Last night I was supposed to live-Slog from the light booth at the Rep while watching Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno. It’s a solo show about a heart-broken smart aleck who hates his audience (according to Charles Isherwood of the NYT, “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation”—which isn’t even remotely true), played by Todd Jefferson Moore.

But there were problems. Everyone at the Rep was very nice, but my laptop kept losing the signal. Then there were some issues with getting onto Slog. So I kept tying notes but scrapped the posting.

This wasn’t the best play for this experiment: A one-act, one-man monologue with angst and wordplay and literary references requires more attention than I can give while tying and overhearing conversations in the tech booth and screwing around with the wireless connection. The Ring Cycle would be a better candidate—something long, sweeping, an endurance contest that you can check in and out of, with quirky audience behavior and a sense of exclusivity that people without the time, money, or interest to attend might want to window on.

Anyway. The notes (all 1,000 words of ‘em!) follow the jump. Representative passages:

This was the Rep’s idea, I should mention. It seems a bit odd—theater artists (hell, all artists are forever complaining that their critics are thoughtless, reactionary, that they see a show and run home and slam-bang out a review so they can get back to drinking and screwing and playing video games and other base pleasures. But here I am, up in the light booth, fingers stretched, knuckles cracked, all set to react.

A brief flash of light, then lights up—Thom man in his black suit, black tie, no socks. He [Moore] is in his 50s, which seems weird, having read the script, which is a monologue about someone who seemed to be an angry young man. Then again, from back here, the house is full of grey and white heads. By comparison, Moore is an angry young man.

Will Eno didn’t write this play. He recited it in front of his bathroom mirror, tape recorder in hand, stripping himself with whiskey like paint thinner, letting his deeply entrenched banality shine like a beacon—and that’s not actually a criticism.

Continue reading "Live Slogging from Thom Pain" »

Brad and Y’all:

In case you missed it, even The Onion is aware of how evil good the Bears are.

This week, we feast on another bird on Monday night.

Bill

Microcredit miracle.

Five years ago, Gulbadan Nesa was destitute, unable to feed her family. Then a simple, yet revolutionary idea — in the form of a $90 loan — changed her life, pulling the Bangladeshi villager out of a devastating cycle of poverty.

In reality, capitalism is as logical, as precise, and as cold as any of the hard sciences. But once we enter its ideological sphere, such as the recent praise and worship of microcredit (capitalism’s cure-all for Third World poverty), its language and tone is as superstitious, as mystical as the most primitive religions.

For the past several months “Keenan Bowenâ€� was writing for Line Out, the Stranger’s Music blog. Some months later Bowen began writing occasional short pieces for the print edition of The Stranger. After checks were cut to pay Bowen for her contributions to the print edition of the paper (the Line Out posts were unpaid), the managing editor discovered that Keenan Bowen was a pseudonym for Bailee Martin, Club Advertising Coordinator for The Stranger.

An internal investigation was launched. We learned that Dave Segal, The Stranger’s music editor, had invited Martin to contribute to the paper using a pseudonym. Segal’s managers and Martin’s managers were not informed that Martin was writing for Line Out or the print edition of the paper.

This morning Martin’s manager met with her. This afternoon Dan Savage and Brad Steinbacher met with Segal. After the meeting, Dave Segal turned in his resignation, effective immediately. Martin also resigned as Club Advertising Coordinator for The Stranger.

While all of Martin’s contributions were tainted by a conflict of interest, a preliminary investigation of Martin’s writings for the paper did not turn up any direct evidence of Martin having given favorable coverage to bands or clubs she worked with in her capacity as Club Advertising Coordinator. That position was a salaried support sales staff position, not a commissioned position, and Martin primarily served as an assistant to the senior sales staff.

All of Martin’s writings have been removed from the website for review. They will be reposted once that review is completed and a note about this is attached to each piece.

We will have a full accounting of this issue in next week’s paper.

You may have imagined that the author of Persepolis (recently selected as 2006 assignment for the Seattle-wide reading initiative run by the public library) was an aristocratic type, fluent in French and melodramatically doomed in her decades-long exile from her native Iran.

Well, that, and “I will die like a miserable worm, and rot down to compost!”

This interview is a little old, yes, but it’s wildly entertaining.

Don’t tell me there’s nothing going on. Here’s what we’re doing:

“Going to the Triple Door to see Califone.”
“The Inquiry at Hugo House, then the ’70s horror flick Ritual at the Grand Illusion (11 pm).”
“Seeing (and Slogging from) Thom Pain at the Seattle Rep.”
“Drinking my tiny bottle of whiskey, then heading to a house party in the U-District.”
“Shooting hoops with Bill Russell. Unless he cancels.”
“Free Indian music concert at McCaw Hall.”
“Shortbus at Cinerama.”
“Finally checking out Liberty on 15th. Then hiding out at home with a couple hash bonbons.”
“Going to see the Bodies exhibit.”
“Derek May at Element.”
“Sewing a nice pillow case for my dad’s post-heart-surgery pillow.”

Sorry for the light Slogging, but things are busy as hell right now.

The newsies have been working overtime on our endorsement issue. (It hits next Wednesday and comes with a few surprises.) And as far as I can tell, the arts kids are slammed with the Genius issue.

Anyway, I came back downstairs from production and Savage was handing out little bottles of whiskey.

Excpect some whiskey-induced Slogging as the afternoon turns into the fantastic witchcraft of teenage algorithm.

