The Trainwreck Riders have cancelled their tour, including tonight’s Stranger Suggested show at the Sunset Tavern after their van was hit by a drunk driver. Details on Line Out.

Maybe I was naive, but I really didn’t think Atlas was going to get shut down over this story. It seemed like they were in the process of getting things up to code and working to have an inspection—unless they were just stalling or bullshitting about all that. I’m sorry it did get shut down, or that it won’t be able to get the proper permitting or whatever. That’s a shame. But I don’t write fire codes. I write music stories.

What I thought might happen was that Atlas would get the fire inspection they’d been telling me for weeks, months maybe, that they were working towards, and then they’d get to work on the needed improvements. Or not.

The store’s owner, when last I spoke to him, said he had no reservations about the story going forward. Seems to me like the problem at Atlas isn’t people knowing about it, but whether or not the owner is actually going to support the endeavor, and whether or not the owner and the volunteers actually see eye to eye about the project. And you know what, I don’t think the owner was ever going to make the necessary investments to the possible venue, because all-ages shows don’t make money, and he’s a business man.

The cops/fire dept had already visited the place, according to the volunteers, before I even started working on this story. They knew about it.

The comparison made in some comment likening Atlas to the Egg Room doesn’t quite work. Atlas was working, they said, to go above board, and what they were doing was essentially legal. Running an after hours bar is essentially illegal, and the Egg Room wasn’t trying to go legit ever. We’re not going to write a story naming all our pot dealers, but we might run one about someone starting, or trying to start, or saying they’re trying to start, a legitimate small business.

Trainwreck Riders

(MUSIC) Between Seattle and San Francisco, there is a lot of open road and a lot of bands that travel it. Trainwreck Riders roll up and down that West Coast highway, guitars jangling, tambourines shaking, fiddles fiddling, singing of loves left at roadhouses and found under starry skies. They play with a worn-in conviction that comes from putting on almost as many shows as miles. (Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 784-4880. 10 pm, $8, 21+.) JONATHAN ZWICKEL

by Rebecca Tapscott

London bomb scare: Friday’s London bombs were constructed using Qaeda tactics.

Murder in Baghdad: While American officials report an intense fire fight, local witnesses describe the American raid of Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City as an assault on Iraqi citizens.

Pope in China: Pope Benedict XVI calls for the unity of Roman Catholics in China, urges China to resume diplomatic ties with the Vatican and permit religious freedom—even though he describes China’s Catholicism “incompatible” with Catholic doctrine.

Rights for Detainees??: For the first time in decades, the Supreme Court reversed itself and agreed to consider the constitutionality of the U.S. policy under which detainees from Guantanamo Bay are tried in military commissions instead of federal courts.

Nickels v. public opinion: Nickels announced Friday the establishment of an 11-member-panel of well-known citizens, intended to increase civilian oversight of the Seattle Police Department.

Engle on the Supreme Court: Ex-Ballard High School principal, David Engle, protests the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling on the racial tiebreaker.

Webb update: The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday that talk-show host, Mike Webb, was indeed murdered in his Seattle home, victim of stab wounds.

Gregoire makes tracks: Governor Chris Gregoire gives a point-by-point rundown of her political progress on Child Protective Services and their response-time ability.

Democrats cash in: Democratic presidential candidates in the final push for contributions before tonight’s midnight fund-raising deadline.

Obama’s tunes: Obama provides ring tones to hype up supporters.

The comments in a post below—the one about how Atlas closed because of Eric Grandy’s article in the music section this week—were so disingenuous and stupid that I had to respond.

Hey, all you this-is-the-apocalypse-for-all-ages-music-on-Capitol-Hill types: let’s move this argument over there, shall we?

I feel pretty safe in saying that this is the first Slog post written on an iPhone. I’d recount the hilarious story of how I came to have this phone, but it’s too damn hard to type on this crazy keyboard.

Learning curve aside, this thing is fucking cool.

Atlas Clothing, the budding all ages music venue on Capitol Hill, got a visit from the Fire Department this evening, shutting down tonight’s show. The Valley, the Ruby Doe, Victory Smokes and Police Teeth were set to play. The visit was in direct relation to the article Eric Grandy wrote this week about their semi-legal goings on.

The show for tonight has been shut down, but according to an employee of the store, they may be able to have shows in the future. The fire department didn’t give them any definite answers, so they are currently in limbo.

More details as they come in!

UPDATE: The fire department called them back. The Atlas Clothing Venue is shut down for all ages shows indefinitely.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - A Redmond pastor has dropped an anti-homosexuality initiative. The measure would have set up a state vote on the law banning discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church would have needed 225,000 voter signatures by July 6th to make the November ballot.

Why does anyone listen to this guy? Everything he does—boycott Microsoft! terrorize American embassies! anti-gay initiatives!—either fails miserably or explodes in his fool face. What a loser that man is.

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to What’s My Blog Rated?

I plugged in the Stranger’s URL and was shocked when the site came back with a PG-13 rating. Incidentally, we got a PG-13 rating for using the dirtiest of dirty words: “gay.”

Today, after Dan’s profanity laced post (for the love of pete, do NOT look at that picture), I decided to see what kind of rating Slog would get.

That’s more like it.

But seriously, why are we getting dinged for “gay”?

Gay, gay, gay.

Welcome to closing installment of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour. Thank you all for playing, please enjoy this final offering from an anonymous class clown.

Dear teachers who give out home work,

I think that you should NOT give out homework any more. Homework is something that most kids do not enjoy, and while it may be good for us the students it is something that we will not stand for it. They shouldn’t need to waste time at their desk (one kept at home of course), with pen and peper, or in front of a computer, losing the time that they could spend at home with their family or doing something that they can actually enjoy. It is unneeded and sometimes can create big arguments between members in a family. For insttance we might not turn work in when it is due. Also it is not always the child with the works fault. We will sometmime think that you don’t give out hard work but lots of small assignments. When you add all the time up it is pretty close to equal the time that we spend doing the hard assignments. Sometimes it will get lost because we had to ahil it around with us and it would be very simple to lose. Sometimes you just give work that is too hard and then when it is late and graded down you don’t have the right to grade us down. We think this because sometimes you give the assignment at a time that is too close to the due date. If you want them to get a better education then try and teach them in class. The kids are young and they will learn about the work that you teach them. They don’t need to spend less time in freedome, but they should be allowed to do what they want in their free time and stop them from thinking that doom (from an angry family) is much too close.

Dear anonymous student: Thank you for providing a suitably chilling ending to today’s bonanza. (And if your family ever gets too angry, please tell someone.) Everyone else, enjoy your weekend, and your freedom from homework.

The Post-Intelligencer—which is already hosting about 3,000 blogs—is launching another new blog in a few weeks. Says Net Native…

Inspired by the city beats of Seattlest, Metroblogging Seattle, and, most famously, the Slog, the Big Blog will take a more conversational, informal and fun look at the news and culture that makes this city what it is.

Informal and fun are great, Net Native, but will guys be able to swear? That’s shit has always been the fucking magic here at cocksucking Slog. Profanity and, of course, links to totally NSFW pictures like this one.

Can I express my love for Erica’s feature this week on the avian influenza? You really should read it.

The current bird-to-human form of the virus kills an astonishing number of those it infects; according to the World Health Organization, more than half of those who have contracted the virus from birds have died. Its impact is greatest among the young; in a study of more than 200 confirmed human avian flu cases conducted in early 2006, WHO found that just over half of all cases were in people under 20, and that the median age of those who caught the flu was 18. Of the youngest victims, the majority died; the majority of those older than 50 survived.

Unlike the typical annual influenza outbreak, deadly mostly for those very young or old, H5N1 kills people with the healthiest immune systems—people in their twenties. This virus, like the 1918 influenza, induces a panic response from our immune systems; for people in their twenties, it is your own immune system that does you in.

We have much better drugs to control the immune system, things like cortico-steroids. Still, you might find it difficult to get to a doctor when the pandemic comes:

King County, thanks in large part to the vigilant efforts of County Executive Sims, is perhaps the best-prepared county in the nation. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we’re actually prepared. If a severe pandemic hit tomorrow, King County would be in serious trouble. Hospitals, which have almost no excess capacity, would overflow immediately; the movement of goods through the port and freight rail systems would slow to a crawl; medicine supplies would run out; the mortuaries would fill up; and many basic functions of government would cease.

The best plan is not avoid getting infected. Here are some hints on how to that:

Avoid prolonged or close exposure to people who are infected.

Wash your hands. Start with the habit of washing every time you enter your home, and before every meal. For when soap and water isn’t available, carry some instant hand sanitizer—like Purell and with at least 60% alcohol—and use a dime-sized drop that will keep your hands wet for at least 10 seconds.

Use a surgical mask—available at drug or grocery stores—if you go out during the outbreak. It should be good enough to protect you from the virus-carrying droplets, provided you stay 3-6 feet away from someone coughing. And cover your own coughs.

Stock up on food and water.

Something like Erica’s plan

Here’s what’s in my personal stockpile: One 20-pound bag of rice; one gallon jar of pickles; four 40-ounce cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli (a childhood indulgence I would never allow myself to have in “real” life); two weeks’ worth of bottled water, allocating one gallon per person per day; several assorted cans of beans; several large cans of soup; a large box of crackers; a half-gallon jar of peanut butter; canned vegetables, including corn and green beans; several pounds of pasta and jars of pasta sauce; a half-dozen aseptically packaged boxes of broth and soup; cereal; vitamins; toilet paper; tea; and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember.

is a pretty good place to start. Add in a whole bunch of batteries, a flashlight and a radio and you’re there.

Having a functional social network, simply knowing your neighbors, is also key. Go introduce yourself.

Finally, given we live under volcanos, and over three fault lines, it might be wise to take a Community First Aid and Safety class with the Red Cross. That way you’ll know how to help the people in your network. Knowing how to operate a bag-valve-mask, stop dense bleeding, splint a limb or treat shock might make a huge difference.

There is a whole bunch more information at pandemicflu.gov or though King County Public Health.

Welcome to next-to-last installment of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour.

They all sound the same. Just like everyone else. There is no creativity in their music and it does not take any real talent to make your songs. You have a real taste in music; you just follow the crowd and the trends. You have been brainwashed.

There is real music out there. You may have to dig a little deeper to find it, but in the end, it is worth it. It sounds original, and real, not like the crap that they have played one thousand times on the radio. So take your head out of the ground, and listen to some good quality musical fusion.

Your friends may not like it. So what? It is not like your ditching your old music completely, you are just broadening your musical intellect. I am not trying to manipulate you into liking everything that I like. I am just helping you experience one of the greatest things in the world.

If you spend your whole life listening to Simple Plan, Little John, and Fall Out Boy, then your will be missing out on millions upon millions of amazing songs that are just waiting for you to listen to them. So change the station from 106.1 and 93.3, and try out some real music. You just might find a new band, or even a new genre that you fall in love with. Just try.

Annie Wagner: “I really wish I lived in the century when it was good to be really pale. Because I look like I’m about to die.”

Another Mercedes, with a bomb made up of 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, had been found outside a nightclub in Haymarket at 0130 BST.

Both devices were similar, viable and clearly linked, police said.

The second device was found in a blue 280E model Mercedes. It was given a parking ticket on Friday after being found illegally parked in Cockspur Street.

The vehicle was then towed to the Park Lane car pound about an hour later.

The BBC’s Daniel Sandford said police had been alerted to it after staff who had heard about the Haymarket bomb noticed a strong smell of petrol coming from it.

According to the article, “International elements” are believed to be responsible.

Via BBC

MetalLOLZ: Metal Gets a Little Less Literate.

Shore Nuff: Shorebirds Play Olympia’s What You Got? Fest.

Olympia and Bellevue: The Real Duality of Nirvana and Queensryche.

Best Song Ever (This Week): Two Gallants’ “Seems Like Home To Me.”

Traveling Mercies!: The Tutmarcs are a Ridiculously Attractive Musical Family.

Cue Gushing: Jonathan Zwickel on Two Gallants.

A Pretty Good Read?: Floyd Landis’ Memoir and Isaac Brock.

American Athlete: A New Blogger Joins Line Out.

Thieves Like Us: But Aranda Don’t Like Theives.

Short Set: New Setlist with Free Tickets to Fresh Fest.

Stay Gay, Pony Boy: Adrian Ryan Rides Pony, Freaks Out.

What a Horrible Night For a Curse: Le Castle Vania at Club Pop.

As Dan posted earlier, Blatherwatch has the scoop on Mike Webb.
Indeed, Blatherwatch now reports that the King County Medical Examiner says Webb was murdered.

