All Over The Map: Bizarre ‘Apes of Wrath’ wrestling event funded ‘Seattle Monolith’
Dec 4, 2020, 12:44 PM | Updated: 2:01 pm
Two decades before that mysterious monolith turned up in the Utah desert, the “Seattle Monolith” took the city by surprise on New Year’s Day 2001.
I’m not a big fan of the 1960s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, but 20 years ago, when the actual year 2001 was just a few weeks away, a group of local artists, who called themselves “Some People,” was busy preparing to pull off a practical joke here that would pay tribute to that iconic film with an elaborate public stunt.
Those were slightly more innocent times. It was about nine months before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and just after the 2000 election that George W. Bush ultimately won – and a few years had elapsed since the “not a bomb” giant heart incident in downtown Seattle.
It was also somewhat strange times that now feel like the tail end of a long party. During much of the 1990s, there was so much money floating around from venture capitalists investing in “dot-com start-ups,” and those start-ups were throwing big elaborate parties – many of which featured complex and expensive stagecraft along with fancy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. It was also the era of an odd restaurant near South Lake Union called “Entros” that included hard to describe interactive elements led by out of work actors, along with the appetizers and entrees.
Maybe those 1990s excesses and that showmanship helped at least partly inspire the Seattle Monolith — or at least inspire the way the money was raised to build it?
The “Seattle Monolith” mysteriously appeared on New Year’s Day on Kite Hill at Magnuson Park. It was nine feet tall and made out of dark colored steel, like a big, narrow metal box. This was no casual prank; the installers had secretly poured a concrete footing for the monolith a few days before the new year.
This was before social media and before all phones had cameras, so images of the object on the hill by Lake Washington are hard to come by. And that’s a shame, because it was quite the spectacle. Then, a few days later, just when people were getting used to the monolith at Magnuson, it disappeared, only to reappear on Duck Island in Green Lake. It then moved around a few more times, ultimately landing in someone’s backyard.
Seattle Times reporter Tyrone Beason uncovered most of the mystery for a piece published back in late 2002. But one element of the story that has never really been told is where the money came from to pay for the materials to build the monolith.
It was on a Saturday night in early December, 20 years ago this week, that an event called “Apes of Wrath” was held in a dilapidated building called Rocket Science Studios on Westlake Avenue. “Apes of Wrath” was a fairly elaborate amateur wrestling showcase that attracted 250 or so people for a series of matches between elaborately costumed wrestlers. “Apes of Wrath” also featured two amateur announcers who had been recruited for a similar event at the same venue in March 2000.
I was one of those two amateur announcers, and the other was my friend since fourth grade Ken Zick. It was Ken’s girlfriend at the time who had ties to “Some People” – the artist group that organized the “Apes” event, and that eventually created and installed the monolith.
The wrestling “action” that night swung wildly between awkward tedium and award-winning dinner theatre-level performances by amateur male and female wrestlers who, to their credit, were really committed to the premise. As the evening progressed, the crowd became more and more enthralled, and the outlandish wrestling moves became even more so, which may have been related to alcohol intake by both the audience and the wrestlers. Matches continued well past midnight.
Ken and I stood on a table along the wall – our slight elevation gave us a good view of the mat (which was really just a couple of futon mattresses) – and did our best to do play-by-play and pepper our commentary with dumb jokes and helpful announcements about the imminent arrival of more beer, or the availability of T-shirts for purchase (in support of the monolith project, of course). I certainly had no idea what the money was being raised for. On some old audio of the event, Ken reads a scripted announcement about Some People, and the monolith, and their plans for some kind of event on New Year’s Eve, but it was vague enough that I still don’t quite understand all of what Ken is saying on the tape.
The building where “Apes of Wrath” happened is, remarkably, still standing on Westlake Avenue, but is now surrounded by gleaming condos and big commercial structures. Looking back from 2020, all I can think is that we were much younger then, and our Saturday nights were much more interesting than they are now.
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