The business, mind you, not the building.

A quick history: Re-bar opened on 1114 Howell St in January of 1990 under proprietor and impresario Steve Wells with $20,000 and volunteer labor. At the time it was a bar in a category by itself—Nathan Benedict, one of the co-owners of Thumper’s (which was just sold—the building, not the business) said it was: “Totally unique. An amazing off-the-grid club.”

In an interview last year, Wells described it as: “One of the few bars where straight and gay people mixed and played black music… For a long time, straight people thought it was a gay bar and gay people thought there were too many straight people, but Re-bar is exactly what my partners and I wanted.”

It was also one of the most interesting theaters in town, a launching pad for Dina Martina (as herself), Sarah Rudinoff (Go There), Nick Garrison (Hedwig), Keri Healey (Cherry, Cherry, Lemon), Collaborator (Extropia), David Schmader (Straight), the Greek Active Theater company (founded by Dan Savage), Kevin Kent (Sister Windy) and on and on and on. It was the best kind of gritty theater—a for-profit bar that subsidized Wells’s talent for handicapping artists, no mission statement, no board of directors, no bullshit. (Sarah Rudinoff said Wells gave her the time slot for Go There before she’d even written the show.)

Anyway: One year ago, Wells’s partners (Carla Schricker and Lani Huston) bought out his share and renewed the business’s five-year lease. Now they’re looking to sell—with four years left on the lease.

Why? Well, there are the new state requirements for all clubs and performance venues with a 100+ capacity to install sprinkler systems (at $30K—$70K). There are a proliferation of new bars, gay, straight, and mixed, that make the competition steeper.

But, Schricker says, “Over the last year, I’ve just been burned out on being up late. I don’t know what to tell you. I turned 40 and started thinking about other ideas. The sprinkler system and the Mayor’s office have been a thorn in our side for sure—it was icing on the cake, but it was definitely not the decision-maker.”

She says she doesn’t want Re-bar to close. But it remains for sale. On Craigslist.

Rare opportunity to purchase Seattle Landmark nightclub established in 1989! The Re-bar is apx. 3,500 SF lounge and theater, ideal for new owner`s concept or face-lift.

1114 Howell Street, Seattle 98101

List Price: $225,000
Selling Office Commission: 5%
Showing Inst: Call Laura Miller at 206.351.3573
View w/Discretion: Yes

Contact:
Laura Miller
206.351.3573
lauramiller@windermere.com
Windermere Commercial/Metro

…a sex scandal breaks, blows up, and winds down two blocks from our office. And we never had much to say about it—even though it involves a Catholic priest and naked pictures of “fully aroused” men. Weird.

The Stranger, way out here on the west coast, doesn’t often get a chance to bust a national political figure. But we sure did this week. I just re-read Josh’s column/take-down of Rudy Guliani and his truly appalling flip-flop on the assault weapons ban. Josh writes…

Once upon a time, Rudy Giuliani said, “Someone who now voted to roll back the assault-weapons ban would really be demonstrating that special-interest politics mean more to them than life-or-death issues.” Indeed, when the GOP Congress let the Clinton-era assault-weapons ban expire in 2004, Giuliani was among the high-profile Republican critics to denounce the move. The availability of assault weapons like AK-47s at gun shows and gun shops has emerged as a major concern for U.S. law enforcement grappling with terrorism in the post-9/11 era. Giuliani’s commitment to limiting access to assault weapons, however, apparently evaporated this week when he came to Seattle to stump for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick, who’s running against Democrat Maria Cantwell.

Mike McGavick doesn’t support the assault weapon ban, which would mean he puts special-interest politics ahead of life-or-death issues, according to Rudy Giuliani circa-2004. But McGavick’s apparent disregard for life-or-death issues didn’t stop Giuliani circa 2006 from coming to Washington to campaign for McGavick.

But Josh was ready and waiting ready to bust “America’s Mayor.â€� When Josh asked Giuliani why he was supporting McGavick despite his position on the assault weapons ban, Rudy replied…

“I don’t think [the assault-weapons ban] is one of the most critical issues right now.”

And…

“The assault-weapons ban is something I supported in the past.”

You know, in the past—back when terrorism was a problem.

If terrorism isn’t a serious enough problem today that we need an assaults weapon ban anymore, then why do we need a Rudy Giuliani for President campaign? Rudy’s supposedly strong and resolute response to the 9/11 terror attacks and, by implication, any future terror attacks is the only reason he’s a potential Republican nominee for president in 2008. Terrorism is all Giuliani’s got. And if terrorism isn’t that big a deal anymore, why should we consider voting for him?

Sorry, Rudy, but terrorism’s still a problem—and so is the easy availability of assault weapons. Back to Josh’s column…

An al Qaeda manual entitled How Can I Train Myself for Jihad, found by United States Special Forces in the ruins of a training camp in Afghanistan (and posted on a suspected terrorist’s website in 2004), tellingly singles out the United States for its easy availability of firearms, and stipulates that al Qaeda members living in the U.S. “obtain an assault weapon legally, preferably an AK-47 or variations.”

Rudy Giuliani and Mike McGavick: Giving Aid and Comfort to Our Enemies.

It’s no secret that The Stranger’s excited about the premiere installment of Trannyshack Seattle, the local edition of San Francisco’s legendary pyschotrash drag night, landing tomorrow night at Chop Suey. (You can read my Suggests for the event here.)

