The Stranger Vol. 22, No. 38

Volume 22, Issue Number 38 May 22–28, 2013

Study Guide Questions for The Stranger, Volume 22, Issue 38

In an effort to make The Stranger more interactive, this new feature provides sample questions to better facilitate discussion about The Stranger in book groups, elementary-school classrooms, church groups, and improvisation workshops. The theme for this week’s questions is “authorial intent.”

1. KELLY O interviews the Insane Clown Posse (ICP) in the music section. Ms. O has covered ICP many times for The Stranger in the last few years. Do you believe she is a secret ICP fan? Do you think she thinly disguises her ICP love as disdain? If you were to investigate Ms. O’s medicine cabinet, do you believe you’d find a half-used, tearstained tube of greasepaint?

2. In the feature, GOLDY explains that children are shooting other children, in order to demonstrate his belief that gun control is necessary. Do you believe Goldy’s humorous tone in this article is:

(a) Too inappropriate, (b) Just inappropriate enough, or (c) Barely inappropriate at all?

3. In his drinking column, CHARLES MUDEDE writes about a bar owned by “a Jamaican immigrant… and his partner, a regular American.” What the fuck do you think Mudede is getting at here? Do you believe he’s trolling us with this “regular American” shit? Why or why not? Does he even know if he’s trolling anymore?

4. In his review of The Hangover, Part III, PAUL CONSTANT seems to be unaware that the movie is a comedy. What sort of traumatic experience do you believe Constant had in his childhood that left him completely humorless and unable to enjoy pleasurable experiences without churning out some turgid, dull, disapproving prose in response? Please be as explicit as possible.

5a. In his review of Saint Genet’s performance piece Shoot, in which a man was actually shot, BRENDAN KILEY suggests that the outlaw aspects of the performance prove how edgy Saint Genet’s art is. Do you believe that it was by accident that Kiley repeatedly failed to type the word “boring” in reference to Saint Genet’s violent artwork, or does he actually think that this kind of Fight Club–ish, littleboy-fantasy thing is interesting?

5b. On a scale of 1 to 10, how hypocritical is it that the issue of The Stranger that features an antigun screed from Goldy also features Kiley’s glorification of gun violence? Remember to show your work!

NOKES

Find podcasts, videos, blogs, MP3s, free classifieds, personals, contests, sexy ads, and more on The Stranger’s website.

ROCKIN PIANO SHOW

LAST DAYS

The Week in Review BY

ANN ROMANO

David Schmader won’t stop seeing SIFF movies, so this week’s Last Days is brought to you by celebrity-obsessed Ann Romano… suck it, haters.

MONDAY, MAY 13 We start this week with a subtle message from Lindsay Lohan, currently serving a court-ordered sentence in the Betty Ford Center: “LET MEEEE OUTTA HEEERE!!” For a while, Lindsay was desperately avoiding rehabs that might take away her beloved Adderall prescription (which she claims soothes her attention deficit disorder), and sure enough, the minute Linds stepped through the Betty Ford gates? They yoinked her script. Now, according to TMZ, she’s begging to get out of that hellhole—though Betty’s not about to budge. An inside source says the clinic almost never allows the drug, since nonaddictive substitutes are readily available… aaaaaand because a lot of Hollyweird celebs use the drug primarily for weight control. This means this will be Lindsay’s first rehab stint with exactly ZERO drugs in her system, and if she’s anything like the newly sober Charlie Sheen? The results will be unbelievably boring. Set our Lindsay free! MEANWHILE… We rarely, if ever, report on celebrity pregnancy rumors because—like a sober Lindsay Lohan—they are BORING. However! The internet gossip pages are in a dither over Beyoncé canceling one of her concerts due to “dehydration and exhaustion”—which, in the tabloid world, naturally translates to “she’s got

CHUTE CONFESSION

I’m a donation chute that has gained consciousness, and I’ve got a confession to make: I don’t support a nonprofit or a local thrift store at all, even though I often use the word “donation.” All this time, I’ve been taking your clothing and immediately shipping it overseas, only to positively impact my pocketbook. I won’t even supply you with a tax receipt, because guess what—you’re not actually supporting a business that is a legitimate nonprofit or that makes a difference locally. How do you avoid me? It’s simple: Either donate in person at a local establishment, or make sure that you recognize a donation chute as belonging to an organization that’s an actual nonprofit. Chances are if you are putting a “donation” into a chute like me, with a name you’ve never heard of, it’s a for-profit company. I usually hang out at gas stations (because, you know, most things reputable go down in gas-station parking lots). So now you know.

another ridiculously named bun in the oven.” Here’s the thing: If she’s pregnant again? WE DON’T CARE. If she’s actually dehydrated and exhausted? Well, whoopty-doo, so are we. That’s why we’re spending the rest of the afternoon on the couch with a vodka tonic.

Get Sexy! Make Art! Win Cash!

TUESDAY, MAY 14 Now it’s time for ladyparts news. Angelina Jolie did an incredibly brave thing that makes us feel like shits for making fun of her wrecking Jennifer Aniston’s marriage to Brad Pitt and wearing Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck. After watching her mother fight cancer for a decade and discovering she also carries the same “faulty” gene (BRCA1—which is only present in less than 1 percent of the population, so don’t panic, gals), Jolie elected to have a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent,” Jolie wrote in the New York Times. “I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.” Like we said, an incredibly brave move that is rightly being applauded. But just to be totally honest? We’re still having a tough time getting over the “Billy blood” thing. MEANWHILE… MORE LADY PARTS! A painting of the late Golden Girls actress Bea Arthur sold for almost $2 million at a Christie’s auction today—and oh. Did we forget to mention she’s topless? As the New York Post reports, the painting, from artist John Currin, “depicts the elderly star with a blank expression and bare sagging breasts,” and has created quite the controversy (primarily due to Arthur’s real-life battles against misogyny). But according to a Christie’s spokesman, the painting is “historically significant—it’s radical to sexualize someone people think of as asexual.” Hey, spokesman? You are so full of shit. (Unless you’re changing the definition of “radical” to “something that’s been around since the dawn of time.”)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 15 Last Days’ favorite ranter, Kanye West, went on another of his wild rants this evening, telling concertgoers that, quote, “I ain’t kissing nobody’s motherfucking babies. I’ll drop your baby and you’ll motherfucking sue me and shit.” Good to know! (Confidential to Kim Kardashian: Don’t let him hold your baby.) MEANWHILE… Twilight star Kristen Stewart’s mom is in the news—because apparently even stars’ moms aren’t safe? According to TMZ, K-Stew’s mom, Jules Stewart, is being annoyed by a neighbor who supposedly thinks she’s harboring WOLVES Like, real wolves. The 61-year-old neighbor reportedly exchanged vulgar words with Mama-Stew, proclaiming that the wolves (actually, just regular dogs) “belong in the mountains of Montana” and should be set free. Later, the neighbor allegedly “started a campaign of harassment” against the elder Stewart, making “howling sounds, growls, chirps, and other weird noises.” Hey, neighbor lady! She already has Kristen Stewart for a daughter… hasn’t she suffered enough? Yeah, probably not. Proceed with howling!

THURSDAY, MAY 16 Speaking of neighborhood harassment, Monster of the

The Stranger and the Portland Mercury invite amateur filmmakers, actual filmmakers, porn stars, porn-star wannabes, kinksters, vanillas, and other creative types to make short porn films—five minutes max—for HUMP! 2013. Films selected for HUMP! 2013 will be screened over three weekends in November in Seattle, Portland, and Olympia. HUMP! films can be hardcore, softcore, live-action, animated, rough, tender, kinky, vanilla, straight, gay, lez, bi, trans, genderqueer—anything goes at HUMP! (Almost anything: no poop, no animals, no minors.) HUMP! films are not released online or in any other form. Filmmakers retain all rights. HUMP! does not retain copies of the films once the festival is over. HUMP! lets you be a porn star for the weekend—not the rest of your life!

THERE ARE NO ENTRY FEES FOR HUMP!

THERE ARE PRIZES! BIG ONES!

Three first-place prizes and one grand prize are awarded at HUMP! by audience ballot.

Best Humor: $1,000 First Prize, $250 Runner-Up

Best Sex: $1,000 First Prize, $250 Runner-Up

Best Kink: $1,000 First Prize, $250 Runner-Up

Best in Show: $5,000 Grand Prize

Extra-credit items for 2013: bowling pins, butt plugs, and Hillary Clinton (Include one or more of these items in your film, and you get extra points!)

ALL SUBMISSIONS DUE BY SEPTEMBER 30, 2013. For more details on entering HUMP!—technical requirements, release forms, etc.—go to humpseattle.com.

Questions? E-mail us at hump@thestranger.com

Year 2012, Chris Brown, is reportedly being nagged to tears by neighbors who do not like the graffiti-style monster art on his driveway wall. “There are lots of babies, lots of children, and they’re literally frightened,” whined Patti Negri, president of the neighborhood association, to the LA Times. “[The art is] like devils on the wall—big scary eyes and big scary teeth…” In Chris Brown’s defense (we can’t believe we uttered those words), while the art may seem like a self-portrait—it ain’t. So mind your own beeswax, lady!

FRIDAY, MAY 17 Today, we learned an important lesson: The internet is terrible at picking heroes. You might remember YouTubing a certain fellow known as “Kai the HatchetWielding Hitchhiker,” who became internetfamous in February when he used a hatchet to stop a possible murder in Fresno. But now… well, now Kai has been “arrested in the murder of a Clark, New Jersey, man,” according to ABC News. Kai was arrested at a Greyhound bus station in Philadelphia, following the discovery of the body of Joseph Galfy—who, an autopsy confirmed, died as a result of blunt force trauma. First: :(. Second: Um… so maybe we should pick our YouTube celebs just a little more carefully? And maybe we shouldn’t pick anyone else who has the words “hatchet,” “wielding,” and “hitchhiker” as part of their name?