The Stranger News Hour returns on 710 KIRO this Saturday from 7-8pm.

Here’s the drill. I briefly talk about this week’s news section—and then take callers’ questions about that. And then we talk about whatever’s got us all bent out of shape.

Last week, ECB and I were on talking about police accountability and the upcoming city council races.

This week, Jonah and I will be on talking about the Kerlikowske scandal.

Tune in. David Goldstein of Horsesass hosts. And we’ve even got our own theme music.

If the fundy God existed Re-bar would have been hit by lightning last night as I interviewed Mike Jones, the former male escort who outed Ted Haggard right before the ‘06 election. I mean, Mike Jones and Dan Savage on a stage together? With just one lightning bolt God could avenge his servants Ted Haggard and Rick Santorum! What an opportunity! Hell, He could have taken out just me and Jones when we ducked into the photo booth, sparing everyone else in the bar.

But there were no lightning bolts, just a large, upbeat crowd anxious to hear from Jones, who was in town to read from his new book, I Had to Say Something.

Jones’ book is about his experience with Haggard, and his decision to out Haggard, of course, but it’s also about Jones’ life and his thoughtful take on sex work. It’s a good read, and I enjoyed it. I’ve known lots of sex workers over the years (hey there, Ecce Homo!), and Jones and his co-author, Sam Gallegos, do a great job of portraying the less sensational aspects of sex work. Closeted gay men don’t just get sex from escorts, they also get intimacy and a chance to be completely honest with someone about who they really are.

I asked Mike some questions—Haggard dribbles, he’s cut, and he was high on meth most of the times he saw Jones in the final six months of their four-year professional relationship—and then we took questions from the audience. Most of the questions were interesting and relevant, and Jones was every bit as articulate and charming in person as he had been on ABC, NBC, CNN, etc., when the scandal first broke.

There were just one weird question. First, someone hinted that perhaps there was something untoward about the timing of Jones’ outing of Haggard—so close to an election, and hadn’t he worked with plenty of other closeted men before, men who weren’t as high-profile as Haggard? Why not out them? Was it all about getting a book deal?

Jones, in his own defense, explained that he was conflicted about outing Haggard. And that it wasn’t an easy decision, and that far from representing some sort of ticket to fame and fortune, it cost him all of his clients—his massage clients, his escorting clients, and his personal training clients—and he was fired as an art model from a school where he had worked at for years. He spoke up because he felt he had to—hence the title of the book—and it was a personal and professional sacrifice.

Before Jones outed Haggard, let’s not forget, Pastor Ted wasn’t the punch line he is today. He was the head of the 30 million-member American Association of Evangelicals, the founder of a Colorado Springs megachurch, and an unofficial advisor to President George W. Bush. (Ted and George spoke on the phone once a week). Haggard was also actively campaigning for an anti-gay marriage amendment in teh state of Colorado, which voters approved after Haggard was outed, at the same time that he was snortin’ meth and enjoyin’ man ass.

Jones’ low-profile clients—many of them closeted, some of them preachers—were harmless compared to Haggard. It was the scale of Haggard’s hypocrisy combined with the magnitude of the damage he was doing to his fellow gays that made him a justifiable target for an outing. Jones did the right thing.

Did Jones have political motivatation? Of course he did—and he admitted to being politically motivated at the time he outed Haggard, and he admitted to it last night. People seem to think that accusing Jones of being politically motivated—because of the timing of the outing—somehow undermines his credibility. Uh, no. Haggard’s attacks on his fellow gays were politically motivated; Karl Rove’s attacks on gays and lesbians are politically motivated; anti-gay marriage amendments, like the one on the ballot in Colorado at the time Haggard was paying Jones for sex, are politically motivated.

Was Jones supposed to wait until after the vote in Colorado to out Haggard? Look, their attacks on us are politically motivated and timing, they say, is everything in politics. Jones outed Haggard at just the right time for legitimate political reasons, and with pure political motives. (That’s pure political motives, not purely political motives.)

I don’t want to give the impression, by responding at length to that one question, that the crowd was hostile to Jones. The crowd wasn’t. When I called on someone to ask the final question during the Q&A, the man said he didn’t have a question. He just wanted to thank Jones for what he did—for all of us. Then everyone in Re-bar leapt to their feet and gave Jones a standing ovation.

“Standing ovations are nice,” I told the crowd, “but the best way to thank Mike is by buying his book.” An hour later when I left Re-bar people were still lined up waiting for Jones to sign their books. If you weren’t at Re-bar last night and you admire what Jones did, you can thank him by buying his book. Click here to order a copy.

Welcome to hour seven of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour. Take it away, anonymous child.

Dear anyone who drives a Hummer,

I hate your guts. Your hideous, gigantic cars sicken me. I know other cars contribute to Global Warming as well, but your cars are about half of it. You get about two miles to the gallon, and about a gallon of that goes out into the atmosphere as ozone-destroying fumes. You think you’re so cool in a “real life army truck” that can make you stand out on the freeway. Do you really need that much attention? I have never seen a single Hummer that wasn’t an eye-catching color, such as yellow, pink, or shiny, shiny silver. If you need to be noticed that badly, you should run naked through a football field. You can’t see pedestrians or any car other than a semi-truck, and you can’t get into your car without a stepladder. A Hummer would be reasonable on the battlefield, when you would be running over enemy tanks, but crushing people’s cars on the street is pretty rude. When you parallel park, you block the entire road, and take up three larking spaces in parking lots. When you get into a crash, you total the other car, but your hardly get a scratch on your vehicle. I think that all you people with Hunners should sell your cars and donate the incredible amount of money you get to cancer research or something.

Summer movies just hit you in the face. Here’s what’s up this weekend.

Already open for several days: Live Free or Die Hard. Andrew Wright says it’s pretty great.

Opening today: Sicko, from the inimitable (and I don’t mean that as a compliment, exactly) Michael Moore.

Sicko is perfectly entertaining, but it’s perhaps the least informative movies about single-payer healthcare I could imagine. I could’ve gotten more cogent arguments from a soft-money issue ad. Here’s my full review.

And don’t overlook Ratatouille, which despite appearances…

…. may end up being one of the best movies of the summer. Seriously. Here’s an extended version of the review Charles Mudede wrote for the print edition. And you needn’t take Charles’s word for it (though we wish you would)—check out the stacks upon stacks of 100s on Metacritic right now.

Reviewed in On Screen this week: the star-studded (groan) Evening, in which an imaginary angel makes an appearance, and the dishy ShowBusiness, in which four major musicals workshop and rehearse and shovel fodder toward the tabloids on the way to their Broadway debuts.

The specialty theaters are all bunching up in Suggests this week. Don’t miss the locally produced Walking to Werner at Northwest Film Forum (late show tonight followed by a party featuring Today!, a band made up of Dayna Hanson, Maggie Brown of We Go Way Back, and some serious musicians). We didn’t have much room in the film section this week for a long review, but you should read my profile of filmmaker Linas Phillips, written while Walking to Werner was being edited. The film is absorbing and unnervingly spiritual. The best thing about it is the half-serious, half-cheeky way Phillips deploys found narration, repurposed from commentary tracks on Werner Herzog’s films. It’s a technique without precedent, as far as I know, and it probably won’t be repeated.

Finally, at the Grand Illusion, an awesome program of monster-movie double features starts tonight with The Thing From Another World and The Thing. The J-horror late night, Ghost Train, doesn’t sound half-bad either.

See Get Out for all your Movie Times needs. Like The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Big Screen Extravaganza at the Egyptian. And old-school pirate movies at Northwest Film Forum. And Duck Soup.

Rats and HMOs and Things, oh my!

This is democracy:

German politicians have condemned a computer generated photo of Poland’s leaders sucking the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bare breasts.

Yesterday I posted an email from Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest Church, that he wrote in response to a question I asked him about his church’s stance on homosexuality. Unlike Mars Hill, Quest accepts women into positions of leadership—was Quest just as progressive on gay issues? Turns out the answer is no.

Cho said in a follow up email—which he sent to me personally and posted in comments—that he was surprised to see his email on Slog. He assumed we were having a private chat. But I wrote to Cho as a reporter, a reporter (yeah, yeah) that just wrote something about his church for The Stranger, and it was clear from my email that I was asking him for more information about Quest—I was asking him for info I wanted to include in my original piece about Quest. It seemed clear to me that we were having an on-the-record email exchange and Cho’s did not tell me that his emailed response about homosexuality was not intended for publication. We’re not in conflict about the misunderstanding. Cho’s not upset with me; the man is gracious as all fuck. I just wanted to be clear about how this misunderstanding happened and to let folks know that I wasn’t being malicious when I posted Cho’s email.

Yesterday Cho posted a lengthy response to me on his blog, and I haven’t had a chance to respond to it yet; I was working last night and it’s busy day, what with editing to do, meetings to attend, and sins to commit. I will respond to Cho’s questions for me—which include doozies like, “Is it possible for a person or a church to be ‘welcoming but not affirming?’”—sometime this weekend.

In the meantime I wanted to direct Slog readers’ attention to the lively debate going down on Cho’s blog, Beauty and Depravity. Fnarf, Slog’s superstah commenter, has been so freakishly eloquent that I’m not sure I even need to respond to Cho’s last letter at this point—I just want to copy and paste’s Fnarf’s response and call it a day. But, like I said, I will respond this weekend because I think I owe Eugene the courtesy of a response.

Anyway, the conversation going down at Cho’s blog is worth your time. Click here to read it.

Yesterday our new summer intern, Rebecca Tapscott, filed a Slog post about the cryptically-named Washington Bus Project—a group that’s trying to get young people involved in supporting progressive candidates. They had an event in the Central District earlier this week.

In one part of her post, Rebecca talked about a magazine-type quiz that attendees were given: “You Know You’re Progressive If…”

I ain’t no young person, but I wanted to see if I was still a progressive. (Beyond still digging the Tinker Standard, I feel like I’m losing my teenage Viet Cong edge.)

So, I asked Rebecca to hit me with the test.

1. You like photos of Barack

Until he took his shirt off.

2. You go through other people’s trash (presumably to recycle it, but he didn’t say)

The best advice I’ve ever gotten from a pop song is this: “Trash, pick it up, don’t throw your love away/ Oh trash, woh, woh, my sweet baby, woh, woh/Trash you’re the one!”

3. You still have a Dean sticker on your car

Sliver of my McCain 2000 sticker. I did go to what seemed like an illicit Dean fund raiser once at a lobster feast at a private home on Fire Island.

4. You don’t have a car

I don’t have a public transit system.

5. You are foam free

I do not drink Mountain Dew. Other than that, I am open to most things.

6. You run red lights to be carbon neutral

I was confused by this question. Af first, I thought it meant: Do I use special red colored energy saver light bulbs in my apartment?

7. You know when Paul Wellstone’s birthday is

I am proud to say Paul Wellstone is the only politician I’ve ever donated money to. (I didn’t kick in at the Dean fundraiser.) $50 in 1990 when he first ran for U.S. Senate as a DFLer.

8. You’re a monthly donor to the Washington Bus Project

There’s a song from Jesus Christ Superstar called “What’s the Buzz?” When I was a little boy I thought they were singing “What’s the Bus?” and I pictured a bunch of Jesus Freak hippies running after the bus.

Welcome to hour six of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour.

To all the jerks on the bus,

All the drunk and high people on the bus you know who you are. You are always mean and immature jerks to every one on the bus except your self. And also if you are going to ride on the bus then put on some axe or perfume so you don’t stink like dead rats.

Next, you are rude to some people because you make fun of how they look or how they dress or how they talk. Also your swearing bothers people because if you are going to go on and on about your problems say them in your head. And when you get mad you start throwing things and that hurts people.

Last, the next time you sit next to me, people are going to laugh and point and make fun of you because you are going to let out a lot of gas. your going to be sitting on a huge wo

It ends there. I can only assume he was about to say “woopie cushion.” BUT WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

The last few weeks have been tough for the Capitol Hill Arts Center.

First Annex Theater grumbled about leaving.

Then the People’s Republic of Comedy announced that they’re leaving.

And now Blacklight, a series of club nights CHAC adopted after the Vogue closed, is outie.

Blacklight became CHAC’s club-in-residence back in January and, as CHAC director Matthew Kwatinetz said, was a necessary diversification for the arts center, the kind of diversification other arts centers might have to pursue, what with local theater not being known for its piles of filthy lucre.

