Painting The Town - Art Or Eyesore?

Sometimes you can't help wondering if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.

On the one hand, Seattle has been busting its buns - and its budget - to rid the city of graffiti. Every department in the city has a crew responsible for combating spray-can art. Community volunteers - more than 200 of them - hold weekend paint-outs.

How are we celebrating our stamp-out-graffiti campaign?

We're not. Instead, over at the Seattle Center, the staff is getting ready for "Artists Against the Wall," an exhibit of graffiti art. Eight crews of local spray-can artists will decorate panels at the Center July 31. Their work goes on display in the Flag Pavilion Aug. 1-2.

Paint out some back-alley art but exhibit the work of others? It sends a mixed message. The Seattle Police Department spokesman Hal Kulgren temporized, saying, "The display is all right because it's a planned thing and the artists have permission."

But the city's graffiti coordinator Sue Honaker believes the graffiti exhibit will send the wrong message to those tempted to deface other peoples' property. She concludes, "The city is supposed to have a consistent policy."

HAND ME DOWNS: Word is that KING-TV anchor Jean Enersen and her developer husband Paul Skinner are furnishing their Lopez Island home - a Roland Terry-designed house - with hand-me-downs.

But some hand-me-downs. They are using wicker furniture from a yacht that belonged to Skinner's grandfather, Gilbert Whittemore Skinner. The yacht was named for Gilbert's second wife, Lenore Skinner.

BEER WITH US: The mood was convivial at F.X. McRory's Monday when former Gov. John Spellman and former Mayor Charles Royer returned to toast the 10th anniversary of Red Hook Brewery's original roll out. Red Hook's Gordon Bowker recalled, "At the time, people said, `Open a brewery? They don't open up breweries. They close them down.' "

In the past 10 years, Red Hook has introduced Ballard Bitter and Black Hook Porter and moved from a Ballard transmission shop to a refurbished trolley barn in Fremont. The anniversary inspired operatic bartender Robert Julien to croon about sipping Red Hook while watching "the sun go down on Shilshole Bay."

BITE LIGHT: Last weekend's Bite of Seattle brought out the shallowest tube tops, the tightest spandex and the lousiest tattoos in town. But it also brought out guitar great Herb Ellis, who sat in with Primo Kim at the KPLU Jazz Stage Saturday afternoon. Ellis would have played longer, but he said didn't want to miss the British Open.

OFF BASE: After five years of softball losses, the Seattle City Council finally beat the King County Council team 15-10 last week. King County Councilman Paul Barden commented, "Give them the trophy. We got Metro."

SIGN IN: Across from the Seattle Art Museum is the Lucky Lady, a First Avenue porn palace. Anticipating the museum's second try at installing a 48-foot statue of "Hammering Man" (after a botched first attempt), the Lucky Lady's pink marquee asks, "Can we ERECT Hammering Man?" Jean Godden's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Northwest section of The Times. Her phone is 464-8300.