SATURDAY, MAY 18 Ugh! Nerds! The Daily Mail reports that Facebook cofounder Sean Parker—you might remember him as the nerd played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network—has had his plans FOILED for a $10 million Game of Thrones –themed wedding! “He had reportedly hired a landscaping company to build fake ruins, waterfalls, bridges, and a gated cottage in the surrounding woods at Ventana Inn in Big Sur, California,” the Mail says. “The wedding was meant to be no holds barred, as the price tag for plants and flowers is believed to be $1 million, while a $350,000 dance floor is also being built.” Parker—who, at age 33, is worth an estimated $2 billion—hired the costume designer from The Lord of the Rings to make Renaissance-fair costumes for the guests and sent out savethe-date-cards that were made to look like wizards’ scrolls . Ugh! Nerds! Thankfully, Parker was so busy trying to find an officiant who was also a dungeon master that he didn’t bother getting little things like “permits” for all his dorky castles and crap. “We have opened a code enforcement investigation on Ventana Inn,” declared Mike Novo, planning director for Monterey County. Novo neglected to mention if penalties for Parker would involve swirlies, having his lunch money confiscated, and/or being pantsed in front of Mrs. Howe’s seventh-grade American History class.

SUNDAY, MAY 19 Nothing happened today!

Send hot tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.

Get pantsed at THESTRANGER.COM/SLOG

BRAVE

Defending a South Seattle House

Occupy Activists Blockade Home to Stop Eviction

BY ANSEL HERZ AND GOLDY

Shortly before midnight on May 14, 86-year-old activist Dorli Rainey—yes, the Dorli Rainey whose Maalox-covered, pepper-sprayed face became an icon of the Occupy movement—

got a text message that sheriff’s deputies were about to evict ironworker Jeremy Griffin from his foreclosed South Park home. So she immediately jumped in a cab and headed down to Griffin’s house to put her body on the line.

Of course she did.

Twelve hours later, police had yet to arrive, but a couple dozen fellow activists did, transforming the lawn and sidewalk in front of Griffin’s house into a kind of Occupy Seattle reunion. This is the first “eviction blockade” to be staged by SAFE (Standing Against Foreclosure & Eviction), an Occupy Seattle offshoot focused on helping homeowners fight banks through civil disobedience.

Griffin fell behind on his mortgage after losing his job in the construction industry collapse (thanks, Wall Street!), but now he’s back on his feet, working full-time on the new South Park Bridge. For months, he attempted to make payments to stave off foreclosure, but he says Wells Fargo refused to negotiate.

Even the judge who ordered the eviction seemed ashamed, according to a transcript of the hearing earlier this month. Griffin had explained that he offered to buy his house back from the bank that purchased it, offering about $20,000 more than the bank paid at auction, but to no avail. “I’m kind of stuck with what the law says,” acting judge Robert Stead said at the hearing. “I agree, but…” his voice trailed off. “Here we are. Good luck on it.”

Despite the struggle, the mood on the first day of the blockade was almost festive. Griffin seemed surprisingly upbeat for a man who could soon lose his house. “When you pick the right fight, you win,” Griffin proclaimed as he thanked his comrades for their support.

This Year’s Election in a Nutshell

Now We Know Everyone Who’s Running for Office

BY DOMINIC HOLDEN

As the deadline closed last Friday afternoon, a frenzy of new candidates filed to run for office, others switched races, and one even quit the crowded mayor’s race, thereby establishing the final cast for this year’s local political theater. And if you think local elections are dull, well, you’re usually right—but shit howdy, not this year. It’s going to be a messy goddamn brawl that rolls through the spring and summer and then vomits thousands of glossy mailers onto your doorstep in the fall.

“What matters is that people have joined together to fight the banks.”

It’s a bold answer to those who criticize the Occupy movement for being too disorganized and unfocused to accomplish anything. SAFE is a direct offshoot of Occupy Seattle both in terms of organizational structure (horizontal, without hierarchy) and its membership (several of its founders are former Occupy activists). But unlike Occupy, SAFE’s demands are specific and its tactics well-proven. Other Occupy groups from Minneapolis to Atlanta have successfully employed similar direct actions, often shaming the banks into negotiating with homeowners instead of evicting them.

The judge says he’s “stuck,” and the sheriff calls it a “shame.”

SAFE is off to a promising start. As TV cameras rolled and speakers urged people to call Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman (212-761-4000) to ask him to negotiate a home-saving lease/purchase agreement, Morgan Stanley’s executive offices called for Griffin. They would talk to their lawyers, Griffin says he was assured, and then get back to him. (A Morgan Stanley spokesperson later told The Stranger that Deutsche Bank now owns Griffin’s house. The eviction order says Deutsche Bank is acting as a trustee for Morgan Stanley.)

Given the crisis facing local homeowners, it’s surprising something like SAFE hasn’t caught on quicker in Seattle. A report by United Black

Mayor: Despite having raised the most dough ($232,000), Tim Burgess withdrew his bid for mayor on Friday, thereby leaving a wide-open gap for candidates vying for conservative votes and funding. Why did he quit? From the Seattle City Council member’s botched announcement last November to this abrupt end, Burgess never caught the tailwind many expected. Mayor Mike McGinn, who had been floundering his first couple of years in office, found his sea legs in city hall, and a pack of heavyweight contenders crowded into the race in winter. In particular, state senator Ed Murray and to a lesser extent Council Member Bruce Harrell have emerged in the race as safe bets for institutional backers that represent downtown business, and, unlike Burgess, they can’t be portrayed as conservative outliers (Burgess infamously sponsored a controversial aggressive-panhandling bill that failed in 2010).

The same day, two new candidates jumped

Clergy and the Washington Community Action Network found that “42,000 Seattle homeowners (one in three) are $3.9 billion underwater on their mortgages.” Many of them will face foreclosure, like the more than 16,000 Seattlearea residents already foreclosed on since the financial collapse in 2008.

Of course, the assholes who wrecked the economy got bailed out. “These troubled assets that were supposed to be relieved were all of these mortgages that had been taken on by the banks,” James Parker, a SAFE activist, explains. “The banks called these mortgages ‘toxic waste mortgages.’ They knew what was happening. And that’s why this whole thing burst.”

Under the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, the banks were supposed to negotiate with homeowners. But Griffin says Wells Fargo, the bank that foreclosed on him, refused to negotiate. (Griffin’s name was on the deed, but his ex-partner was on the loan, making him technically ineligible for federal programs.) SAFE activists say they’ve accompanied Griffin and tried to deliver checks to the downtown branch for the past four months, as a sign of good faith.

in (Joey Gray and Doug McQuaid), but nobody had ever heard of those people.

“We went up to the mortgage department and it was four o’clock,” Parker explains. “They were going to close at five. But they actually just closed down the entire branch rather than talk to their own client.”

As this paper went to press, about a dozen activists maintained a vigil in front of the house, preparing for a confrontation when officers arrive. Whether that will be enough to save Griffin remains to be seen, but the SAFE activists say they’re ready to risk arrest to block his eviction if that’s what it comes to. That would mean tossing blockaders like 86-year-old Rainey and city council candidate Kshama Sawant in jail, along with anyone else alerted by SAFE’s text-message network who rushes to the scene when the police show up.

“If we have to arrest people, we will arrest people,” says Sheriff John Urquhart. But Urquhart doesn’t seem pleased by the prospect: “This country has evolved into a situation where a number of people are losing their houses, and I think that’s a shame.”

We blather about the mayor’s race at THESTRANGER.COM/SLOG

likely coalesce around the challenger in November. Who’s likely to be that challenger? My bet is on Murray.

Despite having raised the most dough, Burgess withdrew his bid for mayor.

So who will win? According to a SurveyUSA poll released May 20, McGinn leads the pack with 22 percent support from Seattle voters, followed by former city council member Peter Steinbrueck (17 percent), Murray (15 percent), and then Harrell (12 percent). A substantial 23 percent are undecided.

But leading with less than a quarter of the vote and only a 37 percent job-approval rating—where McGinn is today—is a shitty position for any incumbent. McGinn might survive the primary election, but conventional wisdom says the anti-McGinn voters will

City Council: The most seriously contested council race involves liberal Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien and moderate Albert Shen, an engineering consultant. They must unexpectedly slog through the primary election after a long-shot third candidate named David Ishii joined the race on Friday.

In terms of political theater, O’Brien will sell his vision of a city that invests in mass transit and bicycle lanes, while Shen will likely continue peddling his philosophy of condemning bike lanes and streetcars as impediments to cars. Despite being a political newcomer, Shen has raised $73,000, while O’Brien has raised only $41,000.

City Attorney: The biggest winner in Seattle is already Pete Holmes, who doesn’t have a challenger and gets a free pass on a second term.

OUTSIDE JEREMY GRIFFIN’S HOUSE “If we have to arrest people, we will arrest people,” says Sheriff John Urquhart.

•

State Considers Banning Hash

Draft Pot Rules Would Encourage Black Market for Cannabis Concentrates

BY BEN LIVINGSTON

Last week, the Washington State Liquor Control Board released draft regulations for the legal cannabis market enacted by voters. The 46-page document specifies the qualification process for potential pot entrepreneurs—including fingerprints that will be sent to the FBI—requirements for growing and selling marijuana, and many rules about license objections, violations, and suspensions. Potential licensees will have a one-month window to apply, and if more retailers apply than the liquor board intends to license, they will conduct a pot-store lottery.