Seems that noise killed the club nights. From the just-arrived press release:

Noise in the building became a concern. In Seattle there are two noise laws—one based on measurable levels of noise, and one based solely on citizen complaint. Though CHAC and Blacklight were commended by the police for keeping the measurable (DB) levels low and within legal limits, citizen complaints persisted.

The last night is tomorrow, June 30.

As we all know, there’s really only one weeky-in-geeky story this week, and that of course is the introduction of this revolutionary, mind-bending product.

Okay, very funny.

Really, it’s the iPhone. For sale in Seattle in less than 5 hours, blah blah blah blah. I freely admit that I want one pretty badly, but still—blah blah blah blah.

Seriously though, there hasn’t been any other technology news this week.

Those cereal straws are fucked up, though, right?

Note: To celebrate the release of the iPhone, this installment of The Week in Geek has been totally phoned in. Ha! Eat it.

Earlier this week, Jonathan Zwickel wrote a blasphemous Slog post , where he bashed the deliciously greasy, hangover curing burgers at Dick’s.

Today, I convinced him to take a blind taste test.

He’ll be posting his thoughts - and hopefully a retraction - this afternoon.

This is a new fire station in Mexico City:


Designed by at. 103 Architects, the Ave Fenix fire station in Mexico City is architecture that has the power to turn a critic into a poet, a praise poet. The way the heroes of the ancient world needed poets to see and recount their great deeds and victories, buildings like this need griots to sing words of wonder, amazement, and praise. Look at this fire station! Just look at it! This is what thought can do; what a great idea can become. What more do you want than this? There is nothing more than this.

An Onion classic for Jen Graves:
Cat General Says War On String May Be Unwinnable.

Welcome to hour five of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour. Can it be they’re only getting better??

Dear Emos, I hate you with a passion….you just to weird! All you do is mope around say pathetic things like “I hate life” its just really stupid how people care about you. But they really don’t because all you do is whine and mope around and all that and its really really annoying and when you not doing that its all about you. But its not! You just want attention because no one likes you. And I bet a lot of people would like you to burn in a hole while you cut yourself. So if you do burn in a hole bring all your other little emo buddies so you can burn together because no one likes them either. So ya’ll can die together and be one big happy emo family. So please leave all of us alone and be emo in your little corner at home and stop being so “controlling or protective” over people who don’t like you because it would make his/her life a lot easier without you being so protective and jealous over them. So please die in a hole my little emo friend. Thank you.

Good manners are always in fashion.

Graduates: Where should they get the party started?

More Handcuffs to Treat Addiction: Murray allocates $450,000 for fighting meth in Washington.

Does Poop Count as Evidence? “Unusually frisky” deer lead cops to what’s left of pot crop.

Jail: No longer mandatory for dopers caught in the Lone Star State.

It Ain’t Just “Blueberry,” Man: Isotopes know more about your pot than your dealer does.

Indonesia: Smuggling pot still a hanging crime; cooking with pot OK’d.

US: Prisons keep ballooning with nonviolent drug convicts.

An Actual Drug War: 40 killed in Rio raids.

Newspapers Still Advertising Drugs to Kids: Get your flavored cocaine!

Floridian Ethos: “This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”

In Other Addictions: iNtervention?

Steven E. Landsberg, Slate columnist and author of More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, holds this as truth:

The problem with the Western idea of eliminating sweatshops is that it only eliminates one of the few options people in intense poverty have. They can either send their children to sweatshops to work, or send their children to bed hungry. This level of child labor existed in the US and Britain when those countries had the same level of poverty, and as our incomes rose, the level of child labor dropped proportionately—without the involvement of richer countries.

If this is true, it renders an entire pop cultural phenomenon misguided:

The 2007 Science Idol contest from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Recent investigations and surveys show that the censorship, manipulation, and suppression of federal government science has become pervasive in recent years. Political interference in science has hurt our air quality, allowed FDA approval of harmful drugs, and prevented the public from hearing the truth about global warming.

This spring, creative minds throughout America took the opportunity to show off their artistic and comedic talents in support of independent science by entering the 2nd annual Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest. We received hundreds of compelling cartoons and our panel of celebrity judges helped narrow those entries to 12 great finalists.

Vote for your Science Idol today and win great prizes—while helping UCS spread awareness about the importance of independent science to our health, safety, and environment.

Vote for your favorite.

Tip of the hat to Tom Robey at Hope for Pandora.

Welcome to hour four of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour.

This is a shout-out to all of the idiots who hire other idiots to work for their trucking and bussing businesses, like the kind young man who hit my school bus last month. You probably know who you are. Oh, what’s that? You don’t remember? Well, let me refresh your memory. We were driving down Martin Luther King Jr. Way, you know, where they’re doing all the construction? We stopped at a red light like normal, law-abiding citizens, when all of the sudden, a large moving van whizzed around us and spun around the corner. As the maniac driver sped passed, he smashed the back of his truck right into our hood, and then kept right on driving. This is not the only time there has been a hit-and-run accident, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Truckers aren’t the only bad drivers, however. I have also seen many inappropriate Metro drivers as well. Last week, I was at the bus stop. The bus came and the other two people and I boarded. As we stepped on, an old lady ran across the street, yelling at the driver to hold the bus. This was a woman who was obviously in her 70s, maybe even her 80s. Ignoring her, the driver closed the door, but we were still stopped at a red light. The woman ran up to the door and knocked loudly. The driver hardly looked up. The light changed and he drove off. Thanks, bus driver, for that permanent picure of a disheveled old woman, helpless and small, standing alone at the bus stop.

Not only that, but I have seen professional drivers on cell phones, putting on makeup, and eating on the job. Personally, I think that stricter qualifications should be made in the personality area. I don’t know about you, but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to hire anyone who would hit a school bus full of kids and drive away.

A propensity to hit and run is my least favorite personality flaw, too. Thank you, anonymous kid.

Er… sorry. That sounds gross considering, huh? Anyway, Blatherwatch—which used to battle with Webb—is closely monitoring developments. To recap: Disgraced talker Mike Webb went missing in May; today a body was discovered in his home. And it looks like it may have been murder.

One of Pascal’s thoughts:

If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours’ duration that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was an artisan.

If Pascal had ended the thought on “almost as happy as a king,” that would have been the real insight. A man who dreams every night that he is a king is really a king. And only a poor man can dream of being a king. Kings have no dreams.

From a song by the Thompson Twins:

If I was king for just one day
I would give it all away
I would give it all away to be with you If I was king for just one day
I had just one thing to say
You know that love is
All we need to get us through

What concerns me here is the substance of this claim. Meaning, does it have any substance, value, weight? What’s so great about giving up one day’s worth of being a king to be with the one you love until the end of all time? Exactly who would give up nights of hot sex for just one day of being a king? A poor fool.

From a speech delivered by a theologian on August 28, 1963:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

The density of sensual imagery in King’s speech (its hills, mountains, flesh) is to language what a density of droplets is to a cloud. He hopes that the condensation of sensual imagery in the language will bring about “the real rain,” the fall from the cloudland of ideas a tangible, graspable experience of freedom. This King wants to stop dreaming.

Last night was heavy. We got Kevin Durant. That was enough. Then came the unexpected (to me, anyway) trade of Ray Allen to the Celtics for the #5 pick, Delonte West, and Wally Szczerbiak. (Wally Szczerbiak?!). We got Jeff Green (from Georgetown, who I happen to love, great passer). It was a lot to process, and listening to sports radio afterwards made me start to question everything. Fans were angry that we let go of Ray Allen; vitriol was negating the excitement and joy of landing Durant. It felt so infuriatingly Seattle. What the hell was going on? Like quite a few people, I assumed the arrival of Durant guaranteed the departure of Rashard Lewis. What were the Sonics thinking? I wanted to understand.

I turned to (future Seattle resident) Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko (essential reading for balling fans). He gave me back hope. I asked him to write some of his thoughts so that I might share this hope with you, Seattle.

I don’t live in Seattle yet, and thus have none of your emotional ties to Ray Allen. That said, I’m moving there in a month and have always had a soft spot for the NBA’s foremost art collector and fingernail painter.

THAT SAID, I couldn’t be more thrilled about all the roster slicing and dicing that the Sonics performed last night. During the telecast, there was a lot of talk about Presit adhering to a San Antonio Spurs template. That was bullshit that gets said when people are asked to move mouths for four hours straight. Kevin Durant is the future on so many levels it’s not even funny. Ray Ray, lovely as he was, was the essence of basketball classicism; hell, on some days, you might have even mistaken him for a pre-Jordan shooting guard. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but every team not blessed with a domintant big man (hey Oden) is going for versatility and creativity.

No single prospect sums that up like Durant; putting Jeff Green beside him only underscores that. And while cynics or sentimentalists might decry the trading of Allen as a money-saving move, IT OPENS UP SPACE TO RE-SIGN SHARD. Lewis plus those two guys equals endless possibilities. And while Shard may have bucked at not being the man during the Ray Allen era, he’ll be a mentor to Durant, the older, wiser master that this pupil is destined to exceed. That’s ninja movie maturity that all athletes dig, and what’s more, it’s the truth. See also Nuggets, today’s Denver.

Delonte West is better than you think, Wally cannot hurt you if he’s pushed out to the margins… we’re not talking an instant powerhouse, but this team just went from “House of Durant” to a grand basketball experiment on par with the Suns or Raptors.

Walking to Werner

(FILM) If you saw the mediocre Outsourced at SIFF and were saddened by the apparent want of imagination on the part of Seattle filmmakers, be prepared to be knocked out by this film. Documenting a harebrained pilgrimage from Seattle to Werner Herzog’s house in L.A., Walking to Werner becomes a meditation on the varieties of spiritual experience on America’s left coast. Best of all is the found narration, hilariously repurposed from the commentary tracks on Herzog’s DVDs. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 267-5380. 7 and 9:15 pm, $8.50.) ANNIE WAGNER

It’s always good entertainment when critics get passionate about something they haven’t seen. Rudy Giuliani, meet Regina Hackett. She’s your kind of girl.

The truth is, on a deep level, critics love criticism. And Regina keeps it coming to me.

This time, she’s so irritated with me for panning SuttonBeresCuller’s recent performance—which happened while she was out of town—that she takes the opportunity to slam me (once again) on her blog. (My review of the performance first appeared in longer form on Slog.)

First, she says, I don’t know criticism from insults. This from the critic who wrote, in direct retort to Sheila Farr (who’d gotten an exclusive preview and written an incisive review of Paul Allen’s art collection that made Regina’s review look late and weak in comparison): “Those who think the container cancels out the pleasures of the art contained need a checkup from the neck up.” That sentence still cracks me up.

(My other favorite Hackettism was her blog post about my being wrong in my criticism of SBC’s boat in the biennial at Tacoma Art Museum. She cited the responses of local critics to the work—questioning the credibility of one of those critics along the way—and decided that the vote was in: 2 out of 3 critics say the boat is good, so it must be! Take that, Graves!)

In this latest case, it’s not just that I don’t know from criticism. It’s also that I don’t know from genius. Because I question the quality of recent work by SBC, I would also have hated John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Morris Graves back when they were enlivening Seattle. Because—to quote once again from the review Regina wrote in 2005—John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler are the reincarnation of Cage, Cunningham, and Graves.

Welcome back, Regina. I could spend all day trading barbs with you, it’s so much fun. But I have to get back to the business of criticizing art rather than another critic—until next time, that is. See you on the flip side of another battle, lady.

Welcome to hour three of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour.

There’s a new anti-tobacco organization called “no stank you.” They over exaggerate everything in their commercials. Their main target is the smokers themselves. They taught us that smokers are vile, unsocial, disgusting creatures that don’t deserve any form of affection from anybody. They’re the ones that did that commercial about the “smoke buddies,” a few smokers that have the “powers” of embroidered smoking side-affects.

The organization, No Stank You is bitter. They don’t talk about how smoking cigarettes can lead to lung cancer. Instead, they prefer to make fun of smokers, calling them disgusting, poor and “un-dateable”. Most smokers want to, and try to quit, but that is not simple, and No Stank You doesn’t seem to understand that. Smokers and just people who made a mistake, and would quit smoking if they could, and No Stank You just loves rubbing that in their faces.

(All of these are sic, sic, SIC, btw.)

Michelle Obama abandons her career to take care of daughters. Because everybody knows girls end up “dancing on tables” if their mom has a job outside the home.

British authorities found no link between a defused London car bomb and any terrorist group during the early hours of their investigation, two officials in Washington said Friday.

Via AP

For those just tuning in, welcome to hour two of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour.

