crowded with fifty or sixty folks, to the growing bemusement of the store’s employees. Eric Sooros emailed me that he was accosted by a store representative be cause he, his wife Rose, and their infant child “looked like they knew what was going on.” Both Eric and I, as it turns out, purchased some produce.

Jim took pictures.

In the midst of the crowded produce section, about seven people began by holding aloft a selection of produce, silently. Then one of the performers began to sing the Clash song, “All Lost in the Supermarket,” which quickly spread to the otyher performers and some of the rest of the crowd. Slightly anxious Safeway employees looked on from the edges of the produce section, which was very full.

Suddenly a guy in a white shirt, featuring the classic managerial combination of cheesy moustache, thinning hair, and black tie rushed in and began scolding the singers, saying “you can’t just sing in the supermarket,” whereupon, of course, Jason struck a chord and the whole lot broke into a Broadway-style hand-waving kick-kick-turn chorus line as they sang a little ditty based upon the phrase.

Then Jim, Dan and I waited interminably for my onions to be rung up, whereupon we headed off to the dank recesses of Finn MacCool’s for a beer and on to the brighter precincts of the Big Time, where we ended the evening, noticing that the brewpub both advertised free wifi and was remarkably uncrowded for a Saturday night, and as the de facto social comittee for MeFi Seattle, it’s on the list of potential venues.

Partway through the evening the ever-amusing Dan remarked that a neighboring tabe had brought a giant robot frog out drinking with them, an amusing wisecrack that improbably turned out to be true. By coincidence, I was wearing the hopkin tee that John and Mikey gave me.

Later, the people with the frog gave it to me.

5 thoughts on “You Can't Just Sing in the Supermarket

  1. Hi, Mike! Apparently you missed the grand exit, in which a bunch of us followed Jason up the street to a seemingly abandoned old house in the U-District (west of the Safeway), and spent a good hour or so playing reverse-hide-and-seek in pitch darkness (one person hid, and the rest of us tried to find them). A couple of guitars were played later. Right after noon today, the grocery invasion continued, starting with the QFC on Broadway. I joined the singing team, hitting all the supermarket-type places on Capitol Hill. Those with cars continued the hijinks, so they planned, up in Lynnwood, continuing straight up to the Everett QFC. Things should be winding down right about now (Sunday, 7:10 pm)…

  2. Listen, I think it’s really great that you’re blogging the Supermarket Musical, but maybe this isn’t the most appropriate place. This is the internet. People come here to look at porn and buy antiques.

Comments are now closed.