The good news for cannabis consumers is that your pot will be weighed on certified scales, tested by third-party laboratories, and not labeled organic unless certified so. The bad news for pot smokers—and the biggest shock in the draft rules—is that the liquor board proposes a ban on the retail sale of hash and hash oil.

This means the state could create a black

market for popular cannabis products, which was the opposite of what voters intended when they passed Initiative 502. (Alternatively, tokers could obtain their hash on the gray market by obtaining a medical cannabis authorization, usually for $75 to $200.) Why propose these rules? In interpreting the law, the liquor board made a strange reading of the term marijuana-infused product, determining that marijuana concentrates don’t actually “contain” marijuana, and therefore found that hash would be illegal while marijuana would be legal.

“My god, we have to fix this,” says Brandon Hamilton from Washington Alternative Medicine, who operates one of the few supercritical CO2 hash oil extraction machines in the state. He says concentrates are more popular than ever with medical cannabis users, and consumers will continue to want hash oil once legal pot shops open. “It will be a big problem, because people are going to make concentrates no matter what. This needs to be permissible and regulated.”

A wordy and tireless hash lover, I have unending semantic arguments about the state’s interpretation of the word “contain.” But the simple fact is that the people of Washington voted to end pot prohibition—a monumental mandate—and in its place the liquor board proposes a lighter form of prohibition, one where we can’t obtain cannabis-containing extracts.

Damn it, liquor board: Don’t screw this one up. Final rules are expected this summer.

SOURCES SAY

• Listen up, bus-riding stoners: Now that marijuana is legal, King County Metro has added a new substance to its lost and found box. A new policy decision issued in mid-May instructs Metro drivers to treat marijuana left on buses “as a normal lost and found item,” as long as it’s less than an ounce. You can now call Metro’s lost and found line at 553-3000 to reclaim your weed.

• The Seattle Human Services Coalition (SHSC), a 25-year-old social-service advocacy group, is bestowing its annual Mayor’s Award & Proclamation to the Center School for “encouraging dialogue around race, gender, and class” with its Courageous Conversations curriculum. Ironically enough, the award-winning curriculum was deemed age-inappropriate earlier this year by Seattle Public Schools superintendent José Banda and banned from the high school. SHSC isn’t sure who’ll be accepting the award, but it’s supposed to come with a glowing proclamation from the mayor about how vitally important the now-canceled curriculum is.

• Speaking of proclamations, sources say that Mayor Mike McGinn has proclaimed the City Hall freight elevator his own personal steel chariot. “I’ve heard he hates to ride elevators with strangers, so he routinely overrides call buttons on the freight elevator for his own personal use,” explains a source. “Yeah, it happens all the time,” confirms another.

• Surprise! City council president Sally “Waffle” Clark is undecided on homelessencampment legislation being put before the council: “The mayor has presented two options,” she said when asked point-blank for her opinion. “I tend to think there are probably more than two options.” Yeah, Sally, we know you do.

• Word in Olympia is that legislators might not attempt to pass a new biennial budget by the end of the current 30-day not-sospecial session. Instead, lawmakers are talking about waiting to finalize a budget deal until after the June 18 revenue forecast, in hopes that a rosier outlook might ease their burden. If a new two-year budget isn’t passed by the time the current budget expires on June 30, life as we know it comes to an end.

• Sources say that Seattle Times employees— including reporters—are expected to pony up for their own website’s pay wall to access stories, which sounds as ridiculous as installing pay phones on everyone’s desk and pocketing the money. When reached for comment, Seattle Times executive editor David Boardman confirmed that the newspaper does charge employees a nominal fee to do their jobs: “Like most businesses that expect their employees to use the company’s products, we have long encouraged our employees to have home subscriptions to the printed Seattle Times and have provided significant discounts for them to do so. Some only subscribe for the days they are not normally at work, where they get free copies.” Boardman said that he gave employees the option of requesting access for free, adding, “I’m pleased to say that of nearly 200 newsroom employees, only seven took that option.” Yeah, and we’re sure they didn’t feel weird about that at all.

Kids Shoot th e Darndest Things Kids Shoot th e Darndest Things Kids Shoot th e Darndest Things

The Only Way to Combat America’s Gun Culture Is to Kill It

By Goldy

“Ijust know she’s in heaven right now, and I know she’s in the good hands of the Lord,” a grieving Linda Riddle told Lexington, Kentucky’s WLEX about her granddaughter, Caroline Sparks. The day before, on April 30, 2-year-old Caroline had been shot dead by her 5-year-old brother, Kristian.

“It’s God’s will,” lamented Riddle. “It was her time to go, I guess.”

Maybe. But if so, it’s shit like this that makes me want to shoot God right through the fucking head.

Caroline’s death was only the most prominent in our nation’s recent epidemic of toddler gun violence. On April 6, Wilson County, Tennessee, sheriff’s deputy Daniel Fanning was reportedly showing off his weapons collection to a relative when his 4-year-old nephew grabbed a loaded pistol off the bed and killed Fanning’s wife, Josephine, with a single shot. Three days later, in Toms River, New Jersey, police say a 4-yearold boy fatally shot his 6-year-old playmate in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, as their parents watched horrified from a nearby yard.

And this month, the child-on-child gun violence continued. On May 7, a 3-year-old Hillsborough County, Florida, boy reportedly shot himself dead with his uncle’s 9mm handgun. The next day, in Houston, Texas, a 5-year-old boy shot his 7-year-old brother through the back with a rusty bolt-action rifle while the two were taking a bath. The day after that, in Corsicana, Texas, police say a 2-year-old boy died after shooting himself in the head with his father’s handgun. On May 18, a 2-year-old Asheboro, North Carolina, boy grabbed his father’s gun, put it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Five dead, two wounded. All at the hands of children ages 5 and younger.

If this is all God’s will, he’s a coldhearted motherfucker. But me, I blame America’s stupid fucking gun culture and the greedy, sociopathic gun industry that promotes it.

In the roughly five months since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre shocked the nation, our gun culture has relentlessly claimed another 4,228 American lives. At least. In lieu of an accurate government tally, these figures were compiled by the crowdsourced @GunDeaths project. But most suicides, which make up about 60 percent of all gun deaths, go unreported, so the total gun-death toll is likely much higher. For the record: 82 of these reported post–Sandy Hook gun deaths were children and another 207 were teens.

Even at this dramatically underreported gun-death rate, America is still suffering the collective equivalent of another Sandy Hook every 27 hours.

I’m sure somewhere within all that bloodshed there must’ve been a couple of righteous killings—occasionally some law-abiding firearms owner manages to live out his fantasy of legitimately gunning down another

person in self-defense. But that’s a statistically insignificant fraction of the thousands of accidental, homicidal, and suicidal gun deaths in America each year, not to mention the many thousands more nonfatal shootings. The simple truth that the death merchants in the gun industry and their blood-soaked shills at the NRA don’t want you to know is that GUNS DON’T MAKE YOU SAFER. They just don’t. If all the anecdotes of toddlers blowing their own brains out and women being murdered in fits of firearmenabled domestic violence aren’t convincing enough, study after study compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health conclude that the number-one thing you can do to increase the statistical likelihood that you or a loved one will be killed or injured by a gun is to keep a gun in the house. Period.

For the vast majority of Americans,

GUNS DON’T MAKE YOU SAFER. That is what the gun industry doesn’t want you to know. The states with the highest rates of gun ownership are also the states with the highest rates of accidental gun deaths—seven times higher in the four states with the highest rate of gun ownership, according to a 2001 study, than the four states with the lowest. Meanwhile, youths 24 and younger are the most likely victims of accidental gun deaths, and almost always at the hands of a friend or a family member near their own age.

GUNS DON’T MAKE YOU SAFER. That is what the NRA doesn’t want you to know. In study after study, the states with the highest rates of gun ownership are also found to have the highest rates of suicide. And not because gun owners are more

Five dead, two wounded. All at the hands of children ages 5 and younger. If this is all God’s will, he’s a coldhearted motherfucker.

suicidal—a 2011 study found they are not. It’s just that people living in homes with guns have better access to the most effective means of suicide available, with a fatality rate of up to 90 percent for firearms, compared to less than 5 percent for intentional drug overdoses. That’s why adolescents who successfully commit suicide overwhelmingly do so with a family gun. And, tragically, a new study has found that nearly one in five youths at risk for suicide live in a home with a gun.

GUNS DON’T MAKE YOU SAFER. That is what the anti-gun-control politicians don’t want you to know. The claim that guns are used millions of times a year in selfdefense is a myth. Data from emergency rooms find that few criminals are shot by law-abiding citizens, while another Harvard study found that most purported cases of self-defense result from escalating arguments, not robberies or assaults. Instead, personal firearms are much more likely to be used for intimidation than for self-defense, especially against women, who, again, suffer higher rates of homicide in the states with the highest rates of gun ownership.

No, GUNS DON’T MAKE YOU SAFER. Yet even as the bodies pile up, even as our landscape is littered with the brain fragments of dead toddlers—and yes, even as post–Sandy Hook public-opinion polls continue to show overwhelming support for tighter gun laws—our cowardly lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike, refuse to enact even the most basic reforms at either the state or the federal level. They cannot even pass something as simple and sensible as universal background checks for all gun purchases, so that we can at least attempt to weed out the crazy and the criminal and the domestically violent.

Blah, blah, blah, Second Amendment right to bear arms and all that. But our modern gun-crazy culture is neither the historical norm nor a constitutional necessity, nor is it an inevitable outgrowth of the American experience. No, it is the result of marketing from an amoral industry that values its quarterly profits above the lives of our children. Five-year-old Kristian Sparks shot his 2-year-old sister with a Crickett brand “My First Rifle,” a gun marketed directly to kids. That ours is a culture that would not instantly recognize such marketing as outrageously inappropriate tells us how sick our culture really is.