Dear Solicitor and Telemarketer,

Telemarketers, why do you always call? It often seems that you call at 6:00 in the evening when families are eating dinner and it is very frustrating. It’s also really irritating when it’s a recording on the phone and it goes on forever. When you call and people say they are not interested in what you’re selling, it’s bothersome how you keep on talking. There are times we are afraid to answer the phone because it may be a telemarketer. Even on Saturday morning when we think it could be grandma calling, it’s not; it’s Bob with satellite cable.

Solicitors, you are almost just as bad. It is very annoying when you come up to the door at 8:00 in the evening when some kids are trying to go to bed. A family might be having a party and they don’t want you to come to their door selling stuff. At least you don’t bother people as much as the telemarketers do, who call 24/7.

I can’t understand what it would be like having your job. Don’t you get stressed when people are always hanging up on you or slamming a door in you face? Why don’t you find a job where you are helping people, not disturbing them?

We all feel you, anonymous child.

(I mean that in the non-felonious way.)

The last two haircuts I got at Rudy’s weren’t even worth the $17 I paid for them. Both times I was given an assembly line, cookie-cutter cut—the first by a stoned-looking stylist—that weren’t even close to what I asked for.

The guy I used to go to in San Francisco recommended Rudy’s, so I figured I’d start there, but no way am I going back a third time. I’m OK with paying more for a better cut. So I ask: Where can a guy go in Seattle—preferably around Cap Hill—for a good men’s haircut for around $30?

From the New York Times:

Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East, an audacious wildcat crept into one of the crude villages of early human settlers, the first to domesticate wheat and barley. There she felt safe from her many predators in the region, such as hyenas and larger cats.

The rodents that infested the settlers’ homes and granaries were sufficient prey. Seeing that she was earning her keep, the settlers tolerated her, and their children greeted her kittens with delight.

At least five females of the wildcat subspecies known as Felis silvestris lybica accomplished this delicate transition from forest to village. And from these five matriarchs all the world’s 600 million house cats are descended.

This is excellent! Someone busts on to a Fox live interview in NYC and yanks the microphone out of the reporter’s hand and books off down the street yelling fuck you.

According to a Fox News poll— the Democrats.

Think Progress busts 9/11 Man.

During a speech on Tuesday at Pat Robertson’s Regent University, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani indirectly blamed President Clinton for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He claimed that Clinton treated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing “as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack,” which “emboldened other strikes” on U.S. targets. According to Giuliani, “The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond.”

Giuliani himself knows this attack on Clinton is false. Just last year, before he became a presidential candidate, he said:

The idea of trying to cast blame on Clinton [for the 9/11 attacks] is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it.

Good morning! Welcome to the commencement of the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary day-long bonanza, wherein a new I, Anonymous submission sent in by students at a local alternative elementary and middle school is revealed every hour on the hour, starting now.

Dear guy that killed me on the internet,

I hate you, you killed me and I lost all my good stuff thanks a lot. Come try to kill me again and I’ll rip your head off with my sword. Then we’ll see who’s laughting after that just because you had your team of 10 guys that’s the only reason you could kill me. You guys were all level 10 newbie’s that were teaming hard working people like me. I spent over 2 million gold pieces to get my guy all that good stuff until you just came over with your team and killed me. I’m calling you out to a rematch you and me and I will destroy you so you better be ready to get owned by my sword you doodoo head. So rawr it’s on so bring your newbie team and I’ll bring my best team and destroy all of you in 2 hits then I’ll splice your heads off. Then I’ll take your heads to a trophy shop then have them hung on the wall of my house so I can adore my killing of the biggest newbie’s on the planet.

Why Do They Hate Our Nightclubs So Much? Massive car bomb discovered, defused in the heart of London. The car—packed with gas canisters and nails—was parked in the West End entertainment district, right in front of a packed nightclub.

Why Didn’t We Think of That? New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promise to “wage war on terrorism.”

How Do They Do It? Air travel to get even more unpleasant this summer, which hardly seems possible.

You Gonna Eat That? Now it’s farm-raised seafood from China that poses a threat. FDA finds banned drugs and additives in farm-raised Chinese shrimp, catfish, eel, basa, and dace.

You Gonna Buy That? Apple’s iPhone. On sale. Now. But ATT’s network is slow, and a cheaper iPhone may be coming.

How Many Debates are They Going to Have? The Democratic presidential hopefuls debated “minority issues” in DC last night—hours after the Supreme Court banned most forms of affirmative action in schools admission.

What Are We Going to Do About Al Gore? Should pollsters be asking voters about Al Gore in presidential polls or not?

When Will Texas See the Error of its Ways? God sends more heavy rains to flooded, waterlogged and unrepentant state.

What the Fuck? Someone in Stamford, Connecticut, the home of the World Wrestling Entertainment, altered the Wikipedia entry for Chris Benoit to say that the wrestler missed a fight due to his wife’s death—but the change was made before authorities discovered that Benoit had murdered his wife and child, and then killed himself.

Mind If I Smoke? Indeed I do. Study shows secondhand smoke to be more toxic than previously thought—and it was already thought to be pretty damn toxic.

Who Are These People? The Sonics held a draft party at Fisher Pavillion yesterday. And people actually came. To celebrate. Excuse me, but what?

Shall We Search the House? Apparently the answer to that question was “no,” as a decaying body was discovered yesterday in the home of missing, disgraced talk-radio host Mike Webb. The liberal talker has been missing since May.

Jazz Hands, Everybody: Bob Fosse was born in Chicago, where he got his start on theater dancing in burlesque theaters—which inspired his trademark sexy, cynical style. In addition to choreographing Sweet Charity, Bells Are Ringing, Damn Yankees, Pippin, The Pajama Game, and more on Broadway, Fosse wrote the book, directed, and choreographed the original Broadway production of Chicago. It didn’t do well—critics and audiences felt it was too cynical. I mean, really! People getting away with murder by manipulating a gullible press and a dysfunctional judicial system? That doesn’t happen.

Well, audiences and critics were ready for Chicago when a revival opened on Broadway in 1996. The revival recreated much of Fosse’s original choreography, and is now the longest running revival in Broadway history. Chicago was made into a crappy movie starring some crappy people and won an undeserved Oscar. Here’s a clip from the cast of the Chicago revival performing “All That Jazz” and “Hot Honey Rag” at the Tony Awards in 1997:

And here’s “Hot Honey Rag” from the crap film. And here’s Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera, the original Roxie and Velma, performing “Hot Honey Rag.” (Sorry about the poor quality.) And here’s something truly appalling.

I just got back from the NAACP rally at City Hall.

A diverse crowd of about 150-200 people, from ages eight to eighty, gathered to protest the current state of the police department and call for the resignation of embattled SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske.

A long list of speakers, local poets and MC’s railed against the Chief and accused Mayor Nickels of a cover-up. “We must have community control of the polce. We can’t have the fox watching the chicken coop,” former Black Panther Ron Johnson told the crowd.

The crowd at the rally was pretty subdued, which might’ve been because the speakers were about 50 feet away and 20 feet up from the audience. It was a little weird. However, Anwar Peace was in attendance and was easily the most boisterous audience member. He had a great sign to boot.

Peace also gets bonus points for chasing a cop car down the street, haranguing the officers as he went.

It was a lot of fun to watch.

To close things out, NAACAP president James Bible gave an impassioned speech to the crowd, calling on the city council to end the “second class status for poor people and minorities” and reiterated the NAACP’s “vote of no confidence” against the Chief. Bible also chastised the Seattle Police Guild (SPOG) for their rigid stance against revising the police oversight process, claiming that the process can’t be altered until they negotiate another contract with the city in 3 years. “A contract that allows for the violation of constitutional rights is unconstitutional,” Bible said. “We cannot wait three years for justice.”

While the rally was right outside of city hall, no council members made an appearance, save for council hopeful Joe Szwaja. The sound system was booming, so I’m betting the Mayor and Co. got the message.

After the rally, Bible reiterated a point Josh has hit on a few times this week “The Mayor is soliciting different organizations [to support Kerlikowske] and we feel it’s inconsistent with his asking for an independent investigation.”

This afternoon, Council president Nick Licata announced he’s forming a police accountability advisory group and has invited the mayor to join. Five bucks says he won’t.

Seattle’s Congressman joins Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who filed articles of impeachment against the vice president back in April.

Mr. Speaker:

It is time for a new exit strategy, one that removes the Vice President of the United States from office- voluntarily if he chooses, but by impeachment if he stonewalls.

The time has come for the Vice President to go. Our nation and our national security interests at home and abroad cannot afford to have this Vice President one heartbeat away from the presidency.

As it stands now, the Vice President’s damage to U.S. interests, security, system of government, and our position at home and abroad will take years to overcome.

As my constituents in the State of Washington’s 7th Congressional District know, I have struggled mightily with this matter for a long time. In grave matters facing our nation, I believe conscience and a deep respect for our system of government should guide our actions and words.

I didn’t hesitate to speak truth to power before the invasion of Iraq, despite the bitter partisan attacks that I knew would follow.

I have no doubt that I’ll be targeted for a new round of shelling after these remarks…

(The rest of the remarks are in the jump.)

Continue reading "Rep. McDermott Calls for Impeachment of the Vice President" »

Last night I eschewed the Washington Bus Project’s event at the Central Area Senior Center in favor of Jean Godden challenger Lauren Briel’s kickoff party at the Baltic Room on Capitol Hill.

For a first-time candidate with a shoestring budget and no name recognition, it was a respectable event—a small crowd of about 25, mostly in their 20s and 30s, gathered in the Baltic Room’s compact upstairs lounge. Over a buffet table that included salami, a large wheel of brie, hummus, and some fattening-looking twisty pastries (would’ve tried them, but I don’t like sweets), I talked with some of Briel’s fans about her campaign and chances. The odds, most admitted, aren’t good: Briel hasn’t raised enough money to get invited to interviews by many of the organizations that issue endorsements, meaning that the major endorsements will almost certainly go to one of her opponents—incumbent Jean Godden or fellow challenger Joe Szwaja, who have raised $160,000 and $23,350, respectively.

Nonetheless, Briel’s campaign manager told me, the campaign isn’t giving up hope. Briel plans to campaign from door to door, focusing on North Seattle neighborhoods like Wedgwood in an effort to get her name and face in people’s minds. (King County Council member Bob Ferguson used a similar tactic in his successful campaign against incumbent Cynthia Sullivan; however, he had money and some institutional support, two things Briel lacks.) In my opinion, Briel should play up the fact that she’s the only renter in the race—a relevant characteristic at a time when condo conversions and a growing population are pushing rents to unprecedented levels. It worked for Judy Nicastro, the incumbent Godden defeated, in 1999—eight years later, Seattle may be ready for another renters’ advocate (and renter) on the council.

The Sonics selected UT star Kevin Durant—and now there’s all sorts of crazy trade talks in play … Allen, Lewis, etc…

I report this only because it gives me an excuse to haul out the greatest NBA quote of all time—which took place in the wake of some significant trade action eons ago.

I recite it from hazy memory.

After Dr. J was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in the wake of the NBA/ABA merger, his new teammate, 76ers’ star George McGinnis said: “Doctor. We’re gonna do a number.” Or as we used to say it on the playground: “Doctah, we’re going to do a numbah.”

If anyone can find this quote in print please send it my way. It was either in SI or Sport when the NBA and the ABA merged at the top of the ‘76-77 season. I’ve Googled every which way I can trying to find the quote, and I can’t turn it up.

Footnote: McGinnis and the Doctah did take the Sixers to the finals that year, but were stunned in six games by Portland.

This graphic, which is running on the front page of the New York Times website right now

makes me wonder why there aren’t “action” figures of our Supreme Court Justices. They look so plastic with their weird retro photoshopping, it just makes me think of the options.

1) Have Ginsburg make out with Scalia.
2) If the figures had movable joints, I bet Stevens would love to shamefully point his finger at Roberts.
3) I could knit little capes for Thomas and Souter, who just seem like the crimefighting types (“The Justice League,” of course).

Endless possibilities.

From departing SIFF communications director Gary Tucker:

This year’s festival did not quite reach the goals we’d been aiming for, so with a potential capital campaign looming in our future, a few sacrifices have to be made in order to end the year in the black. The full-time position of director of communications was new for SIFF this year, hence in the spirit of “last to arrive, first to leave…”.

This belies the sunny 6% box office increase we’d heard projected. Or does it? SIFF Cinema is at least 100 seats bigger than Broadway Performance Hall, the venue which it replaced (though BPH had 102 shows last year, compared to SIFF Cinemas’ 90 this year, if my quick math is right); so—assuming provisionally the other venues had the same number of shows—SIFF had something on the order of 7,000 more tickets available this year compared to last. You’d better hope revenue would increase.