For further Trannyshack hype, I’ll hand the Slog stage over to one of the evening’s participants, that most accomplished freak Jackie Hell:

There isn’t an article about it in the current book section, and it was mistakenly left out of the readings calendar. Well, it’s in the readings calendar now.

The short version: Dorothy Allison (the famous lesbian author of Bastard Out of Carolina and other books) is doing a reading at Seattle First United Methodist Church (811 Fifth Ave) at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $17. She’s also doing a writing workshop tomorrow. Everything you need to know is here.

A lot has been written about former Bush staffer David Kuo, whose new book, Tempting Faith, reveals that Karl Rove views evangelical Republicans as a bunch of “ridiculous” “nuts.” However, Kuo’s book also contains a more damning revelation: the White House targeted funding for “faith-based” organizations to groups that were friendly to the administration, specifically “Christian” groups who shared Bush’s conservative religious beliefs. In the book, Kuo quotesa member of the grant review panel as saying she stopped looking at applications from “those non-Christian groups,â€� and so did many of her colleagues. Federal law prohibits government agencies from allocating funds based on the basis of political or religious belief. And yet, according to Kuo’s book, that’s just what the Bush administration did.

Meanwhile, two new polls show support shifting away from the GOP among evangelical whites—an important part of the Republican base. A Pew poll found that just 57 percent of white evangelicals were inclined to vote Republican, a 21-point drop. A Gallup poll conducted at the same time found religous whites as likely to vote Democratic as Republican. The midterms can’t get here soon enough.

Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News. NBC News first reported on the camping and rafting trip on Tuesday.

Kolbe is the openly gay congreesman who claims to have warned Foley about his over-friendly approach to pages.

Via Americablog.

Andrew Sullivan posted on this earlier in the week: Check out this bracing and always-to-be-kept-on-file take down of the age-old smear against gay men:

[T]he very scientists that are cited in support of the contention that gays are more likely to be molesters explicitly reject the idea that homosexuals pose a disproportionate threat to children. These scientists note that pedophilia is a separate orientation from homosexuality and that the vast majority of molesters who target boys have either no interest in mature males or are heterosexual men who are attracted to the feminine characteristics of pre-pubescent males.

As for the ‘slippery slope’ argument, the biggest mistake many social conservatives make is to assume that the contemporary taboo against sexual relations with children is a longstanding part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is only now coming under assault by the left. In fact, the Judeo-Christian tradition and many other religious traditions tolerated and even affirmed pedophilic relationships for centuries. The contemporary taboo against such relationships developed only a little over one hundred years ago, as people became more enlightened about the potentially damaging aspects of sexual relations between persons of unequal maturity and power.

Oops. I didn’t realize (as Dan’s pointed out) that Mark Foley was asked repeatedly by reporters if he was gay, and always denied it. That obviously makes the job of reporting on his homosexuality quite a bit more difficult—but not impossible.

Anyway, while I’m on the topic of things Dan might set me straight on later, here’s something else about the Foley scandal that, at least to me, has echoes with the Jim West scandal. It’s a tricky thing to delve into because it risks helping the religious right push its false contention that all gay men are pedophiles, so before the Jim West echoes, first a statement of what should be obvious:

All gay men are not pedophiles. If we assume that pedophilia is a relatively rare phenomenon spread evenly throughout the population, then sure, it’s more than likely that some small percentage of gay men are pedophiles. But some small percentage of straight men are pehophiles, too. And since there are way more straight men than gay men, common sense would suggest that the religious right should reverse course and focus far more of it’s anti-pedophilia efforts on straight men. I await the press release from Focus on the Family…

In the meantime, it’s also worth pointing out that there is a difference between pedophilia and pederasty (as the term is currently understood in America). Based on the evidence so far, it seems that Mark Foley was a pederast, not a pedophile — he liked teenage boys on the cusp of adulthood, not pre-pubescent boys.

Here’s the echo: If you think of him as a pederast, Foley is similar to West, who was outed when the Spokesman Review hired an investigator to pose in a gay internet chatroom as young man about to turn 18. After West’s death earlier this year, I wrote:

To read the Spokesman-Review’s transcripts of West trolling the gay internet chatrooms is to read a case study in the tortured psyche of a closet case. West, who graduated from Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School in 1969, the same year that the modern gay-rights movement began in New York, returns repeatedly in his chats to stories of a self-consciously hesitant attraction to men in high school. It was a time when West dated girls, he wrote, “because I was expected to.” West also wrote repeatedly, and fondly, about sex with a male fraternity member in college. Explaining why, as a middle-aged man, he was now chatting with young men on the verge of coming out, he responded simply: “I like youth.” Perhaps he liked remembering a time before he had committed so firmly to a life in the closet.

This conjecture is just that—a conjecture. But it’s not hard to see why in certain people pederasty would be a natural outcome not of their homosexuality, but of their life in the homosexual closet.

Perhaps, for certain older gay men like West and Foley, their deep regret at not having acted on their homosexual desires in their youth—coupled with their realization that if they were 17 or 18 now and in the right community, they probably could act on those desires—drives them first to fantasize about what might have been, and then to try to live out that fantasy through a combination of instant messaging and abuse of power.

Air America is officially bankrupt.