But, you know, what goes around comes around. This is a big country, filled (if unevenly) with sociopaths on all sides of the ideological spectrum, all with equal access to deadly firearms. And chances are, someday a grieving parent or other relative, rather than seeking solace in religion, will seek it in revenge. And if the day comes when the corporate offices of a gun manufacturer or the NRA or one of their many surrogates is the scene of a mass shooting, I will rationally acknowledge it for the tragedy it is, before ironically quipping under my breath: “It’s God’s will.”

Comment on this story at

KIM SCAFURO

Genius on the “Beach” Party with Where Seattle

We think it’s lame that you cannot drink alcohol on the actual beach or even in the park. That’s why: fake beach.

THURSDAY, JUNE 6 • 7-11pm • 21+

420 E Pine Street • www.strangertickets.com

Tickets benefit the Genius Fund, 501(c)(3) administered by Shunpike

TATTOO & BODY PIERCING

Images: Photos by Robert Wade (left and middle),

Photo by Nathaniel Willson (right)

theSTRANGER SUGGESTS

Flying Lotus

MUSIC

It’s now easy for me to see Flying Lotus as not just

one of the most important musical thinkers of our times, but the most important musical mind of our times. In 2006, when Flying Lotus dropped the album 1983, I felt this way about Burial, the South London dubstep producer. But after Until the Quiet Comes dropped late last year, I came to feel this way about Flying Lotus. Based in LA and signed to the UK’s Warp label, Flying Lotus as a producer and performer understands that great music is always a combination of brains and soul. (Showbox Sodo, 1700 First Ave S, showboxonline.com, 9 pm, $26.50 adv/ $28 DOS, all ages) CHARLES MUDEDE

Don’t Talk to the Cops!, Katie Kate

MUSIC Tonight, Seattle’s fun-loving hiphop trio Don’t Talk to the Cops! (featuring our own hiphop expert Larry Mizell Jr.) celebrate the release of their new album, Champions of Breakfast. They’re doing this party right by opening the show with Katie Kate, who we just announced as a 2013 Stranger Genius Award finalist, and Ononos, who wear spooky costumes and codpieces and will probably confuse as much as delight you. Best of all, it will cost you ZERO AMERICAN DOLLARS to get into this party of the month. It’s gonna get nuts. (Neumos, 925 E Pike St, neumos.com, 8 pm, free, 21+) MEGAN SELING

‘Touchy Feely’

Sherry Markovitz ART

For years, Sherry Markovitz made the most spectacular beaded sculptures: abstract, suggestive gourds or yams, doll heads, and sparkling hunting trophies. But in the last five years or so, she’s added a new strain to her work: portraits of dolls on loosely hanging cotton, each one a stainy, vivid, glowing freak flag that somehow also manages to be delicate and quietly mesmerizing. Markovitz is a Stranger Genius Award finalist this year. You need to see this show of her new works. (Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S, gregkucera.com, 10:30 am–5:30 pm, free, through June 29) JEN GRAVES

SIFF

Stranger Genius Lynn Shelton’s newest film features her highest concentration of big stars yet—Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page, Scoot McNairy, Allison Janney, and Ron Livingston—but it’s not like she’s gone Hollywood. Shelton keeps the scope small, as a masseuse (DeWitt) develops an aversion to skin at the same time that her straitlaced dentist brother (Josh Pais) becomes a faith healer to the new-agey crowd. The performances are all strong, but ultimately Pais steals the show with some electrifying, tightly wound physical comedy that makes a minimalist character sketch feel like a bravura performance. (Egyptian, 801 E Pine St, thestranger.com/siff, 1:30 pm, $12) PAUL CONSTANT

24-Hour Eating

The opening of the retro-style Lost Lake Cafe & Lounge on Capitol Hill added another precious 24-hour option to our fair city, but more places are open 24/7 than you might think. For diner-dives, there’s Beth’s (Aurora), the 5 Point (near Seattle Center), and the Hurricane (Belltown-ish). Shinier diners: Lucky (Belltown) and the excellent Square Knot (Georgetown). Memo’s makes cheap, decent Mexican (U-District), and 13 Coins makes uncheap, okay “gourmet” with amazing chairs (on Boren off Denny). Do not miss the adorable, aeronautical-themed, actually retro Randy’s (near Boeing Field). And there’s always IHOP or Denny’s. (thestranger.com/chow) BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT

‘Fateful Findings’

SIFF What is it that takes a bad film from being boring-bad to kablooey-brain-amazing-bad? Whatever it is, Neil Breen’s Fateful Findings has it in spades. Chronicling a man’s campaign to expose government secrets and reconnect with his magic-spirituality soul mate, the film never stops exploding with awfulness, from wooden dialogue to spit-take-worthy action sequences and mind-bending plot points. It’s a negative masterwork, easily the peer of The Room and Miami Connection, and all fans of awesomely terrible cinema need to see it. (Egyptian, 801 E Pine St, thestranger.com/siff, midnight, $12) DAVID SCHMADER

Joan Jett

MUSIC

It’s Joan Motherfucking Jett, people! Founding member of the Runaways and badass woman who has been criminally overlooked for inclusion of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (despite having been nominated this year). Of course, a bunch of DUDES have been inducted twice—John Lennon, Neil Young, even goddamn Rod Stewart. But no matter—Joan Jett is in the Hall of Fame of our hearts, and tonight you can hear all those songs you’ve sung into the mirror for years.

“Bad Reputation,” “Cherry Bomb,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You”… she still does ’em all, and it’s gonna be so awesome. (Snoqualmie Casino, 37500 SE North Bend Way, snocasino.com, 7 pm, $40–$80, 21+) MEGAN SELING

Matthew Simmons BOOKS

If you’ve attended his readings, you know Matthew Simmons is one of Seattle’s best short-story writers. Problem is, his published output has been slim—just one excellent novella and a tiny chapbook of stories about oneman death metal bands—but today that all changes with the publication of a collection titled Happy Rock. Any chance to hear Simmons read his own funny, intelligent stories about awkward lonely people and the roadside attractions they love is cause for celebration, so this launch party for Happy Rock ought to be a goddamned citywide holiday. (Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, hugohouse.org, 7 pm, free) PAUL CONSTANT

ARTS

PERFORMANCE

American Gothic Saint Genet Breaks History

BY BRENDAN KILEY

At dawn last Sunday morning, in a remote and wooded area of Seattle, Saint Genet director Ryan Mitchell re-created Chris Burden’s notorious 1971 artwork Shoot In the original, Burden was shot in the arm with a .22 rifle inside a gallery and called it sculpture. Mitchell was shot in the arm with a .22 rifle beneath a tree, then walked approximately 10 miles to a theater and called it performance.

The re-creation of Shoot was secret—I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement before I was even told what was happening—because the stakes were high. First, the action was probably a crime. Second, there were some serious liability issues. Third, the action happened the morning before Saint Genet’s closing-night performance of Paradisiacal Rites at On the Boards, and if On the Boards artistic director Lane Czaplinski got wind of it, he might’ve pulled the plug on the whole show.

The shooter, who has been hunting with guns and bows since he was 8 years old, stood in the dim forest with a few other people watching. He said there wasn’t enough light for him to take the shot safely. Someone shined flashlights on Mitchell’s bare torso. The shooter said it still wasn’t bright enough. So we waited, agonizingly, for the light. Then the shot. Mitchell didn’t scream. He

didn’t fall over. The wound on his arm was bandaged, and a few of us began the walk downtown.

During a previous conversation, Mitchell had said he expected severe backlash on several fronts: the heaviness of gun violence in the current national dialogue, the perceived stupidity and futility of such performance-art actions, the inevitable accusations that it was a sensationalist but unoriginal move, and even the possibility of a lawsuit from Burden’s estate. (Performance artist Marina Abramovic, Mitchell says, once asked Burden for permission to reproduce Shoot and was denied.)

But the opprobrium that he knew would follow Shoot was part of the project. While Mitchell says that reproducing Shoot makes sense as “a satellite piece in dialogue with Paradisiacal Rites”—which is about finding beauty in death, mortification of the flesh, and excessive gestures—I suspect he chose it in part because he knew it would provoke the most vitriol and bile. Subjecting oneself to pain as performance is one thing—but stealing a crown jewel of American art from another artist? Genet, himself a serial thief, might be proud, and might smile on the condemnation that has followed.

beautiful and sublime moments. You have to go down to go up. If you’re reading this right now and shuddering with indignation and revulsion at the idea of reproducing Shoot, the piece is doing its work. It’s clever that way.

Saint Genet’s theater aesthetic is a marriage of the high and the low—flour and dirt, gold leaf and leeches, exquisite choreography juxtaposed with people getting so drunk and high they fall over trying to execute it. Rites itself was a series of incantatory images: It opened with a field of wheat on the stage, stuffed and headless pheasants whirring in circles overhead, and a mound of dirt that contained a performer, requiring him to stay buried for hours and emerge only at the end of the performance. Upstage, and on stage left, actors inhaled balloons of nitrous oxide and drank beer, whiskey, and wine throughout the show. Musicians played ominous electro-organ tones and, during some moments of sprightly choreography by Jessie Smith, high and tinkling phrases on a keyboard.

lisping man (Darren Dewse) to the ground, pulling his pants down to show the audience his ass (which was encrusted in gold leaf), and making him sing the opening lines of “Goldfinger” (“The man with the Midas touch...”). Other moments were more golden-hued and dignified, with dancing reminiscent of colonial American gestures and Shaker spinning. It was like American Gothic fused with Hieronymus Bosch—populist in some ways, but also transcendent in its ambivalence and ugliness.