SIFF Cinema’s new yearlong venue opens next week with the very tasty (and undoubtedly expensive) Noir City program.

The Port of Seattle Ethics Board released its Report to the Port Commissioners today.

This is the report on the fishy business of the $278,000 retirement payment promised to former Port director Mic Dinsmore in a memo signed by Port Commissioner Pat Davis in October 2006.

The report technically exonerates Davis, but it’s not hard to read between the lines.

While retired King County Judge Terrance Carroll, who conducted the investigation, concluded that Dinsmore’s retirement package probably was discussed in closed-door executive sessions (this had been the subject of heated disagreement between three commissioners who say discussions didn’t happen and two, including Davis, who say they did), Carroll’s report says “it is highly improbable that a detailed discussion…occurred.”

Carroll bases that finding on the fact that Dinsmore’s pay, in general, was a charged issue to start with. (There was a controversial vote on a Dinsmore pay raise last October.) Therefore, Carroll concluded, if Dinsmore’s pay had come up in any substantive way in executive session in January ‘07, it would have been memorable to everyone who was present.

Despite the fact that Davis was technically exonerated, it’s clear from reading between the lines of Carroll’s assessment that she purposefully avoided a substantive discussion of Dinsmore’s handsome payout during executive session. Her goal, it seems, was to upgrade Dinsmore’s retirement package without calling attention to it.

This point is made louder by Carroll’s additional assessments. He says that Davis was wrong to sign a memo authorizing Dinsmore’s big retirement package without circulating the memo to her fellow commissioners. He writes: “the Chair [Davis] mistakenly believed a consensus had developed regarding [Dinsmore’s retirement package.] It is clear that was not the case and could have easily been tested by circulating the memo prior to signature. She acknowledges it was a mistake not to do so.” Again, this “mistake” likely comes from the fact that Davis wanted to keep Dinsmore’s handsome payout from being scrutinized.

Carroll lets Davis off the hook, though, because the retirement package could not be implemented without formal board approval. And so, it never was. Therefore, nothing technically wrong ever went down.

It seems to me, given the fact that Carroll’s report also states that HR “was preparing Mr. Dinsmore’s termination documents” based on Davis’s memo, that Davis and Dinsmore were trying to pull a sneaky move. However, HR flagged the memo and showed it to the new Port CEO, and the whole thing blew up and came to a halt.

It seems—as evidenced by Davis’s low-key discussions of the package, her signature, and Dinsmore’s attempt to cash in—that the pair were trying to line up a big retirement package without getting the required approval. They got caught before any papers were signed and backed off.

(Updated below.)

The City of Seattle is providing free wireless Internet access in the Columbia City and the University District business districts. The City’s Wi-Fi pilot project also includes four downtown Seattle parks: Occidental, Freeway, Westlake and Victor Steinbrueck, as well as the City Hall lobby area. This is a pilot project. Users can log-in using seattlewifi for the ssid. (More info.)

When will the entire central city be covered by a free network? My money’s on the tail end of 2008.

UPDATE: Glenn Fleishman, a local writer who covers Wi-Fi at wifnetnews.com, as well as writing about it and other tech issues for the New York Times, the Economist, and Popular Science, says I shouldn’t hold my breath:

There was a brief halcyon time when cities with lots of urban poor and lower middle-class residents put out “bids” for city-wide Wi-Fi that read like this: “Come and build our networks on your own dime. We’ll give you utility pole access (if we can). We’ll anoint you. We might even move some city telecom business over to you (no guarantees, bud). But you have to pay in a bunch of money for digital divide initiatives and meet really imposing service guarantees.”

And EarthLink, MetroFi, Kite, and a few others—including giants IBM and Cisco—did pour forth the money. Now, about two years in, no major city network is complete, although several are well underway (Portland, Ore., and Philadelphia, notably). The companies building these networks are all guarded about their next moves; EarthLink’s new CEO (the previous one died in January from cancer) may choose to not build new networks. And there’s just not a lot of interest in building networks without much more of a commitment from cities to buy services.

In a city like Philadelphia or even San Francisco, it turns out that there’s relatively poor and uneven broadband penetration with cable and DSL, and not enough competition to spur low enough rates to move people from dial-up to broadband or no access to broadband.

Seattle is pretty well situated, and we have a much more middle to upper class set of residents in the city proper.

The city’s fiber-optic proposal that they put out last year to a bunch of bidders included an option to build out a Wi-Fi network. None of the responses seemed to have included this.

Speaking of tonight and that enchanted place called Pony, I’ll be there (with the other eleven inches of my penis poking through that six-inch brick hole), and I’ll be wearing my new sunglasses. Have I mentioned them? Well.

In other desperately important news: Here is a mysterious message that I found in a gutter:

Filth? Forgiveness? Courage? Sin? Mmm. Gutter poetic. And devastatingly poignant somehow if you consider that it’s written on stationery hawking something called ZYPREXA, and ZYPREXA is a medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Anyhoozits, have I told y’all about my new sunglasses?

Baseball and rock ‘n’ roll—as American as cocaine and hookers.

Thanks to the stunningly beautiful people at Barsuk Records for sponsoring a day out at SafeCo field yesterday. Many beers were drank, many hotdogs were devoured, and a few crotch-waves were attempted. And hey, the Ms won in the 11th to sweep Boston in a three-game series! Go Mariners!

Read all about it on Line Out.

New Minus the Bear: Get stoned, go listen.

The Cow Goes: Mooooooooog.

Jen Graves Loves Art Brut: And wants more Art Brut.

Stalked by the Strokes: They’re following me in my dreams. Or would that be more like a nightmare?

Do the Devo: Whip it at the Puyallup.

Eargasm: Terry Miller’s Thursday playlist.

The Zoinks!: Return!

Hi Pot, Meet Kettle: Rolling Stone says the music industry is dead.

Dear Kate Simko: Donte Parks loves you.

Eye Candy: White Stripes caught on camera.

Pine Cones Up the Ass: Linkin Park is not better than Creedence.

Pony opened last night! Welcome homo! I can’t even count how many times I heard someone say, “This is going to be the BEST summer ever.” I also heard more than one girl say, “There are so many hot guys here, I wish I was a boy.” This earlier post seemed to have some sort of debate about “fat hipster girls”. Hello stupid. Or girls being there at all. C’mon. Girls are welcome, and if you don’t get it—the dynamic between girls and their gay male friends, well, you should probably just stay home. That said, it was about 90 percent guys in there. Hot ones.

PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP

Continue reading "Pony Up - The Pictures" »

Does the Christian De Duve concept of the cosmic imperative mark science’s return to philosophy? Has it ever left? (Altogether another important question.) Is there at all a difference between finding existential shelter in the scientific cosmic imperative and finding it in the philosophical will, or will to power, or power, or conatus , or geist? All of these ideas say one thing: The universe is productive, creative, fecund. That fact is evident to the eye. (The problem has always been: is that fact evidence enough for the mind.)

What is more interesting than the cosmic imperative, which is still an exciting idea, is not the creation of life but the creation of thought, self-reflection, the two-in-one. Why? Because if there are life forms on this planet that are thinking about the universe, looking at the it, recording its activities, this means the universe thinks. It thinks about itself. The universe has a way of seeing the universe, seeing what itself is doing. Some planets produce storms, others vapours, this planet produces a thinking substance. Our purpose in life might be nothing more than to be the thought of the universe.

Hello readers. Yesterday I kicked off what I promised would be a new daily series featuring I, Anonymous submissions sent in by students at an alternative elementary/middle school in Ballard. As promised, here is a new entry for today.

If there is one thing I hate at school, it’s the people who lure you into embarassing traps. You may not know who you are if you’re reading this. But I can tell you this. It may seem all fun and games, opening up to some new kid on the first day of school, being their friend, showing them around, and all in all being a good person. But as soon as that new kid starts to accept that there is at least one person who doesn’t think that they are a freak, and you start bombarding them with awkward questions in front of others, exploiting their vulnerabilities and god knows what else. You can’t just waltz into this person’s life and start making school a living hell for them. They were insecure enough at the start, and with you in the way, you’re not making things any better. It may be fun for you, but try putting your deceitful little self in their place. You go to a brand new school, you don’t know anyone, but then a light appears in the form of a good natured person. After the day is over, you go to bed at night thinking that the next day will be just as good. Then you go to school, and the nightmare begins with your only friend turning their back on you, asking things like “Where did you get that shirt? Up your ass? It’s ugly enough,” and “the teacher’s pet doesn’t bite. Oops, guess I was wrong.” Seriously, it is not good at all for a person’s self-esteem. They crumble to dust inside. I have had to endure that kind of abuse for three and a half long years, and I am not going to lie down and take it from you again. So just quit it for Pete’s sake, you ungrateful, deceiving pile of stinking trash, and go sleep in a freshly used toilet where you belong.

Now to the MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT. A quick scan of the dozen or so remaining I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary submissions confirms that they are too cumulatively amazing to dribble out over weeks, and so tomorrow will bring an eight-hour I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary bonanza, with a new I,I: IE submission posted every hour on the hour from 9am to 5pm Pacific Standard Time.

In the meantime, please whet your appetites with another selection from the I, Anonymous: It’s Elementary canon:

To Lindsay Lohan, YOU ARE SO STUPID! I know that you’ve been in lots of movies. Some of them, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Herbie Fully Loaded, Just My Luck, Mean GIrls, Parent Trap, and Freaky Friday. I guess you’re a good actress but you’re so stupid! I’ll tell you about that later. Your best movie was The Parent Trap because that was when you were a little girl and still smart.

You have lots of problems. To start off you had a heroin addiction just to get skinny. Nothing was wrong with you in the first place. Then you had anorexia because it was reported that the heroin didn’t work. I don’t think you accept yourself for who you are because it was also reported you got a boob job.

The biggest thing that you’re known for today is partying! This is affecting your acting and your life. You’re setting bad examples for kids who want to be actors and actresses.

See you tomorrow.

A Mighty Heart is bombing at the box office, and it can’t do any better this coming week, with competition from Sicko in limited markets and Ratatouille and Live Free or Die Hard everywhere. But I’d submit that the distressing subject matter is but one reason filmgoers are staying away. The uncomfortable vision of Angelina Jolie moping around in adopted skin is another.

This article from the Washington Post last weekend is the best thing I’ve read on the legacy of mixed-race “brown”-face in cinema. A must if you can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Incidentally, there’s a new book out about Oscar Micheaux, who’s mentioned in the article: The Great and Only Oscar Micheaux: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker. I just got it from the library.

And that great ’70s film by Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep, is extending through next Thursday at Northwest Film Forum.

By Rebecca Tapscott

I’m out shopping at Loehmann’s with my girlfriend on my first day off as the Stranger’s news intern, when my cellphone rings. Caller ID: The Stranger. It’s Josh, asking if I can cover the Washington Bus Corporation…Group…no, well, organization thing…some “activate the youth event”…there will be cupcakes!

On first request, I’m not sold. Obviously no one wants to go, and as the young, politically inclined, unpaid intern, I’ve been chosen to do the dirty work. Upon further investigation, the event is walking distance from my house and I have no real schedule conflict. So, I call up high school friend Jacob for moral support, and we set out.

5:55: I arrive at the Washington Bus Project meeting at the Central District Senior Center having read Erica’s critique of the event and searched in vain for online literature. (It appears their website is “coming soon.”) We have low expectations… although, I am curious to learn what constitutes a “foam free” event, as boasted on bottom left corner of the event’s invitation.

5:57: We sign in, grabbing nametags and pins that read, “I’m on the bus.” My first impression of the event, upon entering the one floor, brick building, equates with a high school dance. There are folding tables set up on the sides of the fluorescently lit room with chips and dip, folding chairs, and a DJ spinning MTV’s latest pop songs in the corner. A few 40-year-olds stand around, dressed in various amalgamations of suits and denim. Yet, in less than thirty seconds, we are greeted by Washington Bus Campaign organizer Thomas Goldstein, who thanks us for coming and directs us outside to the deck for beer. (I wonder if he thinks we’re underage, but he has the courtesy not to ask.)

6:06: We each procure a cup of 1/2 beer, 1/2 foam (by now I’ve learned that the “foam-free” proclamation of the event was a reference to Styrofoam). With social lubricant in hand, we’re ready to mingle.

6:15: It’s hard to decide whom to approach, since in socialist fashion, everyone (including myself) is wearing a paper nametag and no other identification. I corner Sameer, who is standing behind the bar simultaneously looking official and trying to sort out the keg/foam problem, and begin a tirade of questions. He outlines the program for me, smiling broadly throughout a well-rehearsed response: We need to get the youth involved through cultural activities and voting. Use music. Politics is hugely important and we need a way to make it interesting.