Freedom is Not Free is a nonprofit that raises money for servicemen and -women injured in the war. Their current product: the 2007 America’s Heroes Reconnaissance Marines Calendar, featuring hott, indisputably hetero shots like this one:

And this:

And my personal favorite, this:

Buy a copy for yourself and all your hetero, hetero friends here.

Via Unfogged.

Seems like everybody’s got an opinion on this whole Google buying YouTube for 1.6 billion dollars thing. Even Christopher Walken’s mom. Enjoy.

Tip o’ the hat to Best Week Ever!

1. It’s not just because my parents honeymooned there that I’ve loved MAN’s series on Niagara Falls art this week.

2. Closing this weekend:

This image is a still from Wyndel Hunt’s video Auto-Interrogation and Explanation Without Verification. We tried to convert the video to YouTube so we could share the whole thing here on Slog, because that’s how funny and smart it is, but tech stuff prevented us. That means you really should go to Crawl Space before 5 pm Sunday to see this installation.

In the video, Hunt talks about the small, serious, black-on-black marker drawings shown on the walls of the gallery. Or, he tries to. While his words—which establish an argument for the meaning of the works, then tear the argument down—appear onscreen like subtitles, those same spoken words are sped up to the point of nonsense, and the artist’s movements are sped up and manipulated to the point of slapstick, as he delivers a self-mocking turn on a witness stand of his own making, talking into the microphone like some self-conscious art version of Oliver North.

Will Ryman’s Private Moments at Howard House is the New York artist’s series of cartoonish figures ranging in size from smaller than human scale to an embracing couple 10 and a half feet tall. They’re made of magic sculp (a material like Sculpy but harder), paper mache, pvc pipe, wire, and acrylic paint. Try as I might to consider them in the vein of, say, the caricatures of Thomas Schütte crossed with the gestures of Giacometti, I couldn’t get hooked on these. They felt overly lighthearted, sometimes plain adorable, and posed in the stiff fashion of people joining together in a staged photograph. Anyone who’s seen them have other thoughts?

3. “I studied the meaning of life for a year.” That’s the photographer Alice Wheeler talking about her formative year at Evergreen State on Eva Lake’s radio show Artstar, recently archived here.

During Part 2 of Diane Sawyer’s interview with Mel Gibson, the actor says his anti-Semitic remarks (“The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”) were sparked by the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, which were “going at it” the day he was pulled over for drunk driving. After perambulating around the issue for a while, Gibson turned and faced the camera. “Let me be real clear here, in sobriety, sitting here, in front of you, national television, that I don’t believe that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

Glad we cleared that up.

Then, tepid mea culpa accomplished, Gibson went on to blame critics for his outburst, saying that those who accused him of using anti-Semitic imagery in his movie The Passion of the Christ had pushed him over the edge.

For an entire year, I was subjected to a pretty brutal sort of public beating. During the course of that, I think I probably had my rights violated in many different ways as an American. You know. As an artist. As a Christian. Just as a human being, you know. … The other thing I never heard was one single word of apology.

Hmm. So, basically, Israel and critics are to blame for Gibson’s anti-Semitic remarks (made, apropos of nothing, during Gibson’s drunk-driving arrest), and Gibson deserves an apology from critics who violated his rights “as a Christian.” (I wasn’t aware that the Constitution granted special rights specifically to Christians, but whatever.)

Incidentally, for those who’ve forgotten, Gibson’s “Passion” portrays the Pharisees (those evil Jews who, you know, killed Jesus) as standard-issue conniving, boorish Evil Movie Jews with enormous hooked or bulbous noses who morph into horned devils as they screech maniacally for Jesus’s blood. And Gibson’s father—the guy who raised him—has very publicly called the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust “mostly fiction,” and reports about the genocide “overly hyped.”

Yeah. No way is that guy anti-Semitic.

Condi is serving the gays Goodwill Realness with a Twist:

WASHINGTON — At a State Department ceremony this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly acknowledged the family members of Mark Dybul, whom she was swearing in as the nation’s new global AIDS coordinator.

As first lady Laura Bush looked on, Rice singled out his partner, Jason Claire, and Claire’s mother. Rice referred to her as Dybul’s “mother-in-law.”

A genuine gesture or a tactical grasping at straws? Can the GOP even think on that many levels of deceptive irony? Whatever the motive, on the face of it (where most conservative voters end their intellectual investigation and investment), it is what it is—“a bold gesture in favor of gay marriage,” says AMERICAblog.

(Via Towleroad.)

Remember The Residents’s YouTube project with the Museum of Modern Art? Well, they’ve narrowed the two-minute video submissions down to 11, and are asking for votes to determine which six will appear in the exhibition at MoMA. Here they are.

Eli, some reporters directly asked Foley if he was gay—and Foley denied it, just as Esser did when you asked him directly last year. So I don’t agree that Esser’s denial somehow put the rumors about him definitively to rest. Foley lied, Eli—hell, that’s what the closet is. It’s a lie you tell hundreds of times every day. What if Esser lied?

The difference here is not that one man was asked and the other wasn’t, but that Foley was openly closeted—he had a boyfriend, people knew he was gay. He refused to say that he was gay, but he didn’t try that hard to hide his homosexuality. Foley trusted that the media’s highly selective respect for privacy—it seems to kick in most strongly when it comes to homosexuality (witness those Susan Sontag obits)—would prompt reporters and editors to protect his relatively open secret.