The morning afterward, I called Czaplinski and OtB managing director Sarah Wilke to get their reaction to the fact that Shoot happened without them knowing. During the conversation, I said I was sorry that I wasn’t able to warn them, but I had signed a nondisclosure agreement and then suddenly found myself in a sticky and unexpected situation. Wilke laughed softly and said: “Putting you in a strange situation that you didn’t sign up for—it’s what Saint Genet does.”

BOOKS

Small Is Beautiful

Matthew Simmons

Crams a Lot of Big into His Little Stories

BY PAUL CONSTANT

Let’s pour one out for the short-story writers. They never get reviewed, their sales figures are generally much lower than novelists’, and with the collapse of the magazine industry and the constellations of free (read: nonpaying) literary magazines scattered online, writers of short fiction make less money now than at probably any other point in history. (And we’re not exactly dealing with a field that was known for its abundance of respect even in its heyday—ask Edgar Allan Poe how his freelance fiction career worked out.)

PREVIEW

Matthew Simmons

Tues May 28, Hugo House, 7 pm, free

But some authors just have a knack for short stories. Their ideas flow best on a small scale, and they have special gifts of suggestion, ways of leaving whole icebergs of stories submerged under the surface of the narrative. Unlike novelists, short-story writers know when to shut up.

• As usual, SIFF’s opening-night gala was way too heavy on preshow speechifying, leaving hundreds of excited Joss Whedon fans bored and dejected for a full hour before their movie god took the stage. Multiple attendees say Whedon was visibly grumpy about the snoozy preshow.

Being publicly shat on is part of the mythos of Genet—the “negative ascension” (as Mitchell puts it) in his work, which transformed acts of brutality, crime, and degradation into

To first-time SIFF-goers who were turned off: Don’t judge the whole festival by the one epic display you saw of SIFF patting itself on the back—most screenings do not include stultification.

• On May 14, Seattle Arts & Lectures hosted nonfiction writer Susan Orlean, who spoke to a happy full house of admirers at Benaroya. SAL seemed to be the only confused party in the room. On its website, SAL described Orlean repeatedly—in a description still persisting a week later—as a novelist.

The whole thing had a hypnotic Americana feel, with some very ugly moments: vicious slapping, Mitchell spitefully and serially spitting wine into the faces of some dancers (and being spat upon in his turn), and a raging party scene with strobe lights and double Dutch. The party was interrupted three times by a macho performer with a large beard (Thomas Vincent Chapel) wrestling an effeminate,

• Speaking of Seattle Arts & Lectures, Joan Didion has canceled her scheduled appearance on June 5, citing an “unforeseen personal conflict.” Incidentally, Unforeseen Personal Conflict would be a great title for a biography of Joan Didion.

• Long after the 2005 shuttering of his gallery in Pioneer Square, the curtain rises on Bryan Ohno’s new gallery in the International District (521 S Main St). The 4Culture advisory board member and former Chihuly business manager plans to show art “that

Local author Matthew Simmons has never misused a word in his life, or at least that’s how it feels. His prose manages to be economical and exact, while at the same time suggesting a broader universe that ripples out from every sentence. It’s like handing someone a few Lego bricks, bending down for a second to tie your shoes, and then looking back up to discover they’ve built a palace. He’s written stories about death-metal

blurs the lines between science and art,” and he also gets a new chance to spell his artists’ names correctly (we see you, Lynda Benglis). The first show is research-based paintings inspired by study in Phnom Penh by Adrianne Smits, opening June 6, 6 to 8 p.m.

• Congratulations to Stranger Genius Award–winner Megan Griffiths, whose razor-sharp human-trafficking drama Eden just swept the Milan International Film Festival, winning best film and best director awards.

PHOTOS BY DAN HAWKINS

SAINT GENET On the left, Ryan Mitchell performs “Shoot.” On the right, Darren Dewse prepares to burn the penis of Thomas Vincent Chapel—later, the humiliation will be reversed.

JESSIE SMITH The choreographer for Saint Genet.

bands and heartbreak and perverted takes on the binding of Isaac set on a mountain that a suburban dad builds in his own backyard. These are whole worlds—sick worlds, small worlds, fantasy worlds—that begin and end in a handful of pages, but occasionally smack you senseless like a flying phone book.

Simmons’s new collection of 15 stories, Happy Rock ($15.95), is more than just his best book yet; it’s also the best book that young local publisher Dark Coast Press has produced to date. Happy Rock begins, as many worthwhile ventures do, with a kiss shared between two young people, described in simple, earnest language: “There was a hint of moisture in the fumbling of soft lips. It lasted a minute or more, an hour or less, and ended. It passed. Things like that will pass. Impulses pass.” This story is called “We Never Went to the Moon,” and it continues like that, with a pair of teenagers named Sarah and Matthew who enjoy drinking their parents’ alcohol and getting high and flirting with something bigger than they understand. It’s decorated with enough small detail (a jury-rigged soda-can bowl has “two little dents” and “an indent for the pot on top”) that one can’t help but detect some autobiography.

Then star-stuff lands on the two teenagers, and they become superpowered. One of them gradually becomes so obsessed with conspiracy theories that an entire life is ruined. But those little soda-can dimples, and all the other details constructed with Simmons’s eye for the true and the real, keep things from getting overwrought. Not one word—not a syllable, not a space between words—is out of place.

The threat of violence is never far away in Happy Rock. Some of the shortest stories in the book (a single page, front and back) are explicitly about doing damage to bodies. But it’s not a book about violence. Instead, it’s about possibilities—roads not taken, yes, but also whole realities in which humans “were born with twelve fingers and toes instead of ten,” where “people wouldn’t measure their lives in decades. They would gather their lives in dozens.” This isn’t a book you measure in pages. You gather its many worlds in your arms until the possibilities leave you filled with gratitude.

BOOKS

Bohemian Rhapsody

Rachel Kushner’s

The Flamethrowers Is Almost Impossibly Good

BY MOLLY MORROW

W hile the rest of us were out doing normal, non-geniusy things like shopping for bath salts or watching reruns of Freaky Eaters, Rachel Kushner went and resurrected a story we thought had been told to death: the novel about the young artist who moves to the big city. What’s worse is that somehow this new book is even better—clearer, sharper, funnier, sexier—than her last novel, 2008’s National Book Award–nominated Telex From Cuba. It’s called The Flamethrowers, and it’s about motorcycles, art, slave labor, both world wars, land-speed records, cinema, language, and all the different kinds of revolution that there are. It behaves like a play, thundering along in three acts—the first act is set in New York, the second in Italy, the third returning to New York—and it is powered by prose so gorgeous it cannot be represented here with any

justice (though I will try).

In the summer of 1975, a young woman who goes by the nickname Reno moves from Nevada to New York with the vague idea of breaking into the art scene. She is miserably lonely at first, and her loneliness heightens her formidable perceptive powers as she watches from the fire escape of her Little Italy apartment: Smoke bombs on the Fourth of July become “concentrated dye blooming through water,” and the “long, wispy antennae” of a smashed cockroach on a sidewalk are seen “swiping around for signs of its own life.” She sleeps with the windows wide open and calls disconnected numbers more than once.

Rachel Kushner

Soon, though, she finds herself in love with a handsome, wealthy artist 14 years her senior, a man named Sandro Valera. His family is rich in an extremely Italian way: His father designed motorcycles, founded the Valera tire company, turned Brazilian natives into slaves for their rubber, and posed for a photograph with Mussolini. Clinging to Valera’s arm, Reno gains a small place in the company of artists and anarchists who inhabit the Lower East Side. They are born performers, and their conversations are wild, joyful, intoxicating lies. Some of them are likable in their deception; others inspire intense hatred by pretending that lying is the same as protecting. Bizarre gallery exhibits are attended, sad dinner parties are thrown. One of the older artists delivers a bombastic monologue on language via tape recorder, and when he later bursts into tears, his wife chides him for devaluing the tear.

In conversation with these kinds of people, Reno learns how to be a good audience: “You pretended you knew, or didn’t need to know. Asking an obvious question, even if there were no obvious answer, was a way of indicating to them that they should jettison you as soon as they could.” She escapes first to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where the horizon is “a raw and saturated blue that seemed cut from an inner wedge of sky,” and then to Italy, where Sandro breaks her heart in spectacular fashion against the backdrop of the Red Brigades’ revolution.

Kushner’s prose is exhilarating. It is alive with a steady, even, liquid electricity distilled from hundreds of densely packed, vivid descriptions. She can be wickedly funny, using humor to puncture the balloon between stereotypes and real people: “She left with [the street artist] Henri-Jean, who shrugged as they passed [the failed artist] Burdmoore.

A mime’s shrug. Life is sweet, I’m a helpless neuter. Whimsy is the answer to tears. I’m going to fuck your girlfriend here shortly. Shrug.”

In fine, cutting prose, she shows us the difference between aesthetic and political upheaval: The graffiti of New York is bright and colorful, but the graffiti of San Lorenzo is just stark black words on gray concrete. One is art without a message; the other is pure message tinged with danger, just raw suffering scrawled on whatever blank space is available. Her story turns on these juxtapositions, and would be fine social commentary even if her writing weren’t so beautiful. But it is, and reading it feels like plunging in a glass elevator from the top floor of a hotel to the bottom of the ocean, or like being submerged in a neon dream: hyperreal colors and needlesharp insights, conversations eerie in their psychological accuracy, memories deep and bright as open

Written by Caroline V. McGraw

Directed by Jane Nichols

CRUEL CRUEL BOYS

WORLDPREMIERE

ART Museums

BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM

Zoom : Since the mid-1950s, Aldo and Marirosa Ballo have produced thousands of images and videos of Italian design icons—those slick, shiny, fast things, like Marchio Botta’s armchairs or Ettore Sottsass’s fruit bowl. $10. Tues-Sun. Through Jun 16. 510 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, 425-519-0770.

