I snuck away from Bumbershoot for a bit to run back home to my Belltown apartment for a quick break from the insanity and crowds.

Let's use this as the place to talk about the first day of Bumbershoot. So spill it. I'll even go first.

The first thing I went to was the "F is for Food" panel with Tom Douglas and Kathleen Flinn. Both had a lot to say about food and eating and had a really relaxed and funny rapport. Douglas was the most quotable, saying that people could become "50% better cooks by just learning how to buy food". When responding to Flinn's comment about loving roast chicken, he noted that "a roast chicken in Paris is much different from a roast chicken from the Costco in Lynnwood."

The biggest laugh, though, came from Flinn's reading of an entry in the "Food for Thought" contest where someone wrote their story of trying to become vegan for a whole hour.

After that, I went to the Main Stage to catch Katy Perry's set, which was as equally great and terrible as I expected.

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A few weeks ago, after Sub Pop made a very generous offer of $10,000 to the Northwest Film Forum during their emergency fundraising campaign, I made a comment on Twitter that I would refrain from making any critical comments about one of the label’s highly regarded local bands for the remainder of the week (this was probably on a Tuesday or Wednesday). I thought it was an inconsequential remark but it touched a nerve with a friend, who then challenged me to start pointing out the dumb things pop stars say and the two examples he gave were Lily Allen and Katy Perry.

There is no shortage of people who are eager to point out the seemingly foolish things that come out of pop tarts mouths; I’m just not one of those people.

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything saying that I was anything more than neutral when it came to Katy Perry (I’ve written plenty of my admiration for Lily Allen and flown out of town to go to the first two shows on her US tour this spring). I’m not so naïve to think that I was assigned to defend Perry for any other reason than to create an artificial straw man and make my pro-pop arguments seem specious. I resented being assigned membership to her fan club because Perry is far too close to Perez Hilton (a figure so loathsome I endorsed violence against him recently) for my comfort and she made an unfortunate crack about Allen’s weight. Most unforgivably, there’s her first single, “Ur So Gay” – it’s a monstrosity of a song that deliberately confuses metro- and homosexuality and plays into offensive stereotypes. Worst of all, it’s not catchy.

Here’s the thing: I like Katy Perry. It’s sort of begrudging, but here’s why.

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I doubt this is an April Fool's joke so I'll put it out there, Bumbershoot announced the first list of acts to play this year. There are certainly some that I'm really excited to see (some again) and others I'll pass on.

I know there'll be a lot of people bitching about Katy Perry but remember that booking her sells tickets that pay for other acts and you can choose to do something else while she plays.

Here's the roster so far:

Sheryl Crow / Modest Mouse / Katy Perry / Michael Franti & Spearhead / De La Soul / Raphael Saadiq / Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan / The Long Winters / Sly & Robbie & the Taxi Gang / World Party / MSTRKRFT / Roy Ayers / Common Market / UH HUH HER / Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women / Eric Hutchinson / No Age / Matt & Kim / Dead Confederate / The Cave Singers / Swollen Members / Vieux Farka Touré / Lenka / Gang Gang Dance / Todd Snider / Holy F**k / DJ Spooky / Iglu & Hartly / Low vs Diamond / Sera Cahoone / Eleni Mandell / Carrie Rodriguez / The Honey Brothers / Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head / Extra Golden / Cordero / Forgive Durden / Hey Marseilles / Adrian Xavier, and much, much more to be announced.

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Sweet songs from some of our fave artists!

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New Releases From Easy Street Records

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What do you think? Who is better at kissing a girl: Jill Sobule or Katy Perry?

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