What’s your real name?

Have you had surgery?

What does your real voice sound like?

Are you a he or a she?

Thanks for the tip, Ethan.

What the fuck, babies? What's the matter with you? You aren't hungry? You think food is a joke? Milk doesn't grow on trees, babies. I mean, why even bother eating? Why bother eating that milk if you're just going to firehose it all over daddy's mustache? Do you think mustaches grow on trees? He spent a lot of time on that mustache, baby. Growing it, combing it, trimming it, stroking it. Now it's full of your sour stank stomach milk and there's no washing that shit off. You are an inconsiderate peasant and if I could take back that peekaboo game you roped me into in line at Safeway yesterday I WOULD. Babies.

From: Julie Cascioppo
Date: July 23, 2009 1:55:13 PM PDT
Subject: Hello from Julie Cascioppo, one of Ballards Finest Treasures!
To: brendan@thestranger.com

Behold the moxie!

In lieu of the NARAL questionnaire, I provide this statement which I have provided as well to those who represent themselves as Pro-Life.

The issues surrounding abortion are not relevant to the King County executive race. This is the most divisive issue in America today, with strongly held opinions on both sides. I am not in this race to divide, but to bring people together to solve the complex problems of our county regarding the economy, jobs, transportation, budget deficits, land use, sewage, public safety and growth.

That said, I will uphold the laws of the land.

She appears to have no understanding of the role the county plays in providing health care to women.

Why am I not feeling brought together with people?

More from NARAL after the jump.

Last Friday, April 10th, I celebrated a birthday on the balcony of the Elite. Later, upon perusing my loot from that boozy evening, I was horrified to discovery a bag containing the presents belonging to another individual, named "Josh," who as fate would have it was celebrated his birthday on that very balcony, on that very same evening. Inquiry to the Elite staff only yielded the information that yes, he had asked about his wayward loot, but sadly did not leave any contact information.

Here is where the trail grows cold. Perhaps a slogger out there knows this Josh? From the contents, I can tell he's a drinker, dog owner, and possibly into pictures of women's buttholes. I'd hate to think that someone would survive the trials and tribulations of this past year and come out the other side with no shwag to show for it. If someone can describe the bag or its contents, I'll happily return it.

Josh, are you out there?

And re: the Elite, Stranger reader-reviewer dc.al.coda declares:

In a city with no "can't-miss" bars, this is arguably the best gay bar of the moment in Seattle. In their old location (N end of Broadway), they appeared to cater to 50something alcoholics and the parolees who love them. In their new location (Olive & Summit, near the also newly-relocated and also mixed and also fun Bus Stop), the trainwrecks are vastly outnumbered by cute, happy, 20- to 40-somethings, male and female, gay and hipster and gayhipster (gaypster?).

The last time I was at the Elite, it was full of hale, handsome soccer players who'd just come from a game in which one team played topless, the other bottomless(-ish). Everyone was having a great time.

UPDATE! Josh has been found!

ZOMG, that's my bday booty that I've been sadly missing. And to clarify, I don't like women's buttholes.

And now man and birthday bag will be reunited. Slog is, truly, a beautiful thing.

Also in 2000, a lengthy article in the Dallas Observer detailed Wamstad's past lawsuits, "bitter business partners," and an altercation with his ex-wife at one of his restaurants in 1985 in which she shot him three times. Wamstad then sued the Observer for libel, saying his reputation had been damaged. Lawyers for the Observer successfully argued that Wamstad was a public figure, and the libel case was dismissed. (According to The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the court said, "Through his promotion of his family man image in his advertising over the years, Wamstad voluntarily sought public attention, at the very least for the purpose of influencing the consuming public. The continuing press coverage over the years showed that the public was indeed interested.")

Details on the shooting from the Dallas Observer:

The purse on the sofa held the .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol her husband had given her two years earlier to protect herself when she closed the restaurant at night alone. As Rumore exited the restroom, she heard a loud slam. Wamstad had burst through the front door. He demanded that Theresa open the front door and he pushed a briefcase in her face. Lena told him to stop. "Then he screamed, 'You fucking bitch, what do you think you're doing closing and putting that sign out there?'" Lena says. "And he hurled the briefcase at me, and I mean with force."

She pleaded with Wamstad to let her explain what had happened, but he came at her again. She reached into her purse and pulled out the gun.

"He kinda laughed, 'You fucking bitch. You better use it on me, because if you don't use it, I'm going to kill you with it,'" Rumore recalls. "He started coming close, like he was going to take it from me. So I fired."

Rumore fired four shots before the gun jammed. One bullet missed. Another went into Wamstad's jaw, while a pair of slugs entered his back. He moaned. She screamed and dialed 911.

The police didn't arrest Rumore.... On July 16, 1986, Lena Rumore was found innocent. The judge ruled that she had acted in self-defense.