HENRY ART GALLERY

University of Washington MFA and M.Des Thesis Exhibition: Y’all know what it is already. Student work from artists surviving in the warrens of a giant research university. Opening Fri May 24, 7-9 pm. Through Jun 23. Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty extends New York scholar Deborah Willis’s journey to the heart of photography. This new exhibition, created in residence at the Henry and especially for the Seattle museum, looks at artistic and ethnographic photography— comparing the images collected by the Henry Art Gallery and the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. The result is a surprise bulldozing of the distinctions between high and low, ideal beauty and medical health, sex and sales. $10 suggested. Wed-Sun. Through Jul 7. 4100 15th Ave NE, 543-2280.

NORDIC HERITAGE MUSEUM

Heyne. Free. Tues-Sun. Through Jun 16. 6701 Greenwood Ave N, 782-0355.

PLATFORM GALLERY

Everything Right and Anywhere

Now: dense and tangled landscape paintings from Peter Scherrer. Free. Reception Thurs June 6, 6-8 pm Wed-Sat. Through Jun 15. 114 Third Ave S 323-2808.

TRAVER GALLERY

Ginny Ruffner : Continuing her “Aesthetic Engineering” series, Ruffner uses glass and other media to engage with the changing practices of genetic engineering. Doug Jeck: Jeck’s fleshy ceramics are delightfully upsetting. An inventor of bodies, his work is at once realistic and grotesque. Tues-Sat. Through Jun 2. 110 Union St #200 587-6501.

Events

CANTON ALLEY FAMILY REUNION

Get together alley-style to make friends, eat a picnic dinner, and talk about how to make our alleys fun-filled and not grossstuff-filled. Canton Alley Canton Alley S. Free. Wed May 22, 5-8 pm.

ILLUSION & VISUAL

THINKING

Scissors for a Brush: Remember the paper snowflakes you made in kindergarten? Karen Bit Vejle’s large-scale pieces are what you dreamed you could make before you confronted the limitations of your attention span and hand-eye coordination, not to mention those dumb safety scissors. The exhibition also features some never-beforeseen-in-the-US paper cuts by Hans Christian Andersen. $6. Tues-Sun. Through Jun 16. 3014 NW 67th St, 789-5707.

NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM book of the bound is Carletta Carrington Wilson’s latest series of collages, which meld text and image to create narratives that touch on silence and language, on freedom and oppression.

$6. Wed-Sun. Through Jul 28. 2300 S Massachusetts St 518-6000.

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection is the stuff of (art) legend. Dorothy was a librarian and Herbert a mail clerk in New York City in the early 1960s. Together, they amassed a collection of thousands of objects— some by famous headlining artists and others the charming and idiosyncratic creations of ordinary mortals—that took over their tiny apartment. This exhibition is part of their “50 Works for 50 States” initiative to pollinate our country’s art institutions with pieces from their collection. $15 suggested. Wed-Sun. Through Oct 27. 1300 First Ave 625-8900.

Gallery

Openings

GREG KUCERA GALLERY

Sherry Markovitz: This artist has been living in Seattle and making art for decades, and at this very moment she’s up for a Stranger Genius Award. See her latest sparkling sculptures and paintings of heaps of dolls on fabric. Mark Calderon : Some of his sculptures are more than 12 feet tall, but the ones in this show are his (much) smaller ones, of snakes and turtles and other creatures in bronze and lead, including a man bent over and appearing to give himself a very happy time. Free. Thurs June 6, 6-8 pm. Tues-Sat. Through Jun 29. 212 Third Ave S, 624-0770.

Continuing Exhibitions

FRANCINE SEDERS

GALLERY

Fred Birchman/Julianna Heyne: a variety of new work from Birchman, including a wood and found-object installation and dozens of mixed media works on paper, and dry, hot oil paintings of the John Day fossil beds from

NANCY BARTLEY

The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff: The Redemption of Herbert Niccolls Jr is the real-life story of the 12-year-old boy who killed the sheriff of a small Washington town. Third Place Books , 17171 Bothell Way NE, 3663333. Free. 7 pm.

BRIAN SWITEK

Press materials say that Switek is a dinosaur fanatic. The title of his new book, My Beloved Brontosaurus, seems to indicate that this is a true statement. He’ll talk about dinosaurs and feathers and other dinosaur-nerdy things. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. $5. 7:30 pm.

Fri 5/24

JACK STRAW WRITERS AT NW FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL Jack Straw authors Peter Munro, Jay McAleer, Larry Crist, Kate Carroll De Gutes, Josephine Ensign, and Corry VenemaWeiss read at Folklife, along with our state’s poet laureate, Kathleen Flenniken. Seattle Center Literary Arts Stage, 305 Harrison Street, 634-0919. Free. 6:30 pm.

Sun 5/26

LAURA READ, MAYA JEWELL ZELLER

Professor Norman Lundin discusses the various aspects of creating a persuasive illusion of space. In conjunction with The Landscape: Described and The Landscape: Evoked Prographica, 3419 E Denny Way, 322-3851. Free. Thurs May 23, 7 pm. visualart@thestranger.com

READINGS

Wed 5/22

ANNALEE NEWITZ

Newitz is a writer for sci-fi blog iO9. Her new book is titled Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and it’s reportedly an optimistic nonfiction book about the apocalypse. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. Free. 7:30 pm.

Thurs 5/23

STEVE KEEN & GERARD

FITZPATRICK: MONEY, MONETARY POLICY, AND FINANCIAL REPRESSION

A pair of economists embark on a “lunchtime discussion of Federal Reserve monetary policy.” Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. $29/$24 for Town Hall members/$14 for students. 11:30 am.

MARIVI SOLIVEN

The Mango Bride is a novel about “two Filipinas, one banished by her wealthy family, the other a mail order bride.” University Book Store 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400. Free. 5 pm.

A CONVERSATION WITH ANDREW LAM Birds of Paradise Lost is Lam’s new collection of short stories. He will also be the focal point in a “cross-cultural dialogue about connections to Vietnam,” because he has written nonfiction books on Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora. NewHolly Gathering Hall 7054 32nd Avenue South, 386-4103. Free. 5:30 pm.

DR. MAGDALENA ZABOROWSKA

This is a talk titled “James Baldwin as Theater Director: Staging Queerness in Istanbul.” Northwest African American Museum, 2300 S Massachusetts St, 518-6000. $6/free for museum members. 6 pm.

STEVE KEEN

Keen “most accurately predicted the great financial crisis,” which means you should pay attention to his new book, Debunking Economics Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. $5. 6 pm. LUIS NEGRÓN Negrón, who is an “acclaimed Spanish-language writer and queer activist,” will read from his new collection of stories, Mundo Cruel Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 6246600. Free. 7 pm.

Read has written a poem titled “This Time We’ll Go to Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Zeller’s “I Give You Ten Reasons Why We Can’t Use Roundup on Our Lawn” begins: “As a girl the blackbranched plums/behind the far fence were mine because/a giant row of nettle and snowberry/blocked them from the cows.” Open Books 2414 N 45th St, 633-0811. Free. 3 pm.

Tues 5/28

JACK SKILLINGSTEAD, TED KOSMATKA Skillingstead’s Seattle-based sci-fi novel is titled Life on the Preservation . Kosmatka’s Prophet of Bones is a sci-fi novel about an archaeologist who discovers the world is more than 6,000 years old. University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400. Free. 7 pm.

MATTHEW SIMMONS See Stranger Suggests, page 19. Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030. Free. 7 pm.

QAIS AKBAR OMAR Omar’s new memoir is titled A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story Seattle Asian Art Museum (Volunteer Park) , 1400 E Prospect St, 624-6600. Free. 7 pm.

RYAN MCILVAIN Elders is a novel about Mormons by an author who resigned from the Mormon church. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600. Free. 7 pm.

JIM HOLT Holt’s Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story is a smart book asking smart questions, written by a smart author. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. $5. 7:30 pm. readings@thestranger.com

Opening and Current Runs

33 VARIATIONS

Nominated for five Tony Awards, Moises Kauffman’s play is a drama set in New York City and Austria about a mother and a composer separated by 200 years. ArtsWest 4711 California Ave SW, 938-0339. $10-$45. Wed-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 3 pm. Through May 25.

BACH AT LEIPZIG Set in 18th-century Germany, Itamar Moses ( Outrage Celebrity Row The Four of Us) composes a fictional story— structured like a fugue—about J.S. Bach vying against German organists who play dirty as they all reach for the position as prime organist and musical director. Taproot Theater, 204 N 85th St, 781.9707. $20-$40. WedThurs at 7:30 pm, Fri at 8 pm, Sat at 2 and 8 pm. Through June 15.

TEAM

(almost all of) the original cast members for the final installment in the superhero trilogy about “the underbelly of doing good,” which Paul Constant has described as “a superhero movie made on a tiny theater budget.” Annex Theater, 1100 E Pike St, www.annextheatre. org. $5-$20. Thurs-Sat at 8 pm. Through May 25.

THE TEMPERAMENTALS A play by Jon Marans about a love affair between two of the founding members of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained LGBT rights organization in the US. The title comes from the early 20th-century usage of the word “temperamental,” which is slang for “homosexual.” “An eminently likable docudrama about gay identity in the age of Eisenhower” (New York Times). The Ballard Underground , 2220 NW Market St, 415-2983852. $12-$20. Thurs-Sat at 7:30 pm, select Sun matinees. Through May 25. THE TWILIGHT ZONE: LIVE! Rod Serling’s scripts are brought to life by director Tim Moore and an ensemble cast in a boozy, cheerful atmosphere. This round features the episodes “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” “It’s a Good Life,” and “The Night of the Meek.” Theater Schmeater , 1500 Summit Ave, www.brownpapertickets. com. $18-$23. Thurs-Sat at 8 pm. Through June 15.

