SO LONG SAD TIMES, GO LONG BAD TIMES: Every city, I think, has some unofficial sports mascots -- the alpha marauder from the Raiders' end zone, large shirtless men who dance and mug for the camera, celebrities and quasi-celebrities and sub-celebrities like Jack Nicholson and Jenn Sterger and Freddie Sez.
Tuba Guy was one of these local fixtures in Seattle. Tuba Guy was Edward McMichael, who plied his trade pretty much anywhere you would find people congregating for a civic or sporting event -- baseball, football, basketball, symphony, opera. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, he played "Happy Days Are Here Again" for the fans leaving the magical Game 5 against the Yankees in 1995 (my greatest sports memory) and a dirge for fans -- including me -- leaving Key Arena after eighth-seeded Denver beat the top-seeded Sonics in the first round of the 1994 playoffs (my worst sports memory). That's pretty much the soundtrack to the local version of "thrill of victory, agony of defeat." My guess is that Tuba Guy would have found a long line at a polling place today and played there.
I say "would have" because McMichael died yesterday, a week after being brutally beaten in a robbery. Such a sad, undeserved end for a guy who had woven himself into the local fabric.
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