6:23: Everyone is still milling around outside, and I figure now is the time to investigate Erica’s concerns. Between now and the beginning of the event at 7:00 I learn:

The location is proximate to the South side because:
Washington Bus Project is largely dedicated to mobilizing the youth and minority vote. The crowd is fairly young—20s to 40s, including the city council candidates. Although most of the group is white, there are a few minorities, mostly politicians or employees of the Washington Bus Project.

There are both cupcakes and beer, as well as toast with spreads and Odwalla.

The event hosted no Seattle candidates because:
1) They hoped to create a friendly event and avoid debates between competing progressive politicians. Also hoped to emphasize the Washington State aspect of the organization.
2) And, to pass progressive legislation in Washington State, we need progressive legislators in multiple districts—not just Seattle’s. Many Washington State races have a progressive candidate running against a conservative one—with the election of a progressive candidate in a traditionally conservative district, for example, Keri Andrews v. Phil Nobel in Bellevue, we change the political landscape of our state, and potentially the nation.

7:03: We are ushered inside for the event, which is introduced with 10 “you know you’re a progressive if” questions, including: #2—photos of Barack Obama excite you (a little cliché, in my opinion, but received noisy applause), #7—you run red lights to be carbon neutral (Paris should have used this argument in her defense), #9—you know when Paul Wells birthday is (no one did); and 10—you donate monthly to the Washington Bus Project (wait, isn’t this event geared towards youth?).

7:05: The four candidates take the stage. I realize that in the previous hour of mingling, three of the candidates introduced themselves to us. They are then asked a mix of personal and political questions (best Q/A by far was for Keri Andrews, candidate for Bellevue City Council. Q: What would your super power be? A: This might not be appropriate, but…the power to make things bigger or smaller.) We also learn that all the candidates are dedicated to the environment, limiting urban sprawl, the youth and firefighters.

7:29: The candidates are asked to mingle with the crowd and seek out the best question from the audience. We take this opportunity to slip out the door (even though the cupcakes remain confined to their pink boxes). On the way out the door we counted the names on the sign in sheets: 49 in total. Nonetheless, I wonder how many people were either affiliated with the Washington Bus Project, people employed to help put on the event, members of the press, or other unpaid interns, showing the support of their respective organization. Every person I met fit one of these categories.

7:31: I begin my walk home, (yeah, the location was good for me) feeling satisfied. The event was well organized and founded on hot-button progressive values. The turn out was decent, even if there were few unaffiliated community members. Nominally, the Washington Bus Project hasn’t been “founded” in Seattle yet, and hasn’t begun outreach, so although improvements could be made, I think Erica’s cynicism was premature. The question is what’s next? Unfortunately, with no website or contact information, it’s hard to say at the moment.

The Washington Bus Project is an affiliate of the Oregon Bus Project, which was established in 2001 and has been relatively successful at mobilizing the vote. As for the origins of the bus analogy, we’re all still a little confused. The incentive seems to stem from the plethora of puns that a bus derives, mostly focused around “driving” things, like change and votes. Getting onto the bus is also a favorite slogan, not to mention mass transit’s friendly relationship with the environment. Oregon Bus Project announces proudly that it does indeed have a real bus, and although Washington’s Project may be lacking a physical vehicle, they seem to be on the same ideological “boat.” With this unity, organization and enthusiasm, I’ll keep an eye out for future events.

It’s not secret that I am sometimes put out with the choices funders and residencies make when doling out awards. So it’s only fair that I praise the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs for announcing their awards to what sound like some promising projects:

Awards include $5,000 to Jennifer Zeyl [of Washington Ensemble Theatre] to direct Hedda: Blah, Blah, Bang, a reconstruction of Hedda Gabler, a classic Henrik Ibsen play;

$8,500 to William Smith to compose, record and present Jazzopera, a lecture-performance combining elements of classical music and jazz;

$2,600 to Elspeth Savani Macdonald to present a concert of original boleros, sambas and folkloric music;

$1,500 to Raymond Houle to present Against the Grain/Men in Dance, a series of performances highlighting the evolution of male dance in contemporary society;

$10,000 to Lucia Neare to present Lullaby Carriage, an outdoor, interdisciplinary “dream-theater” piece;

$9,500 to Haruko Nishimura [of Degenerate Art Ensemble] to create a series of solo dance performances in partnership with dance, theater and music artists.

(I’m a little suspicious of that outdoor “‘dream-theater’ piece,” but I’ll hold my horses until I’ve seen it.)

Eric, I feel your pain. Josh’s voicemail does the same thing.

“This is Josh,” he says, just like how he answers the phone in real life.

It makes me a little crazy too. Let’s just keep that between you and me, OK?

That’s one of the questions Dan Savage is going to ask in his interview with Mike Jones tonight at Re-Bar. Can you think of a better interviewer? Mike Jones is the escort who outed evangelist preacher Ted Haggard as a butt-sex-lovin’, meth-slammin’ hypocrite—the cherry on the shit cake of scandals that plagued the right just before the last election and probably helped contribute to Congress going Democratic.

What would you ask this guy if you could ask him anything? Put your questions in the comments of this post and Savage will probably ask them. The event’s called Come of a Preacher Man, for chrissakes. It starts at 7 pm. It’s free. It’s 21+.

They’ll be dancing afterward.

The Port of Seattle is holding special Commission meeting today. Item A on the agenda: Report from the Ethics Board.

This is what we’ve all (well, me anyway) been waiting for. Will they come down hard on Pat Davis? Or will they issue a report calling for report to outline reforms for the future?

The best discussion on the agenda, though, is item B: b. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Holiday Decorations. WITHDRAWN

Withdrawn? Guess they didn’t want all the headlines in tomorrow’s papers.

UPDATE Word coming out of the Port on my question about the Ethics Board findings is this: They’re going to say Pat Davis showed “bad judgment” and Mic Dinsmore behaved badly. That’s it. No calls for resignation. No charges.

Your voice mail greeting drives me insane! It must stop.

For the rest of the world: When you reach Ms. Seling’s voice mail, you hear a very chipper, “Hi!” and then a long beat, you know, like maybe she just answered the phone. A long beat. And then, after you’ve said, “Hey Megan, what’s up” or “Hey, are you coming into the office?” you hear something about this being her voicemail or LOLcats or something. And then you say, “Oh!” out loud as you realize you weren’t really talking to anybody. This happens every time. And it makes me so crazy that I can’t even leave a message.

Instead, I am looking at icanhascheezburger.com and laughing out loud in a public place where one woman keeps looking up and giving me a strange “Uh, do you know you look ridiculous?” look.

For the record, yes. Yes I do know I look ridiculous.

Oh Hai! I Fixted ur pilloh!

I can’t stop laughing.

Come of a Preacher Man

(AMERICAN HERO) Two years ago, Ted Haggard was a powerful Colorado evangelist and religious right activist who had the ear of George W. Bush. That was before Mike Jones, a gay escort who had sex with Haggard and bought him crystal meth, outed the right-wing pastor as a world-class hypocrite. Jones wrote a book about his experience, I Had to Say Something, and Stranger editor Dan Savage interviews him at Re-bar. (Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873. 8 pm, free, 21+.) ERICA C. BARNETT

and…

Heather McHugh

(GREATNESS) Heather McHugh is a goat-cheese crouton. She is the star around which the rest of UW orbits. There is no good way to describe her because she is constantly improving your powers to describe things. The stuff she says between poems is so funny you don’t know what to do. This afternoon, she reads from old stuff, new stuff, black-and-blue stuff. Take a long lunch, become suddenly ill—whatever you have to do. (Henry Art Gallery Auditorium, 15th Ave NE and NE 41st St, 543-2280. 2 pm, free.) CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

I’m going deep undercover to get at this cop-scandal we’ve been Slogging so much about and won’t have my tentacles out in the neighborhoods much this week. However, if you’ve got something interesting/wild/frustrating/delicious going on in your ‘hood, send us a tip and we’ll get our crack team of interns on it.

Jonah@thestranger.com

Three weeks ago, Serafina bartender Miles Thomas made headlines after fending off an armed would-be robber of the restaurant, who shot Thomas in the arm and fled.

Today Serafina steps up with a day-long benefit for Thomas’s recovery fund. From the press release:

The Seattle restaurant will keep extra-long hours, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., with a 2:30-6 p.m. happy hour, and donate a portion of the day’s proceeds to a recovery fund for Thomas.

On the menu: some of Thomas’ favorite meals, an array of wines donated for the occasion and a drink dubbed the Miles 75, a twist on one of Thomas’ favorite drinks with an apricot-infused liqueur.

A silent auction will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. across the street at the offices of Hoshide and Williams Architects and Michael Courtney Design. Donated prizes range from a scenic flight for two by Seattle Seaplanes; dinner for eight prepared by Serafina executive chef John Neumark in the garden of owner Susan Kaufman; and a date with Thomas after his recovery.

Call 206-323-0807 or visit serafinaseattle.com for more details.

Typically, posting Letters of the Day is the job of web editor Amy Kate Horn, but since she’s the subject of today’s letter, I shall do the posting. Enjoy, and ew.

Dearest Ms. Horn: Pretend for a moment that I am your good mother who embraces you and supports you 100% for the person you are. In fact I do love you unconditionally and I am very proud of you for your kind email to me today.

Honey, don’t you think that after the big splash your editor made with the “Stranger Gets Religion” that it would be a fabulous idea to make an equally colorful retraction for Christian Faith Center?

Pastor Casey Treat is no Jerry Falwell, my dear. In fact, if you research it, I believe you will find that Falwell’s college has been accused of discriminating against Pentecostal/Charismatics — the type of church Christian Faith Center is. The Baptists are at odds with Pentecostals. I don’t think I am wrong about this.

I have heard Pastor Treat say he wants Gay men and Lesbians to attend his church. Maybe he thinks he can “heal” you. LoL. So do Scientologists, *twinkles* The position of my Catholic Faith is that we are all called to Holiness. Being a heterosexual married to the same person for a lifetime is not easy. We get just as lonely sexually as anyone else. If you are not Catholic or a Christian, we do not hold you to our same standards.

Gay marriage is only a concern if our churches are forced by law to perform this sacrament on people who are not prepared for life long commitment to a person of the opposite sex. I know that seems unfair. But we only ask that our religion be allowed to flourish without government interference, just as Gay men and Lesbians want to be allowed to flourish without government interference in their life choices.

Please do no be offended, my sweet daughter. I love you. Please be at peace and ask your editor to have the courage to do the right thing. I know, I know, your readers might be bored. But your paper is too popular to lose its vast readership over one mea culpa well done with splash and your usual panache.

All my affection, Pro-life Catholic Mother

I need a shower. *twinkles*

This is wrong.

As happens to many young couples, my girlfriend and I have found ourselves confronted with a decision to make about having a child, and we’re not sure what to do. There are many options available to us, and a difficult evaluation of the responsibilities and obligations, as well as the joys, that come with raising a child.

Our two real options are either having and raising the child, or aborting. While we’d like to think that adoption is a viable option for us, my girlfriend doesn’t believe that she’d be able to give up a child after giving birth to it, and that’s not something I’m going to pressure us into doing….

Right now, we just can’t afford it, which is why we’re here, on this site. We’ve crunched some numbers, and we believe that, to really set ourselves up in a good environemnt for the baby, we need $50,000. That’ll give us the down payment on a decent house, get us a car that runs reliably, allow us to save away a little for the baby’s college fund, cover any medical bills (she’s uninsured), and give us a little buffer while she’s not working.

It comes down to this. If we can’t raise the $50,000 in the next 3 months, we’ll have to choose abortion. We don’t like it, and we don’t like the nature of our appeal, but it is what it is. We’re asking you to donate money to us using the link to your left. Anything you can give would be appreciated.

The couple wishes to remain anonymous, so there’s no info about them on the website, no way to verify if they’re for real, or if there are even two of them, or if anyone is actually pregnant. They’ve raised $12,500 so far and the site says there’s 79 days left to go.

They’ve posted a bunch of the letters they’ve received. It’s interesting reading.

Says Slog tipper Matt:

It’s either a genious but evil scam, or a totally fucked up couple. Either way, it’s great. Kinda.

Whoops. What if he turns us down?

In this week’s CounterIntel, I write about Mayor Nickels’s behind-the-scenes effort to shore up support for the chief, and I noted that some folks, like minority-advocacy nonprofits, who’ve been asked to write supportive letters have turned the mayor down.

