Careful scrutiny of the Seahawks’ regular season schedule against next week’s First Thursday art walk (Oct. 1, 5 p.m. onward) reveals a sad truth: There won’t be another confluence of snobby bohemians and rowdy football fans for the rest of the season. I’m hugely disappointed, because September’s First Thursday represented an unholy and thoroughly enjoyable mixture of fans.With the Raiders playing at Qwest Field this past Thurs., Sept. 3, the evening preseason game–in which the Hawks prevailed 31 to 21–brought throngs of jersey-wearing, beer-drinking football fanatics in from the burbs. Unlike your ordinary Sunday game, downtown was still crowded with office workers filling the sidewalk cafes on a very pleasant, summery evening. Meanwhile, all of Second Avenue was being ripped up for paving work, so the traffic and parking were terrible. Then all the gallery walkers joined the fray–pretentious alt-weekly art critics, ordinary gallery-goers coming direct from the office, and Cap Hill hipsters reluctantly descending to Pioneer Square.And there–the horror!–the aesthetes and the philistines all massed together. Like the famous Seinfeld episode where Elaine discovers Puddy is a facepainted hockey fan, Seattle’s strange duality was revealed. Yes, we’re an arts town. And, yes, we’re a sports town. And neither section is particularly comfortable when confronted with that intimate proximity. But here’s the strange thing, like Elaine and Puddy’s relationship……Sometimes, when you like someone (or a city) and discover something embarrassing about them (facepaint, football, etc.), you have no choice but to smile through your discomfort–or is it small-mindedness?–and stick it out for the good of the relationship. Just like Elaine, the sophisticated art walker, chose to stick it out with Puddy, the rabid sports doofus. And maybe that’s the healthy thing to do, a promising model for Seattle.September’s First Thursday art walk was much more fun than usual because–outside the galleries, at least–the crowds were so dissimilar. The Hawks fans in their jeans, white sneakers, and oversized blue-and-green NFL jersies. The gallery walkers in their carefully chosen urban threads (vintage, hipster, ironic, etc.). One contingent already buzzed on pre-game beers, a little older and chubbier, from places like Kent and Sammamish. The other thinner, younger, fond of rigorous eyewear, thoughtfully sipping cheap red wine, determined not to get too tipsy until later in the evening (aka the PBR hour).And the sidewalks were full! Football fans and art walkers had no place to park, so they all marched together, shoulder by shoulder in unexpected solidarity, toward Pioneer Square. It was, I reflected, exactly what city planners keep saying they want: Active downtown streets after five o’clock; multiple attractions (whether booze or sports or culture) to bring non-urban types into the city after hours; and the primacy of pedestrians over cars. Two totally different groups were overrunning the area, and everyone got along nicely. We all clustered together on the corners, like penguins on the ice, waiting to swarm across the streets. There was no great urgency to make kickoff or be first at James Harris, just a palpable momentum and purposefulness. Different ends, yes, but the same enthusiastic surge. It made the art walk more lively; the Hawks fans’ enthusiasm served as a role model (or implicit rebuke) to the art crowd–don’t be so glum, don’t take everything so seriously, stop trying to be Walter Benjamin.If the economy ever improves and the proposed mixed-use development occurs on the parking lots north of Qwest Field, I think it might achieve something of the same density and harmony. We’d get more people on the streets at night, and not just on First Thursdays. Some of those suburban sports fans might move downtown to kill their dreaded commutes; and some smaller percentage of those might start going to our downtown galleries and SAM.Conversely, if football weren’t so expensive, and if Qwest Field weren’t empty and unused 99 percent of the time, that would surely help. Mariners and Sounders games are a better, more populist model, because they draw fewer people (per game) more often to the stadium district. That likely produces more cumulative benefit for downtown bars and restaurants; though galleries may not get the same bump in business.Maybe the next time a First Thursday coincides with a Seahawks game, galleries should hang out “12” banners and sell cheap beer to passing fans. Get them drunk enough, and they might actually buy something.And you know what? A perfectly caught fingertip pass, toes dragging on the sideline, is a thing of beauty.