Is someone in the media keeping secrets for Luke Esser? I don’t know that, anymore than I know if Esser, a conservative Republican in the state legislature, is gay or not. But whether or not Esser is gay, rumors about his sexuality continue to circulate, despite his denial.

In today’s LA Times, Michelangelo Signorile makes an obvious point: It’s not just Republicans who should be blamed for enabling Mark Foley’s destructive life in the closet, but also the D.C. media.

By not reporting on Foley’s deceitful life for more than 15 years — during which he portrayed himself as a heterosexual politician — the media enabled a man overwhelmed by the destructiveness of the closet to ultimately implode in the halls of Congress. By looking the other way on something that made them uncomfortable — reporting on closeted gay public figures, particularly those who are hypocrites — and by deluding themselves that it’s a privacy issue, reporters, producers and editors took part in perpetuating a fiction, one that may well have led to an ugly outcome.

This is similar to an argument I made last year in The Stranger regarding the rumors that long swirled around former Spokane mayor Jim West (destructively closeted) as well as the rumors that more recently have swirled around state senator Luke Esser (not closeted). In both situations, a simple question from a reporter might have helped: “Are you gay?” (In Esser’s case, when I asked him last year, the answer was “No,” putting the rumors to rest.)

The generous explanation for why reporters here didn’t ask is that a sense of propriety stopped them. A less generous explanation might be that a subtle form of homophobia was at work, one that made reporters think asking might lead to a “shameful” revelation. Either way, this reluctance to ask has twice caused a problem to drag on too long. First it was Jim West, who was never asked about the “open secret” that he was gay while he was busy voting against gay rights in Olympia. And now it’s Esser, the rumors about whom could have been debunked long ago with one phone call.

I realize this is a complicated issue, and that asking the question might not always be a magic bullet for stopping a destructively closeted public figure. But if we believe that being gay is not a shameful thing, then there’s no harm in asking. And by not asking, it seems to me, the media only contributes to a closeted public figure’s sense that he or she can get away with anything — a sense clearly felt by Foley, and West.

UPDATE: See above.

The Rep has asked me to sit in a light booth tonight and live-Slog my reactions to their new play Thom Pain (based on nothing), a solo show by Will Eno about a pissy, broken-hearted smart aleck who hates his audience:

Now I think would be a good time for the raffle. I hope you held on to your tickets, on the back of which is a number. We have some very nice prizes.

Brief pause.

All right, are you ready? Okay. Here we go. Who has the luck with him tonight? This’ll be fun.

Pause.

There is no raffle. Who said there was going to be a raffle? Other than me? The good news is, you didn’t lose. You lost nothing except the time it took to find this out. Which is a pretty big chunk. Someday, some minute, you’ll have thirty seconds left to live. Think of me, my little comic bit about the raffle. Think of me, fucking around with your life, and try to smile.

This live-reviewing experiment seems like an embarrassment waiting to happen—simultaneously listening to a man talk, thinking of things worth writing, then writing them seems like a lot to ask—but I requested an ample supply of “journalist juice” in my contract rider. Which oughta help.

(Also: I like espresso. I like black coffee. But my meager mind had never considered having the two together until this morning, when I heard a young woman order a “shot in the dark.” She was wearing cowboy boots, black faux-velvet leggings and a baggy pink sweater. What a dame.)

Well, they got us.

The Stranger has been working in concert with New Times/Village Voice Media, taking our marching orders from NT/VVM editorial head honcho Mike Lacey, who is in turn taking his marching orders directly from Vice President Dick Cheney. We had good run, but the jig is up. Our ties to the old Anglo-Dutch empires have been laid bare for all to see. All we wanted to do was destroy democracy! And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those damn kids in the LaRouche Youth Movement..

Via Boston’s Weekly Dig.

From CNN:

Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy—almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall. General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana….

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

“A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action,” Hiller said dryly. One soldier told him later: “Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I’d say ‘That damn marijuana’.”

Thanks to Richard for the tip.

Brits: Good luck with that Iraq thing, we’re getting out.

Pot: Magical cure-all.

Warner: Not running in 2008.

Foley: Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Bush: Just using evangelicals.

Bush administration diplomas: Phony.

Economists: It’s the minimum wage, stupid.

Allen advisers’ new strategy: “Shut up” for the rest of the campaign.

Dow: At record high. Can Depression be be far behind?

Russia and China: Opposed to sanctions against North Korea.

Congress: “Better off” with Hastert in charge, according to Bush.

“Liberal”: No longer a dirty word.

Fox News: Satanic, according to homobigot Phelps.

Madonna adoption: Apparently back on.

Cat parasite: Creating an all-male world of neurotics and schizophrenics, one infection at a time.

Re-bar’s not the only legendary gay landmark headed for the exit. Thumper’s, the grand old gay restaurant/piano bar at 15th and Madison on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, is closing its doors after 21 years.

Thumper’s final night will be next Saturday, October 21. The next-to-last-night—Friday Oct 20—brings “a gala evening of cabaret,” featuring such talents and Thumper’s mainstays Arnaldo!, Charles Baker, Ruby Bishop, Jeannette D’Armand, Mikel Poulsen, the Boys from Gaydar Productions, Cheryl Serio, and Marcus Wolland, with proceeds benefitting the gay/straight youth chorus Diverse Harmony.

The email announcing the benefit came with a press release laying out Thumper’s backstory, and if you’re at all interested in Seattle/Capitol Hill history (and aren’t prohibitively snooty about less-than-elegant press-release writing) you should definitely give it a read after the jump.