One of Wamstad's lawsuits—one he instigated—involved Ruth's Chris Steak House founder Ruth Fertel. Again, from the Observer:

Wamstad sued Ruth's Chris for slander in 1994 after the restaurant's newsletter suggested that the Knife and Fork Club of America, which produced a Top 10 list of steakhouses, was really a front for Del Frisco's. Del Frisco's regularly appeared among the top three on the list. Wamstad admitted in a civil suit deposition that he paid the producer of the list, Thomas J. Horan, more than $60,000 between 1989 and 1994. The suit was later settled....

Wamstad has demonstrated a flair for the dramatic, per the Observer profile:

...Wamstad created a little family to inhabit his grand steakhouse crowned with a 24-carat gold-leaf dome that stretches 55 feet into the air. He invented for himself the character Capt. Bob Cooper, a 257-year-old cross between a North Texas trading-post pioneer and the skyjacker who slipped away with a $200,000 ransom payment by parachuting from an airliner over Washington state in 1971. Capt. Cooper maintains his youth because he drank from the Fountain of Youth 200 years ago in East Texas, or so went the spin.

According to a press release (reprinted here), Wamstad grew up in Spokane and is moving to Seattle to run the Lost Lady American Cantina. The restaurant's website features "The History of the Lost Lady," a tale of the origins of the name from a ship lost at sea between Astoria, Oregon, and Seattle in 1915.

While Wamstad "plans to create a theatrical setting" for the Cantina according to the press release, the former Union Square Grill's faux-Deco interior appeared largely intact at the invitation-only opening party on Saturday night. At the height of the two-hour event, the bar was packed; banana, blackberry, and prickly-pear margaritas were served. An appetizer buffet included cheddar and pepperjack cheese, as well as an unusual cold hors d'oeuvre of a whole-wheat tortilla wrap containing pickles, tomatoes, and a mayonnaise-type sauce. A squadron of female waitstaff, wearing red wrap-front tops and belts with golden rings, served fajita platters in the dining rooms. One server said that the fajitas would be followed by a lobster course; another later said, "There was an idea about lobster, but it never came to fruition."

Wamstad declined to be interviewed for the 2000 Dallas Observer article. Calls to the Lost Lady American Cantina and to the public relations firm seeking Wamstad's comment have not yet been returned.

It's so hard to be a [foreign] baby.

Update: In case you had trouble following the storyline of this video—and to preserve it before it is stricken from the record forever—allow me to direct you to the masterful play-by-play currently on "Dur dur d'être bébé!"'s Wikipedia page. After the jump.

Thanks, Brad.

Sean-

Wow. I'm sitting here, watching Bush fly out of the White House, and Barack enter. Such a glorious day, regardless of what you think of Bush. Barack... definitely a new era in U.S. History. I, personally, am quite excited.

Anyhow, that's not why I'm writing.

Any word on coverage for Sweet Water's CD release show for "Clear The Tarmac", February 7th at Neumo's? Let me know, thanks.

Take care,

XXXX
—
XXXX XXXXXXXXXX
PUBLICIST NAME/FIRM REDACTED

Almost as soon as you began to be able to absorb facts and to recognize human and animal forms you saw dogs everywhere. There was an infinity of dogs, little, big, tame or vicious dogs whose physical condition largely depended on what they could sniff and scavenge out of the village garbage heap rather than on the generosity and animal-loving nature of their masters.

Now, let's isolate (or bracket) and give thought to this line: "...the generosity and animal-loving nature of their masters." What type of generosity is this? The generosity that we find in a dog owner has its cause in the curious human need for something that is needy. Humans have the need to be needed. The dog owner needs the dog's neediness. And the dog is loyal because its needs are met by the owner; and the owner's need for being needed is satisfied by the dog's complete dependence. And the more the dog depends on the master, the more love it gets from the owner. This is why certain dog owners often compare the care of a dog to the raising of a child—a child has nothing but needs. And the only thing we can fully trust is a thing that gives us all of its needs.

A person whose worst fear is betrayal is the sort of person who owns a dog.

Once the relationship between the dog and its owner is established, there is a strange development. The dog owner allows the dog to take control of more and more of his/her life. But this reward of control is in the context of the exchange of needs—the need for being needed that is satisfied by the absolute neediness, the dog. (Cats are not needy.) So, when a dog owner says, "I do not walk my dog, the dog walks me," this is the need for being needed in its state of freedom. Because the dog has surrendered all of its needs, it is permitted to dominate the need that needs its neediness.

The end result of this domination finds its expression in the dog owner picking up his/her dog's shit. For many of us, picking up dog poop during walks in the park or the city street is the very reason why we do not own the creature. We have no access to the pleasure of being fully needed. (We prefer cats.) Indeed, the owner of the dog wants us to see him/her picking up the poop. The visibility of the lowly act adds to the first pleasure—being dominated by the need the feeds your neediness. Everyone knows it's disgusting, and the dog owner knows that what they are doing disgusts others, but they are indifferent to our disgust because all they see in this picking up (a raw aufhebung), and what they want us to see, is an absolute love of the thing that needs it absolutely. Holding the poop in his/her hand, the dog owner is showing us the power of this love. We cannot love like them. The dog owner's love is beyond us.

^{© jimmypetran's flickr photostream}