Hate (1990) 1

Again, no correlation between non-holiday and the cover of this comic book, but anyone who’s read Hate may guess what todays non-red numbered day is.

Today is Stay Away from Seattle Day.

Yep, yet another hard-to-believe non-holiday.

At first it may sound like a slam against the Emerald City – not L. Frank Baum’s metropolis, but the one in the north west – but it’s not. Stay Away from Seattle Day was designed to help the city’s denizens.

September 16 has been designated as a no-visit zone for Seattle, WA.

Hate (1990) 1

Seattle is touted as one of the best cities in the United States in which to live. Brand names like Amazon, Microsoft and Nordstrom help populate the city by providing job opportunities. Seattle is also birthplace of Starbucks, the 1962 World’s Fair feature the Space Needle and tourism beacon Pike Place Market.

Not to confuse today’s wary welcome, Seattle natives are more than happy to accept tourism dollars, but would rather those visitors be just that: visitors. Those seeking new residence need not apply.

To celebrate, stay away. Go north, south, east or west, but not Seattle. At least not on September 16.

A more economical way to visit is to find some of the early issues of writer-artist Peter Bagge’s Hate.

Hate hit the newsstands in 1990, running a mere 30 issues, to 1998 but becoming one of the best-selling alternative comics of the decade. Celebrating the slacker life and dressed in grunge, the title was selling 30,000 copies an issue at its peak.

Buddy Bradley starred as the insecure 20-something floating on a sea of indecision and believed entitlement.

Here’s where today and Hate come together; Buddy lived in Seattle for the first 15 issues of the book, moving back to New Jersey in issue 16.

The Gen X spokesman returned in 2000 for Hate Annual, continuing the stories began the previous decade.

Bagge denounces much of the counter culture associated with Hate. According to the creator, slackers, grunge and other terms associated with the region and era were not in vogue when he started the book.

Hate continues to flare up from time-to-time. The series has been optioned for animated television series for MTV, HBO and Fox since 1995, but have yet to be developed.

So, be a Hater for a day. Discover late 20^th-century disenfranchisement showing another side of the decade other than Friends and Fraiser.