Continue reading "The End of Thumper's" »

The storied Seattle club is for sale—on Craigslist.

$225000 Seattle Night Club For Sale **Re-bar**

Rare opportunity to purchase Seattle Landmark nightclub established in 1989! The Re-bar is apx. 3,500 SF lounge and theater, ideal for new owner`s concept or face-lift.

1114 Howell Street, Seattle 98101

List Price: $225,000
Selling Office Commission: 5%
Showing Inst: Call Laura Miller at 206.351.3573
View w/Discretion: Yes

Contact:
Laura Miller
206.351.3573
lauramiller@windermere.com
Windermere Commercial/Metro

Hm… Re-bar is where I met Terry—we made out in the bathroom, it was all very sleezy. If I had 225K I would buy it as a keepsake.

The 2006 recipients of the Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowships ($6,000 each) in visual art are:

Julie Alexander, Cris Bruch, Buddy Bunting, Cat Clifford, Drew Daly, Steve Davis, Ann Gale, Blake Haygood, Jenny Heishman, Ryan Horvath, Tivon Rice, and Alex Schweder.

Now here’s another announcement:

Bruch (pronounced “brew”)

and Clifford

are on the as-yet-unpublished Shortlist for the Stranger’s Genius Awards.

Check next week’s edition of the paper to find out the other two visual artists—plus the theater, film, and literary artists—on the Shortlist for the Genius.

The hot, sweaty party for the awards starts at 9 pm next Saturday, October 21, at the Henry Art Gallery. Visit here to find out more about winners present and past.

In trying to figure out exactly how bright the lights are that last July’s City Council- approved strip club Ordinance mandates in all city sex and skin establishments, the only description I could find anywhere was the cryptic “30 lux”. This left me wondering, of course, what the hell is 30 lux? Parking lot lighting? Christmas lighting? Love-makin’ lighting?

I call up the city light department, who give me this very helpful answer: “2-3 lux is one candle.”

I’ve long gotten over the ridiculousness of measuring cars through horse comparisons, but really? Are we still measuring lights based on candles? And does this mean a strip club light entirely with hundreds and hundreds of sensual smelly candles would be acceptable to the moral overlords?

…this.

Because I sure don’t. This email came to editor@thestranger.com:

My name is XXXX XXXXXX and I am currently a senior at Redmond High School. As a senior I must complete a Culminating Project, this is one of the graduation requirements. I have chosen to create a fashion magazine. The reason that I contacted you is to ask you if you would be interested in becoming my Field Advisor. A Field Advisor (FA) is “an adult community member who will provide role modeling, academic assistance and career connections for a student working on their senior Culminating Project.” I understand that you are busy as the editor of a newspaper, but please let me know if you are interested.

I get at least one email or phone call like this every week and, being Catholic, they fill me with guilt. I truly wish I could help you out with your Culminating Project, XXXX, but I am, as you put it, busy as the editor of a newspaper. I also don’t mean to single you out, but I’ve been meaning to say something about this and your email came just as I sat down to work this morning.

Over the last six months I’ve started to feel like it’s open season around here. I get a request like yours practically every day—I have barely have time to respond yes-or-no, much less serve as FA to two dozen high school and college students in the Seattle area and across the country. Does anyone? Do the other students at Redmond High School get positive responses—or responses at all—from the community members they cold call?

If the answer is yes, well, then I feel even more guilty. But if the answer is no, well, then I feel a little bit better about my inability to serve.

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill sent me this letter in response to yesterday’s Paradox/Mars Hill story. He gave me permission to share it.

Megan, I wanted to follow up on the article you wrote. I felt it was pretty fair, so thank you. Back in the days when the Teen Dance Ordinance (TDO) was in effect we used our nonprofit status to do shows and lost quite a bit of money that the church covered gladly as we really do want to support the all ages scene. Over the years things have changed a lot with the TDO lifted and our church has changed a lot too from a few hundreds to many thousands of people. One of the big changes is that we’re now meeting in three parts of the city and looking at possibly expanding to do shows in Shoreline, Ballard, and West Seattle. Right now were figuring out how to make our facilities open to all ages shows wherever we get real estate. So, that’s pretty much the big shakeup we are in and trying to figure out with our spreading around the area what that means for the Paradox and shows. Our hope is to continue doing shows and maybe also open some additional clubs under their own name, or possibly the Paradox name, and we’re trying to figure that all out. For example, we are finishing construction on a great new building in West Seattle that has an amazing space for an all ages venue complete with a complete industrial kitchen attached. I know that some folks will be suspicious about our intentions but I hope they give us the benefit of the doubt that even though we are Christians we are one’s that love the all ages scene and really want to help provide nice safe venues for bands and younger fans while also celebrating The Vera Project and others doing the same. We’ve invested a lot of money in the all ages scene and the church has covered the losses for years and have had a really positive experience with the bands and the fans and hope to do even more once we get some construction finished and a complete plan in place.

Many Thanks
Pastor Mark Driscoll
Mars Hill Church

I meant to Slog this when I first saw it a couple days ago, but got swamped and forgot.

It’s cheesy, but well done. (Does anyone else find it strangely upsetting to watch the Asia dragon eat the Nevermind baby?)

Stephen Colbert was exceptionally awesome last night. Those of you who didn’t get to witness his “interview” with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda can catch up now:

Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary.