Dance

NO ONE TO WITNESS #4

The Stranger Genius Awardnominated company zoe|juniper presents an open performance where the audience experiences the show from a new perspective: the floor. Velocity Dance Center, 1621 12th Ave, www. velocitydancecenter.org. Free. Thurs-Fri at 12 pm. Through May 24.

CHICAGO A new production of the longest-running American musical on Broadway. Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly pursue fame and fortune by any means possible from inside the Cook County Jail. Village Theater 303 Front St N, Issaquah, 425392-2202. $27-$62. Tues at 7:30 pm, Wed-Fri at 8 pm, Sat at 2 and 8 pm, Sun at 2 and 7 pm. Through June 29. THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE Twin stories by Julia Cho about love and language, in which a linguist can’t talk his way out of divorce and an indigenous tongue is threatened with extinction due to a lover’s spat. Directed by Shana Bestock. Seattle Public Theater 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, www.seattlepublictheater.org. $10-$29. Thurs-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. Through June 9. LUCKY IN LOVE A new circus and cabaret show set in a casino, rolling high with the talents of Les Petits Frères, contortionist Vita Radionova, chanteuse Francine Reed, trapeze artists Duo Madrona, juggler Sergiy Krutikov, and former Ringling Bros. clown Peter Pitofsky. Teatro ZinZanni

theater@thestranger.com

DEVON YAN-BERRONG’S PLEATS AND GEOMETRY

Hong Kong native and local designer

Devon Yan-Berrong’s Devonation spring/ summer 2013 couture collection pairs crisp geometric shapes with boxy silhouettes to emphasize the space between the fabric and the body, and the best look is a short bright dress made from a mystery synthetic. “I don’t know the English word for it,” says Devon of the material, though its texture and shininess suggest a specific blend of ingredients—plastic tablecloths, spaceship insulation, oil slicks, sheet rubber, and garage-sale records—melted in the sun, then stirred together.

Embodying the sheen of 1970s-era retrofuturism, his other designs contain sunburst angles and flat colors and general spotlessness. Devon’s models come off as well-kept women, hardened by privilege. One with long, fluffy hair has a columnar dress

of pleated chiffon that descends into falls, or spreads and trails with movement. The gloves she’s wearing are fitted so tight and scooped so deep that her hands seem to have been dipped, just past the knuckles, into buckets of paint. More mod details creep in: dangling, Edie Sedgwick–style tasseled earrings; curls flattened, glossed, and pasted onto foreheads; and hats with domed shapes, as if the thoughts drifting up got trapped inside, forming balloons.

Devon’s past projects include a fall/ winter couture collection inspired by Madame Butterfly, a gorgeous and heartbreaking story with a feckless American husband and his yearning Japanese wife, the blending of arduous loyalties with absence and disillusionments, and her death by ritual suicide. Devon had to tweak the ending: “I just could not keep her waiting like that. So she took off by herself, packed up her stuff and got on the boat to find him, find her man.” Following the reunion, we come to find he’s actually not a total asshole, and they live happily ever after. Devon’s work represents this journey: “I didn’t want the outfits to seem like costumes. It’s more like she’s investigating what the Western women are wearing and then piecing her looks together.”

The line becomes a delightfully curious medley of Asian and American influences, and the various exaggerated details balance folksiness with opulent femininity. Watch for: hair styled into chiseled slabs, corsets layered over qipao gowns, fur-covered lapels, Qing-dynasty gold-tipped fingernail protectors, shimmery disco lamé, traditional farmer’s work trousers, and piles of lace, wadded on. (Find Devon’s stuff here: devonyanberrong.com).

marti@thestranger.com

DEVON YAN-BERRONG

CHOW

It’s Not Happening

On the Set of Ballard’s New Seafood Restaurant

BY BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT

The manager at Ballard Annex Oyster House is so smooth and good-looking, it’s like you’re in a movie. You’re the extras out to dinner at the tastefully upscale, bustling seafood

restaurant. The manager—who’s suavely introducing himself and asking if he can get you a drink before the waiter, who will also introduce himself, arrives—is played by The Rock, at last realizing his dream of running his own restaurant from The Rundown. When you say you don’t know what you want to drink yet, The Rock graciously allows this—reassures you, even—and, muscularly, moves on. No explosion ever occurs.

differential, that the half-carafe was a better value. Another server, on a rosé: “It’s light. That’s about all I can say about that. People really like it.” But: dry or sweet?

Ballard Annex Oyster House 5410 Ballard Ave NW, 783-5410, ballardannex.com

Ballard Annex Oyster House grandopened on March 21. It is brought to you by the owners of the seven Matadors—the upscale Mexi-themed restaurant-and-party-bars in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho—as well as Ballard’s upscale barbecue palace Kickin’ Boot Whiskey Kitchen, plus its Portland cousin Southland Whiskey Kitchen. Located a stone’s throw from a Matador and Kickin’ Boot, BAOH looks ready for its sequel(s). The decor is old-school seafood house (hexagonal white tile by the bar, old-fashionedy carpentry around the liquor bottles, nautical-style hanging lanterns) with careful updated touches (a line of ropes that stretches to the ceiling, the faraway midnight blue ceiling). It is pleasant to sit in a two-person booth with your own faux-old-timey sconce aglow, though the tables are problematically small. It is less pleasant to be adrift at a table amid the echoing, anonymous-feeling dining room, without even a candle for an anchor. A reggae soundtrack— mostly just the bass line—sets the demographic to Younger Than Our Parents, Damn It.

“Right in the middle. [Pause.] Maybe a little on the sweet side.”

This went unaccompanied by an offer of a taste; I ordered the grüner veltliner instead.

A server on the lobster ravioli ($24): “It’s a bisque sauce. So, you know, it’s cream-based.” This left its runny texture and sour taste unexplained. The asparagus that came with

They were tender to the point of sponginess, soaked in butter, and monotonous after just a few. The leftovers got skewered and grilled at home the next night; with a little char, they were great.

To be fair, these were the three worst things I tried at BAOH. The rest of the food was just fine, including a serviceable Caesar salad with planks of garlic toast instead of croutons ($8); adequate seared sockeye ($22); perfectly acceptable seared scallops, albeit with a peculiar side of green beans, cherry tomatoes, onion, bacon, and what seemed like turnip ($22); wholly edible, extremely cheesy oysters Rockefeller ($12 for three); respectable crab cakes (though lacking any big chunks of crab), both Dungeness and Maryland blue ($28 for the two); a decent lobster roll ($20), though with somewhat chewy filling (and why, why would you do this to a lobster unless the place was literally crawling with them?).

All… just… fine. You know how when you eat extremely fresh, perfectly prepared seafood, it makes your heart hurt in your chest a little? How life feels more worth living, tinged with the fear that global warming and overfishing are ruining everything already, and life will soon not be worth living at all anymore? That’s not happening here.

The only thing that caused heartache at BAOH was a hyperfresh, just briny enough

Go off-script at BAOH at the peril of your sanity. I called for a 7:30 reservation and was asked to arrive 10 minutes early. So I should arrive at 7:20 for my 7:30 reservation? Yes, I should—for my convenience, they said—so they could get us settled in, or in case there was a wait (so that I could wait 10 minutes longer, apparently). Should I just make an earlier reservation? No, for my convenience, etc. Finally, I said, “So, really, you’re just asking us not to be late?” “Yes, in a roundabout, polite way,” they said. Politeness is not roundabout. A 7:30 reservation is not a 7:20 reservation.

A less irksome but similarly bizarre exchange occurred on-site about half-carafes of wine: The server was evasive about the relative cost, first saying it was “the same” as by the glass, then, asked specifically about the price

it had woody ends. A cup of New England clam chowder ($8) had many large chunks of chewy, chowderlogged bacon and a lot of

A reggae soundtrack sets the demographic to Younger Than Our Parents, Damn It.

potato, versus only two small bits of clam: way more smoke than ocean. An appetizer of baby octopus was oddly cheap for the many tiny, tentacled lives that were sacrificed: only $10 for maybe two dozen two-inch babies.

Dungeness crab cocktail with bright, horseradishy cocktail sauce ($14). Besides the octopus babies, all the other leftovers sat in the fridge until they got thrown away.

Sadly, this doesn’t put BAOH at the bottom of Seattle’s short pile of Official Seafood Restaurants. The food is probably better than at the dated Brooklyn, arguably better than overfussy Elliott’s, definitely better than the attempted revivification of Ray’s. But if you love the shock and awe you can experience eating at the Walrus and the Carpenter down the street, the ready-for-replication Ballard Annex Oyster House will not feel right.

ANNEX A stone’s throw from its cousins the Matador and Kickin’ Boot Whiskey Kitchen.

