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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Clark: A fresh infusion of self-image, right to the core

I’ll admit it. I never thought of my hometown as cool.

Spokane?

Naw. We’re not hip. We’re not trendy.

We’re just down the road from Post Falls.

But in the most shocking turnaround since Billy Tipton, Spokane is square no more.

It happened at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Some doors opened downtown in River Park Square and we officially became cool.

Congratulations, people, Spokane now has an Apple Store.

As anyone who has ever watched television knows, Apple is the very essence of mega-coolness in a drab and dorky-dull PC world.

Our Apple Store comes with its own Genius Bar.

The closest Spokane ever got to a Genius Bar was Trivia Night at the Blue Spark.

But this Apple Store is only the beginning of our Kool & the Gang transformation. Oh, yeah. It’s a proven fact that once a city gets an Apple Store, the whole burg goes “Off da Chain!”

Don’t believe me? On Friday I made a few calls (on my iPhone, of course!) and found out some of the hip ways Spokane is about to change:

• How cool will Spokane be? We will soon be world headquarters for those chic political activists, the Chai Tea Party.

• Thanks to our Apple Store, panhandlers outside Dick’s drive-in will be holding up “Will Work For Food” iPads.

• When it comes to celebrity scandal, nobody knows more than Spokane’s very own Internet gossip blogger, Perez Hillyard.

• The Bing Crosby Theater will be renamed The Lady Gaga.

• Filming will soon begin for a hot new reality series, “The Snooty Rich Housewives of Rockwood Boulevard.”

• In addition to HD, KHQ-TV’s jumpy, mile-a-minute newscasts will be broadcast in ADHD.

• Trying to become more laid-back and fresh, Gonzaga University will turn Unitarian.

• Hearing about our new Apple Store, Lindsay Lohan plans to serve her next drug violation in the Spokane County Jail.

• Riverfront Park’s famed Looff Carrousel will feature real horses prancing to the beats of Dr. Dre.

• This just in from Perez: On Friday, Paris Hilton was denied entrance into Manito Park’s Japanese gardens.

• The Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau confirmed that the city’s new post-Apple Store slogan will be: Near Nature/Near MacBook.

• The Davenport Hotel’s Peacock Lounge is being turned into an oxygen bar.

• Spokane police will be issued hot pink Tasers that double as iPod Shuffles.

• City Council President Joe Shogan is discarding the button-down, tight-sphinctered look. He will conduct future meetings wearing a T-shirt, blue jeans and retro Converse sneakers.

• The Spokesman-Review will publish a Snoop Dogg language edition. Sample: “Spokizzle is a wholizzle lot coolizzle now thizzle wizzle hizzle an Applizzle Storizzle.”

• Dos Equis beer executives plan to fire that suave and bearded actor who plays “The Most Interesting Man in the World” and begin a new “Coolest Named City Councilman in Spokane” campaign based around – who else? – Bob Apple.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by e-mail at dougc@spokesman.com.