Well, I just talked to Darryl Smith, the high-profile, pro-business, pro-development African American South Seattle activist who’s considered to be a city council front runner for 2009. Smith told me that he was also asked to write a letter of support for the embattled chief.

“I was asked, and I decided not to,” Smith says. “I felt like it would have been odd for me to say yay or nay on the chief. I’m not involved with the chief.”

It also would have been odd for Smith to write a letter right now because Nickels has asked for a review of the chief to supposedly get to the bottom of all the accusations. If Nickels is in earnest about the review, he shouldn’t be asking people to write pro-Kerlikowske letters before that review is complete.

Smith says he has great relationship with the commander in the SE Precinct, and he’s lobbied the city for more public-safety dollars, but he’s got nothing to say about Kerlikowske.

The current scandal—Kerlikowske’s refusal to discipline officers when the OPA recommends as much (and as Mike Carter reports today, he promotes them instead)—dates back to Kerlikowske’s loss of cred with the rank and file in 2001.

Officers were enraged after they were told to stand down during the Mardi Gras melee in Pioneer Square in ‘01. Ever since then, Kerlikowske has been fighting to regain the trust of the rank and file. So, he’s been flipping off the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA, the department that investigates citizen complaints against officers).

Ironically, his ploy has backfired…with the cops. I don’t think scoffing at the OPA helps Kerlikowske with the rank and file. I think good cops (most cops) appreciate the OPA system, and watching Kerlikowske disrespect the OPA in a cloying, condescending attempt to win back their trust is insulting to the rank and file.

My guess is the rank and file is just as disgusted as the public at the officers who beat the shit out of Alley-Barnes and more so that one of the officers got a promotion.

I’m sure there will be several posts about Pony, the new gay bar that opened on Pine Street last night. It occupies the Cha Cha’s old space and it’s temporary—Cha Cha moved out because the building is coming down in a few months. Pony isn’t going to be with us long, but that didn’t stop Marcus & Co. from pullout the stops. The place is gloriously sleazy, and here’s hoping the Liquor Control Board doesn’t take issue with the Athletic Model Guild boys wheatpasted all over the walls.

I have two quick observations: Pony’s much-discussed glory hole? You would need a 10 inch cock to get a blowjob. It’s not a hole cut into a divider between bathroom stalls, but a hole cut through the bathroom’s walls. The wall is about six inches thick, so… uh… if you’re inspired to stick your dick through it, there’s not going to be much on the other side for your mysterious friend to work on. On the plus side, the hole in one bathroom is roughly waist high, the hole in the other bathroom is roughly, uh, cock-sucking-mouth high. But it’s more of a peep hole than a glory hole—and when my boyfriend needed to take a piss he made me come with him and hold my hand over it.

Second, the Ms. Pac-Man machine—love it. But… this is hard to describe. You put in your quarter and you get three Ms. Pac-Men. One is ready to go on the grid, two are in reserve at the bottom of the screen. But as soon as the game starts one of the reserve Ms. Pac-Men disappears! Basically, the game starts after you’ve already lost a Ms. Pac-Man. But you didn’t lose one, one disappeared. You’ve been cheated—cheated!

Other than the overhyping of the glory/peephole (we’re the guiltiest parties), and the disappearing Ms. Pac-Man, Pony is perfect in every possible way. Oh, and anyone that’s never heard of Joe Dellisandro, or wonders why he was such a big deal, needs to go to Pony.

Dan is right. Sending Gil off the island will help. And it will help in more significant ways than just making us feel better.

You see: The problem with our police accountability system is that the mayor has not held Kerlikowske accountable. Having a hammer in our 3-tiered accountability system—which believe it or not is better than most city’s oversight systems—is the final piece. That piece could exist if the mayor took his hire and fire role seriously. He has not. And that’s the only problem with our system right now.

It’s time for the council to step and take over where the mayor has failed.

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske is taking calls on KUOW’s Weekday right now. And here’s today’s fresh outrage…

The Seattle police supervisor whose questionable judgment was singled out by internal investigators and the police chief as leading to a violent arrest outside a Capitol Hill nightclub in 2005 has been promoted, police officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The actions of Sgt. Gregory W. Sackman outside the War Room on the night of the arrest “threatened ‘the safety of the community … and fellow officers,’” wrote a police captain in charge of an internal investigation, and led to the arrest of Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes….

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske promoted Sackman to lieutenant last week.

It’s time for Gil to go.

The number at KUOW: (206) 543-KUOW, or (800) 289-KUOW.

This ad has been running for weeks, and quietly blowing my mind.

I’m a gay, so the particulars of female netherloins are beyond my knowledge. Is Vagisil’s characterization of the wildlife preserve/saltwater aquarium residing in ladies’ underpants accurate?

Eugene Cho, the lead pastor of Quest Church, sent me a nice note a few weeks ago after reading my review of Quest in our “Month of Sundays” feature package.

Unlike Mars Hill, which his church resembles, Quest embraces women in positions of leadership—a female pastor opened the service on the day I visited. About the only thing that bothered Questers about my piece, some other members told me, was seeing their church described as a “Mars Hill wannabe.” That stung, apparently, because little, loving Quest isn’t anything like Mark Driscoll’s huge, hateful Mars Hill.

When I was working on my piece I poked around Quest’s website, and read through the church’s brochures, in an effort to find discover Quest’s position on homosexuality. They embraced women, what about the gays? But there was no info posted on Quest’s website, up on Cho’s blog, or in any of Quest’s brochures. So I asked Cho directly: Quest is good on the female thing. Good for you. What about the gay thing?

I took it as a bad sign when I didn’t hear back from Cho right away—and my interpretation of his silence was correct. This email arrived this morning:

Dan,

Sorry for the delayed response. Not that you were waiting by your inbox waiting for my reply…

Because we are theologically so different than Mars Hill, that’s why the “Mars Hill wannabe” definitely rubbed a few of our church folks that wrong way. As you might assume, MH and driscoll can be fairly polarizing so for those on the other spectrum, it’s not the best thing to be compared to him.

Regardless, to your question about our position on gays. No matter how I answer, I know it’s going to always hurt or offend one side or the other. I say this not to be trite but it’s been a difficult issue. Always is when you’re dealing not just with an issue but one that deals with people…human souls. Quest welcomes the gay community but does not affirm the gay lifestyle.

While I can’t speak on behalf of every single person at Quest, I believe I speak for many when I share that there’s much hypocrisy in the church especially when we isolate homosexuality out of the context of the larger conversation of sexuality that needs to be addressed. Heterosexuals have much to answer to. So, while I do not affirm the lifestyle, I also believe in human rights and the rights that the gay community deserve—the most important one being the freedom to be safe. I wrestle with how a gay person can feel safe in the church—even if they are “welcomed” when their lifestyle isn’t affirmed as God honoring…

Let me know your thoughts if you have the energy.

e

I sent this email to Eugene Cho:

Is the right to marry included on your list of rights to which we’re entitled?

Re: The gay lifestyle. What you mean is gay sex, right? My “lifestyle” is probably shockingly similar to your own: go to work, go home, eat, take care of my kid, pay the bills. It’s the sex I have with my partner that rubs you the wrong way, so to speak. There is no “gay lifestyle,” Eugene. Some straight people have no kids, never marry, and sleep around—which is what the phrase “gay lifestyle” invokes. My unmarried, 45 year-old heterosexual brother Billy lives a much gayer “lifestyle” than I do.

And, yes, straight people have their own sins to answer for—but your philosophy at least allows for straight people to have fully intimate lives, loving partners, and some sexual release. Your theology disallows that for me, so… I don’t see as how that amounts to equal treatment. Copping to hetero shortcomings (“Hey, look at the way we dress!”) while advising gay people to forgo all intimacy, a.k.a. “the gay lifestyle,” does not amount to the loving tending o’ the flock that you seem to believe it does. Telling people that God disapproves of their deepest needs for love and companionship, and that they must forgo that “sin” in order to be right with God, is an act of emotional and spiritual violence.

If there was a God, you would answer for it one day. But there isn’t and you won’t.

Dan

P.S. As I told one of your parishioners—and should have told you when it first came up—“Mars Hill wannabe” was more a reference to the aesthetics of the place. The warehouse, the dark colors, the art, rock and roll, etc. Now I see, however, that at least on the gay issue… well, there’s no daylight between you and Driscoll, is there?

US Supreme Court tosses Seattle’s race-based tie breaker.

My advice to Seattle Schools: Class-based tie breaker.

Bush to Congress: Drop dead.

DAMF: Twenty decapitated bodies found near Baghdead—on the same day car bombs killed 35, wounded 57.

The Death Penalty in Texas: or, The Mentally Ill Executing the Mentally Ill: Should we put crazy people to death? Maybe not, says Supreme Court.

Run, Al, Run: Gore leads poll of Dem voters in New Hampshire.

What Can Brown Do For You? Bush’s immigration bill “shedding supporters” as it faces crucial vote today.

We’ll Always Have Paris: Hilton underwhelms in post-prison TV appearance.

Made in China: More “tainted,” i.e., poisoned, toothpaste discovered in United States. Pet food, children’s toys, toothpaste—Jesus, we could save space on those labels if we replaced “Made in China” with a tasteful little skull and crossbones.

Repent! Repent! God continues to punish Texas, sending more floods to punish his wayward gun-loving, immigrant-bashing, capital-punishment-crazed children there.

Spice, Spice, Baby: Posh, Ginger, Sporty, Scary and… uh… Dopey? Ropey? Mopey? Anyway, the Spice Girls are getting their act back together and taking it on the road.

Is Your Cat Missing? It might have something to do with this.

You Think? The mayor and police chief think that maybe—just maybe—we might need to contemplate having a discussion about whether or not the “time may be ripe to review the current system of police accountability,” seeing as how it, you know, doesn’t work for shit.

Attack of the McMansions: Bellevue contemplates restrictions on “megahomes.”

Jazz Hands, Everybody: This morning’s Fosse goes out to Mark Mitchell, who requested “Hey, Big Spender” from Sweet Charity. It is, without a doubt, Fosse’s most iconic work. A line of taxi dancers, aka hookers, attempt to get the attention of a john. In the film version, for some reason, Fosse slowed the number down, and it drags a bit at the beginning. But hang in there—it’s worth it for hair and makeup tips alone.

And now watch in awe as the girls—good Catholic girls, one assumes—attempt to recreate Fosse’s choreography in this high school production of Sweet Charity. Alas, no beehives. And this clip of another high school production features choreography for couch potatoes—the girls hardly get off their asses.

And here… because… well, my God, how could I refrain from posting it? Freddie Mercury and Queen performing “Hey, Big Spender” in 1975. Please note: Freddie Mercury was believed to be heterosexual in 1975, and Queen was popular with straight high school students everywhere. Ahem:

Just before 9pm Wednesday night, police responded to a call of shots fired at 27th and Yesler.

Officers arrived and found a man in his 20s, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

Medics arrived and declared the man dead at the scene.

SPD spokesman Jeff Kappel says the police are looking for 2 or 3 male suspects and that the shooting was not random.

I’ll have more updates in the morning.

Pony is not open quite yet. It was scheduled to open at 8pm, but that has been pushed back to 9pm. Marcus is downstairs hooking up a DJ mixer. Barry is training bar tenders on the cash register. But all the porn is ready to go.

And yes, Fnarf, it’s going to be very gay.

These, young Spangenthal-Lee, are OBVIOUSLY the greatest things in life:

Thank you, and good night.

…you have your own line of ham jerky

West Seattle

The Seattle School District is planning to combine Denny middle school and Chief Sealth high school onto one campus and some parents are, as expected, freaking out.

In a recent report from the Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, some parents and teachers at the schools voiced concern about the potential for violent or sexual encounters between high schoolers and middle schoolers.

It’s worth nothing that sweaty, hormonal 6-12 graders have safely shared space at Summit k-12 for years.

Seattle Public Schools’ spokesman David Tucker says that while the schools will have some integrated art, language and music classes, “the schools would still be primarily divided between the middle and high school. This is going to modernize Sealth. Classrooms are going to be upgraded with technology upgrades, a 1000 seat auditorium and increased art spaces.” Besides, Tucker points out, “intermingling is already occurring. [Sealth and Denny students] are already riding the same buses.”

Denny Middle School, which is across the street from Sealth, will move onto Sealth’s campus and the former Denny site will be turned into a sports field.

The school district plans to begin construction by the summer of 2008.

In the comments to the post below, Angry Andrew asks:

Why have there been so many red sox fans at these games? I’ve been to plenty of other m’s-red sox games before and never seen so many red sox fans.