Her womb has been swabbed by God. Praise her.

…or do you? From the preview for next week, it looks like Jeffrey’s a goner, but it seems unlikely that they’d totally give that away. Any predictions for next week? Discuss.

Aaaaaaaaaaaye, kids! “Safety” is COOL! And nobody knows better than Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzerelli from Happy Days. But let’s say you’re being sexually attacked by former Congressman Mark Foley—it’s simply not effective enough to yell “RAPE!” Because, let’s face it, with your past record? Your parents will never believe you. That’s why all the “COOL” kids are yelling the newest thing in rape or abduction protection, “THE HONK.” Let’s watch as the Fonz and a mentally impaired school teacher demonstrate “the honk” in this classic PSA.

Got it? GREAT! So let’s practice. At exactly 2:37 pm today—NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE—let out a huge HONK!! That’ll show those rapists!

Earlier this week it was Tucker Carlson speaking “deep truth” about the comtempt Republican leaders have for Evangelical Christians. Now David Kuo, former special assistant to President Bush from 2001 to 2003, is joining the chorus:

A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft…

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.â€�

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as `ridiculous,’ `out of control,’ and just plain `goofy,’â€� Kuo writes.

Via Americablog.

The Daily Pennsylvanian’s blog, The Spin, has a video chat with Dan wherein he expounds on the Senate race between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey (and Green candidate Carl Romanelli, who is fighting a legal battle to get on the ballot).

Choice excerpt: “Any progressive who votes for a Green anymore after Nader and now Romanelli is a fucking idiot and should be beaten with sticks.”

Right now I’m playing Johnny Cash while I work. Is anyone else listening to the voice of a dead man this morning?

Oh my God:

Down in the comments thread, a SLOG reader called N in Seattle is talking about BRIBE (Bringing Real Integrity Back to Elections)—the PAC that the Stranger set up back in early 2004 to protest Mayor Nickels’s tacky overtures to the crop of incoming city council members. He held fund raisers for them.

N, thank you for the memories. That was my favorite thing that ever happened, and I’d forgotten all about it.

If I remember right, we actually raised enough money at our fundraiser to buy 1 bus ad. And we got it on a line that goes right by city hall.

Here’s a mock up of the ad that ran. To my evident oblivion it’s posted right here in the Stranger news room.

I don’t know how I forgot this yesterday when I posted about the giant slides at the Tate Modern, but in 2003, I went down one of Carsten Høller’s art slides at the ICA in Boston.

The experience, obviously, was not memorable. It was awkward. I laid stiffly in the slide and let the “fun” happen. It was the middle of a weekday and almost nobody else was in the museum. It was quiet. The slide snaked down the narrow atrium at the center of the building, and I made a muffled clattering noise on my way down, catching a glimpse of the sourpuss guy at admissions as I rode absurdly by him. I remember feeling, above all, like a square. When I was deposited at the bottom, I got up, brushed myself off like an embarrassed cat preening after doing something stupid, and exited the museum.

Guess what we missed on YouTube this week? A staged orgy featuring Disneyland characters! Apparently some randy Disneyland Paris employees hopped into the costumes of Walt’s most famous characters, and videotaped themselves in a vast array of sexual positions. Naturally, it was yanked off YouTube immediately. BOOOOO!!!
Here’s the scoop from The Daily Mail!

The footage, which is certain to be banned from Disney’s official merchandise, shows Goofy grabbing Minnie Mouse from behind.

She pulls herself away, but is then cornered for more fake sex with a giant snowman.

In another scene, Mickey Mouse, the children’s favourite, gets in on the act with the snowman.

The clips were shot at Disneyland Paris and then posted on YouTube.Com, the popular site for viewing bizarre videos. It has now been removed.

The video is thought to have been shot using a concealed camera. A French voiceover announces “Disneyland backstage, it’s hot!”

A Disney spokesman said the company was aware of the video and expressed ‘regret’ if it caused any offence.

655,000: “Excess” civilian death toll in Iraq, according to a joint US-Iraq study.

20: Factor by which that exceeds an estimate made by Bush in December.

33: Number of FBI agents with even limited proficiency in Arabic.

4: Minimum number of years for which the US Army plans to keep troops in Iraq at current levels.

2: Number of times Mark Foley visited pages’ dorm building, according to ABC.

2”: Number of contradictory positions Bush has taken on nukes in North Korea in the last three years.

3: Number of days it took John McCain to go from blaming Clinton for North Korean nuke to blasting Bush critics for “finger-pointing” on North Korean nuke.

2: Number dead in NYC crash, including Yankees pitcher.

1 in 3: Number of women physically abused worldwide, according to a new UN report.

I’m writing my column in what has to be the weirdest of Milwaukee’s 800+ bars. It’s basically a photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy of every bar and hotel lobby Philippe Starck designed for Ian Schrager back when they were re-inventing hotels and lobby bars together. It’s glitzy and ritzy and… and weird. Really weird. I don’t even know where to begin.

Well, let’s start with the door. The bar is attached to a hotel—a Comfort Inn, of all things. At the Comfort Inn, the toilets are still sanitized for your protection. And the sign on the door to the hotel bar?

“Aqua: Upscale Restaurant and Bar.” Uh, if you’re an upscale bar—really upscale—you don’t have to say so on the door. And then there’s the interior. It’s like Liberace met Star Trek in a dark alley somewhere and decided to beat the fuck out of Love American Style.

Check out the bar…

It’s hard to see in my photo, but the bar is made up of water tanks illuminated from inside with blue and green and lavander lights. And they’re bubbling, boiling, like some sort of massive, manic lava lamp. Now take a gander at the white baby grand piano…

And here’s the host stand—two clear Plexiglas fifty-gallon drums, bubbling away. One green, one blue.

Clear Plexiglas barstools…

But this is the pièce de résistance: a huge mural of two… zebras. Necking.

WTF? The mural is huge—the length of the bar—and it’s hard to concentrate on my column, what with all the zebra love on display.

Oh, and I’m the only person in the bar. It seems that the freaked out bar at the Comfort Inn isn’t one of Milwaukee’s hotspots. So I have all this glamour to myself….

Yankees Pitcher Among At Least Two Dead in New York High-Rise Plane Crash.

The New Republic kicks off its latest issue with two intertwined, smart editorials. (I’ve pasted in key exerpts in the jump below just in case the links don’t work.)

The first editorial is by their lead columnist and former editor, whip-smart Peter Beinert.

Here’s his lead:

Last week, I went searching the liberal Web for discussions of Idomeneo. The Deutsche Oper, a Berlin opera house, had recently canceled the Mozart classic because it feared Muslims would react violently to a scene featuring Mohammed’s severed head. Germans declared that free speech was under siege. The New York Times covered every wrinkle. Right-wing websites buzzed. And, on the big liberal blogs, virtual silence.

Beinert’s piece is a nice slapdown on myopic (and I’d say hypocritical) lefties who have an endless history of bending over backward to accomodate reactionaries. Beinert goes on to argue that the left’s pick & choose approach to outrage is a fatal flaw.

Cultural sensititivy my ass. If the Anti-Defamation League rose up to denounce Ali G’s new movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, can you imagine the avalanche of righteous (anti-censorship) indignation that would come thundering down from the left?

Brilliantly, The New Republic’s, symbiotic, second lead editorial, on the facing page is, well, a slapdown on the ADL for its (slow-witted) denunciation of Ali G.’s new movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhsta

Here’s TNR’s conclusion:

Cohen [Ali G.] has revealed Nazarbayev’s intolerance in a way that no State Department report ever will. Here’s hoping the ADL’s plea to keep audiences away from Borat’s film works as well as it did for The Passion of the Christ.

By denouncing censorship across the board—defending stuff that pisses off Muslims and pisses off Jews—TNR sets a rare (high) standard for those that claim to revere freedom of speech.

Continue reading "A Few Cultural Learnings" »

Sen. John McCain on North Korea yesterday:

“We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another. Now we’re facing the consequences of the failed Clinton administration policies.”

Sen. John McCain on North Korea today:

“I think this is the wrong time for us to be engaging in finger pointing when in this crucial time, we need the world and Americans united in going to the United Nations to bring about sanctions against North Korea.”

(Via Think Progress.)

Via Goldy:

Democrat Darcy Burner’s challenge to freshman Republican Rep. Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th District has become one of the year’s key battleground races — as evidenced by the fact that the national parties poured nearly $1 million dollars into this contest in the last two weeks.

As a result of this and other factors, CQPolitics.com has move this race to No Clear Favorite from Leans Republican.

Independent polls indicate that Burner, a former Microsoft executive making her first bid for public office, is gaining ground in this partisan swing district in suburban Seattle.

Here are a few salient details about “Dr.” R.K. Paul, the nutty Houston evangelist who met with House Speaker Dennis Hastert to implore the disgraced Republican to resign.

• He said voters should oust Republicans because their foreign policy is delaying the Second Coming.

• He served as spiritual advisor to dictators and mass murderers, including Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein.

• He claimed another minister’s leper colony as his own, using images from the colony to raise money for his organization.

• He abandoned an 11-year-old girl in Washington, D.C., after she became ill on a fund-raising trip to Little Rock.

• He claims to have convinced Hastert, through prayer, to resign.

• He once fled India after his companions were arrested for causing riots, abandoning them in prison.

• He lost his accreditation from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability because he could not substantiate claims about his organization’s finances.

Hastert has since claimed the evangelist “duped” him into letting Paul into the house speaker’s Plano home; Paul himself, however, called that claim “ridiculous,” adding that Hastert had “welcomed” Paul into his home.

With Seattlest deciding to “Ask a Dot-commer” about one of this week’s noteworthy events, I thought I’d ask a homo about another of this week’s happenings: the Jim McGreevey reading at Elliott Bay last night.

I’m not a huge fan of McGreevey, the former New Jersey governor who came out of the closet two years ago, at age 47. Here’s what I wrote about him in the Stranger’s Queer Issue this year:

Gay rights groups applauded McGreevey’s courage in coming out of the closet at age 47, but a lot of homosexuals I knew wanted to slap him for taking so long and causing so much harm along the way. My ex-girlfriend from long ago, herself no fan of closet cases, has a stock answer to the question of how to punish people who fuck up in the way McGreevey has fucked up: “Their punishment is their life.”

So I didn’t make it a point to be at his Seattle reading as he flogged his tell-all book, The Confession. But a couple of gay men I know did. Here’s the report from one, who wants his handle to be “Another Late-Bloomer for Change.”

I was drawn less by interest in the book itself, and more by curiosity about him as a person. Aside from the