We had the same question. The stands were full of Red Sox fans. Annie Wagner was at the game too, and she says the people in front of us as we were walking out were Red Sox fans who were staying at the Westin. Which begs the question: Do people fly all the way from Boston to Seattle to go to Red Sox games?

A newscastress refuses to lead with the Paris Hilton story. (“Good lord, why is she such a journalist?”)

Courtesy of my friend Rob.

Last night’s ball game was gorgeous, especially when we ditched the sorta expensive seats we had and went all the way to the top. The guys were a lot smaller on the field, but it was much easier to watch the sun go down. The view was total. Even my crappy cell phone camera managed to catch the gorgeousness.

(Here’s a larger version.)

There was also this view:

These guys were drunk and standing up the whole game. (Bigger version here.) They had a lot more mojo than the other fans. A couple minutes after this photo was taken I saw two of them out by concessions buying beer. One of them had a big “B” painted on his torso in red, and the other had giant “O.” I couldn’t figure out how a “B” or an “O” would spell “SEATTLE” or “MARINERS” “MOJO” There are two “O”s in “MOJO,” but no “B”…

When it comes to matters athletic, I’m an idiot.

Later, the line of them turned around to face us, and they spelled out N-O-T-S-O-B. But body paint does not a baseball game win. Boston lost. Losers!

The greatest things in life are as follows:

If you put all of those things in a blender with some really, really straight sex and set it on rock the fuck out, you’d get this guy:

No, that’s not me. But I wish it was.

Pierced Arrows Coming to Seattle: Dead Moon fans, you’ll want to be there.

Weezer Promises Sixth Record: But they can’t promise it’ll be good.

Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground: Sign to V2 Europe, but still getting shunned by US labels.

Highly Caffeinated: Blitzen Trapper’s new video is Ari Spool’s brain on Wired.

In His Head: Christopher Frizzelle brings Stevie Nicks to work with him…

And Infects the Whole Office: Now everyone is singing “Leather and Lace.”

Band of the Week: Library Science bring a little reggae to the reggae-lacking city.

What a Waste: Dan Savage has an iPod, but doesn’t use it.

Tight and Taut: Trent Moorman’s poetic musings on last night’s Tortoise show (with an open letter to drummer John McEntire).

Bow + Arrow and Bow & Arrow and the Bow & Sparrow: Srsly.

Got Ink?: Aesop Rock wants to see your Aesop tats.

(Thanks, Eric.)

This universe spares no one. Even philosophers die. All we can hope is that one day a man/woman will produce a thought strong enough to win even one battle against the given time.

From the Washington Post:

A Senate committee investigating the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program issued subpoenas to the Bush administration this afternoon for documents related to the authorization and legal justification for the eavesdropping.

The Judiciary Committee subpoenas were delivered to the offices of the president, vice president, national security adviser and the Justice Department, escalating a simmering legal battle between Congress and the Bush administration.

Artist Trust announced yesterday that the painter Elizabeth Sandvig, who recently had a show at her gallery, Francine Seders, has won the $10,000 Twining Humber Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

Here’s Elizabeth Bryant’s great review of the show.

Sandvig will be honored at a reception September 7 at the Frye Art Museum.

^{Elizabeth Sandvig, Fox and Partridges, oil on canvas, 2006}

These are my new sunglasses. Do you love them? God damn it, I do. And how! They are my very first pair of real sunglasses, you must understand, and I understand how retarded that sounds, but, fuck you. I never got in the habit of wearing sunglasses, for reasons far beyond the grasp of common man. Okay, it’s because I’m too damn gay to wear sunglasses. I’m so damn gay that little things, like wearing sunglasses, push me right over the big gay edge. For me, wearing sunglasses is much like throwing a Molotov cocktail at a man on fire. It can take me from simply “gay” to Richard Simmons with a pussy gay….to Ryan Fucking Seacrest gay. (Shudder.) I might as well wear hoop earrings. Or a hoopskirt. Or hoop earrings wearing little hoopskirts—and then prance around with sperm dripping down my chin and Mark Finley riding piggyback on my shoulders. And that’s gay, child. Damn gay.

And all of this is quite tragic, because my life has been a life lived looking…down. My skin is whiter than God’s dentist’s apron, you see, and scientific studies have proved that my eyes are twice as sensitive as a drunken spinster on the rag. I squint and squint and squint, and in all of my wide and dusty travels (the Great Capitols! Far-flung and mysterious places!), all I mostly remember is one big gray sidewalk. Paris? I remember the sidewalk. Rome? The sidewalk. Amsterdam? Hookers, brownies, and the sidewalk. The sun just hates me too much. My fair little eyes can’t endure its merciless burn.

But now. Now! Oh, how things have changed!

Now I have these wonderful new sunglasses. I finally just broke down, gave up, gave in, and bought a pair—-“too gay” be damned!—-and what a miracle they turned out to be! I never take them off. Outside, inside, day, night, reading in the tub, boiling an artichoke, whatever. I even wear them to dark nightclubs and look like a totally pretentious cocksucking dickweed, but fuck you again. Maybe I want people to think I do more drugs than I do. (My eyes are suspiciously unclouded—it makes the hipsters nervous.) But I’m not here to justify anything. I’m here to talk about the clouds.

Why didn’t anybody tell me?

These wonderful sunglasses (bless them!) have opened up glorious new vistas for poor, watery-eyed little me—-they have introduced me to the sky, for one thing, and all sorts of really astonishing things I was never able to pay attention to before. Crazy shit is going on up there! What an astonishing thing it is to watch the relentless roil and boil of restless clouds, and how thrilling it is to watch a common airplane roar, chewing up the sky! And birds! They’re really up there, too! Swooping all over the damn place—-all kinds of them! Remarkable. I’m like a ten year old boy…amazed at common things, always looking up. It’s a whole new world.

Plus, sunglasses are secretly beer goggles. They bathe all of the world in bar lighting! Ergo, I want to make out with everyone. Everyone is at least ten percent hotter, and nobody has zits. And, ironically, I think I might even be a little…well…less gay when I wear the sunglasses, as they’ve allowed my gaze to drift high enough to really consider boobies for the first time. Interesting things, aren’t they? Boobies?

Oh, wonderful sunglasses! How I love them! Is there anything they can’t do?! I regret every moment that I was estranged from them. I’ll never take them off again.

Ever.

As has been said and seconded in the comments to your post, Megan, the place to eat and work (and what should you do?) is Cafe Presse. Beyond Christopher’s love for their record selection and Bethany’s reasoning that it’s “so cheap, you can’t afford to eat anywhere else”, there is also the matter of seeing and being seen. Today Presse was host to Club Pop’s Michael Yuasa and myself, Kerri Harrop and Mark Mitchell, and the Stranger’s own diligent slogger (possibly also an arts critic?) Jen Graves.

You know that haunted little room off the foyer at McLeod Residence where the 19th-century paintings used to hang? Through this week, Mandy Greer’s show Parlor (above) is in there, with individual works for sale like this one, titled Little White Lion,

and this one,

titled White Milk Balls.

There’s a closing party Thursday night (tomorrow), but the gallery doesn’t turn over until after Saturday.

Then, opening July 6 is what promises to be an ambitious group show of interactive works (its title, Interactivity, seems criminally plain given the names of some of the works in the show: Biomimetic Butterflies, Running Plaid, Contexture).

The insect complex is called Habitat 67; its location is Montreal along the Saint-Laurent river; and its architect is Moshe Safdie.
I’ve actually seen this building with my very own eyes, and my eyes said no to it three times. Nothing in the world had the power to make me walk inside of it (I’m a man not an ant). Indeed, if it wasn’t for the raw concrete, zero would be the number of things I admired about the Habitat .

If you want to be a man about concrete, this is what you build:

Moshe Safdie is also the architect of the lousy Vancouver Public Library:
A library as a crumbling Roman colosseum? The idea was dead before it left the head of the architect.

My favorite part:

Contrary to popular opinion, things don’t go stale particularly fast in the art world. As they say, everything changes but the avant-garde. Chelsea was a ghost town last week, but had you been with the crush in Europe you’d have observed, at each stop, the same cast of museum directors and trustees, art advisers and clients, curators and more curators, artists, dealers, journalists, PR people, and who knows who else—all talking one another up, all on the lookout for the next paradigm shift. It’s a bubble environment. Everyone goes to the same exhibitions and the same parties, stays in the same handful of hotels, eats at the same no-star restaurants, and has almost the same opinions. I adore the art world, but this is copycat behavior in a sphere that prides itself on independent thinking.

This ad from the back page of last week’s paper contains one of my many recent failures.
No matter how much I stared at it, I could not determine where in the world the crazy apartment complex existed—Montreal? Barcelona? Tel Aviv? It’s a very famous building, that I know. But where is it located? Who made it? And why did they make such a mazy heap?

I finally advanced to the year 2007 and got a laptop. Thank you, thank you.

Anyway, I wanna take my little traveling computer and work out of the office (I’m tired of being here), but I also want to eat. It’s 1 pm. I’m hungry. I don’t want pastries or bread or other coffee shop staples. I want real food. Good food.

What local places have have free wifi and good food?

Ed Winkleman has a brave post up on his blog today, about why galleries split the profits of sales with artists 50/50.

He dives all the way in, including a list detailing a typical dealer’s expenses, beginning here:

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Gallery/Artist relationship is, not surprisingly, the most controversial aspect of any relationship in any business: money. Specifically, the 50/50 split of sales between the artist and dealer. Many folks outside the gallery system will look at that split and be amazed, I’m sure. The artist is the creative genius, the artist spent years in art school, the artist is the one putting it all on the line for the public to take pot shots at their vision. In other professions, like acting, managers only get 15% and agents only get 10%. Why on earth does the gallery take 50% of the money? The short answer is because it costs that much to promote the artist’s work. The longer answer is, well…a bit like the adage about watching sausages being made. The following is a very unromantic discussion, leaving out issues such as how much the gallery believes in the work or how important the artist is to the world. Those things do matter, but I’m taking a wholly bottom-line view here to provide the most objective analysis and hopefully most useful information toward understanding this.

Winkleman spends the post justifying why galleries should take half. But he also gives a nod to artists who feel this is highway robbery:

In general, I find the artists most upset about the 50/50 split fall into one of two categories: 1) they don’t understand the business that well (and many of them have never had full-time representation) or 2) they have a bad relationship with their gallery (i.e., their gallery is not doing enough in their opinion to earn the 50% they’re taking). This second category of artists can also be broken down in two groups: those who are correct in their assessment that the gallery is not doing enough for their 50% and those who may not understand that the gallery is still behind in the deal in terms of recouping their investment and is actually doing more than their fair share for the 50%.

Normally, comments about art on this blog are limited to ad hominem attacks and mouth-breathing disses that date back to the impressionists (“I coulda made that”).

But maybe I could hear from some artists actually represented in Seattle.

Does your dealer take half? Do you think it’s fair? Have dealers in Seattle stepped up their promotion enough to leverage the new publicity Aqua Art Miami gives to Northwest artists? Who’s the hardest-working dealer in town?

I have no reason to believe that Seattle dealers are lax in their duties, and I’m making no accusations with this line of questioning. But while Ed’s being brave…

Kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen

Via Metafilter.

See also: Here, here, here and here.

I left someone out of my post yesterday about dads killing their wives and children. People offended by these posts shouldn’t click here.

…at least according to a text message I got from reporter Erica C. Barnett yesterday afternoon.

If you don’t know, Collins—on 2nd Ave. near Yesler—has long been a hang out for city and county “VIPs” like Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.

But here’s what ECB texted me yesterday while she was arguing about RTID—exciting!— with some county dudes:

At Crimson C — the old larry’s, the new collins. Saw tim hatley, tom from jean’s office.

Hatley is a lobbyist and Tom is Tom Van Bronkhorst—a Jean Godden aide.

The Crimson C, which set up shop in the Larry’s spot (Larry’s, a rowdy black hip hop spot, lost its liquor license) is a block west of Collins and a half block south over on 1rst Ave. in Pioneer Square. Go there if you want to eavesdrop on lobbyists and council aides. Exciting!

IN OTHER COUNTY BUREAUCRAT GOSSIP: The political brain in KC Exec Ron Sims’s office, Ryan Bayne, is leaving to work for the Downtown Seattle Association. This is bad news for Sims, I believe.

And here’s a text message I got from Patti Smith:

I haven’t fucked much with the past, but I’ve fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I’ve caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I’d surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn’t bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. I desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; in heart I am Moslem, in heart I’m an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God.