KELLY O

DRRINKINNG WITH CHARLSE MUDEDE

BY CHARLES MUDEDE

THE GHOSTS OF FILLMORE

1300 on Fillmore

1300 Fillmore St, San Francisco, 1300fillmore.com

“Yes, this street has really changed. It used to be all black businesses. But they were moved out when the city redeveloped the neighborhood, and though they were given vouchers to return when the development was completed, they never came back. All that remains of that time are a few jazz clubs. But who listens to jazz anymore? I’m 50, and even I’m too young for jazz I listen to rock and soul. That’s my time. Jazz? Everyone who grew up with that

music is either in bed dying or dead,” says Steve, the bartender at 1300 on Fillmore, a restaurant and bar that’s owned by a Jamaican immigrant, who is the chef, and his partner, a regular American. Steve is tall, smartly dressed (white shirt, black vest, black pants), and able to keep track of the orders perpetually pressed upon him by waitresses without breaking any of the conversations he is holding with those stationed at the bar. Above him hangs a wide, rectangular mirror that’s tilted a little forward at the top. Most of this mirror reflects the restaurant’s dining room, which has posh furniture and fixtures, long and translucent curtains, tall windows, and a high ceiling. An unseen machine projects ghostly black-and-white images of San Francisco’s lost jazz world on the middle of this mirror. We see the famous dead (Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Jr.) and the unknown dead (a woman with a glamorous hat and a big smile, a man smoking a cigarette and staring into the distance).

It’s happy hour, and I’m drinking wine and eating grits with wild mushrooms, herbs, and mascarpone. When the opportunity arises, Steve takes me to the lounge area behind the bar. The walls of this comfortable-looking space are covered with photographs of black Fillmore. Steve leads me to the largest one, which hangs above a wooden table and a plump leather armchair. He is clearly excited about something in this image, which was taken in the mid’40s from the first floor of a building that’s on the northwest corner of Post and Fillmore. “See that church in the background? That became Jim Jones’s temple. His followers left that church in 1977, moved to Jonestown, Guyana, and killed themselves Over 900 dead. The building is no longer there. It was torn down. We had to get rid of the bad vibes.”

Chow Events

Thurs 5/23

PUBLIC HOUSE DINNER

Fancy Dahlia Lounge

“dresses down” for a fourcourse dinner of English pub classics with beer pairings from Seattle’s own Schooner Exact—an arguably good deal for 50 bucks. Dahlia Lounge , 2001 Fourth Ave, 682-4142. tomdouglas.com. $50. 6 pm.

FARESTART GUEST

CHEF SPECTACULAR

After seven years, the annual Guest Chef at the Waterfront has moved inland to the Showbox Sodo. The lineup of more than 20 restaurants and 20 wineries/ breweries includes Tulalip Resort & Casino, SkyCity at the Needle, and Duke’s Chowder House, but it does benefit FareStart, so: recommended. Showbox Sodo 1700 First Ave S, 267-6213. farestart.org. $80, $125 VIP. 6:30-9:30 pm.

Sat 5/25

HOT CAKES BIRTHDAY

Celebrate Hot Cakes’ first year with half-price

molten chocolate cakes, $5 milkshakes, and more. Starred for the $6 “special boozy birthday cake shake,” which would be the bestever show name for a fluffy white Pomeranian. Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery , 5427 Ballard Ave NW, 420-3431. getyourhotcakes.com.

COOKING WITH BRUCE NAFTALY

Learn how to make great foods with all-time-great chef Bruce Naftaly (of the late, great Le Gourmand), with eating and drinking included. Le Gourmand, 425 NW Market St, 7843463. legourmandrestaurant.com. $75. 1-4 pm; also Sun, 1-4 and 6:30-9:30 pm.

Tues 5/28

THE CORNER TABLE

Come to Cafe Presse for a monthly family-style French supper paired (optionally, but vive a little!) with wine. Cafe Presse, 1117 12th Ave, 709-7674. cafepresseseattle.com. $40 food/wine, $25 food only. 6:30 pm.

MEANS WE RECOMMEND IT. SEND EVENT INFO TO: chow@thestranger.com

CHOW BIO

EDIBLE ALLIGATORS AT GOLDEN WHEAT BAKERY

Angel Rocha Owner, Golden Wheat Bakery 2908 E Cherry St, 325-5055

In March, Golden Wheat Bakery opened in a space on Cherry that had been empty for more than two years. When I visited on a Saturday afternoon, shiny red and gold balloons surrounded the storefront. A dog waiting on the doorstep for its coffeesipping owner wiggled enthusiastically when I approached. Angel Rocha’s cousin and his wife were making espresso drinks while talking to a woman eating an ornate slice of cheesecake. They gave me a triple-chocolate-chip cookie that neared the size of the plate it was served on. There was so much butter in it, I wondered how it was structurally capable of holding three kinds of chocolate chips—meaning, of course, that this was a perfect cookie

Golden Wheat’s selection of bread and pastries is basically the greatest hits of Angel’s 12-year baking career. When asked if Golden Wheat offers any unique pastries, Angel said he hadn’t seen pear beignets anywhere else in Seattle, but I’d have to come back for one, because they’d sold out that morning as usual. Personally, I’d never seen a bread alligator before. Several basked on the bakery’s windowsills. Angel told me he saw loaves of bread shaped like alligators in the windows of a shop in California (where he’s from) and was excited to re-create them at Golden Wheat. SARAH GALVIN

MUSIC

Kelly O Gets Down with the Clown

BY KELLY O

V iolent J is a hatchet-wielding, face-paint-wearing, wickedclown rapper character, and one-half of supernatural hiphop-horrorcore duo Insane Clown Posse. Violent J and childhood

friend Shaggy 2 Dope formed ICP in Detroit back in the early ’90s and have since released 12 studio albums, 21 singles, seven EPs, and eight compilations on their own label, Psychopathic Records. The duo has earned two platinum and five gold albums (!!). They have a large underground following of dedicated and rabid fans known, of course, as Juggalos. I spoke with Violent J about fatherhood, cheap soda, religion, and boobs. He was extremely friendly, and made me miss the no-bullshit attitude of a born-and-bred Detroiter.

bottles on the ground—then we’d walk away with a new ice-cold two-liter of Faygo, for free.

Insane Clown Posse w/Moonshine Bandits, Kung Fu Vampire Fri–Sat May 24–25, El Corazón, 8 pm, $30 adv/$35 DOS, all ages

You’re playing El Corazón May 24 and 25. Why the two ICP Seattle shows? Well, it’s a small club, and it’s been YEARS. No one would book us in Seattle for many, many years. Juggalos have a bad reputation, so for a long time, the closest we could come was Portland.

I have to ask. Your songs mention it, your fans guzzle it… why Faygo? You gotta remember, we started out way back in the early ’90s, comin’ off the heels of the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. DMC rapped about Adidas, and that was kinda like their thing, and the Beasties, at least back on their first album, used to mention White Castle hamburgers. Those things would link you to a group back then. When we were sitting around working on our very first songs, we wanted to incorporate who we were. We always drank Faygo.

Why not Vernors? That’s from Detroit. Vernors was expensive! Faygo Cola was only 69 cents for a two-liter. We used to leave the house and walk to the store with no money, and by the time we walked through the alley to get there, we would find at least seven empty

onstage in a coffin—rappin’ about the devil. The other was Kid Rock—way back in the early days, he was driving around on tractors in his videos, like a hillbilly, and rappin’ about being from Romeo, Michigan. We just figured Detroit was really all about being a character, not unlike someone in a comic book.

Are you really a born-again Christian? I’m not afraid to say that I believe in God. But me and Shaggy, we don’t go to church, and we’ve never read the Bible. We just know a basic principle of a guardian angel on your shoulder—you know, that little voice that tells you when you’re doing something that you shouldn’t be doin’. If we do anything preachy at all, it’s that we tell our fans to live by that voice in your head—I mean, you KNOW when you’re doin’ somethin’ evil. If there really is a heaven or hell, we wanna see Juggalos in Shangri-La. We don’t know the specifics of any religion—that weird shit like not eating meat on Friday or the “commandments” or any of that.

Where does the word “Juggalo” come from? On our first album, Carnival of Carnage, there was a song called “The Juggla,” and I think it just evolved from that. The most fascinating and best thing about ICP is the Juggalos—they’re amazing! There’s never been anything like our fans in the history of any kind of music.

How many Gatherings have there been? It’s the 14th annual Gathering of the Juggalos this year—14 years!

How come so many Juggalettes at the Gathering flash their boobs? ’Cause they know so many Juggalos wanna see ’em! They’re nice like that! We’re thankful for all the Juggalettes [laughs].

Northwest Folklife Festival Fri–Mon, May 24–27, Seattle Center, free, all ages

Perhaps Sasquatch! isn’t your thing—you’d rather let your freak flag wave a little closer to home, in an all-ages, sage-scented, sockless environment, and for free! The 42nd annual Northwest Folklife Festival has got you covered if banjos are now or have ever been your passion, you’ve been waiting for an excuse to learn hammer dulcimer within view of the Space Needle, or you’re just folkcurious, and marijuana recently became sort of legal (there will be deep-fried PB&Js for sale, just saying). Here’s a tiny sampling of Folklife highlights that I either selected after careful consideration or chose practically at random because there’s so much to do!

Bollywood Show (Fri, 7 pm, International Dance Stage) Yes, yes, YES.

Sleeping in Seattle: A Bed-Making Contest! (Sat, 2 pm, Olympic Room) A bedmaking demonstration (?!), where experts show you how to wrangle bedsheets into beautiful origami. If you’re like my grandmother, and already know how to make a bed so tight you can’t actually sleep in it, then show ’em what you’ve got for the chance to win prizes!

History lesson: Talk about Inner City Posse, as you were originally known, and the wrestling days. Well, like all kids, we wanted to be “a gang” [laughs], so we formed Inner City Posse—we’d spray-paint “ICP” all over the neighborhood. We were really into watching wrestling, so we wanted to DO it. We built a ring in Shaggy’s backyard and became backyardwrestling promoters. We’d make flyers, get everyone to come, give ’em free hot dogs, and then put on a wrestling show.

Who do you think is Detroit’s most underrated musician? That’s easy: Awesome Dre. He was a rapper. He was the one of us who made it on Priority Records, alongside the likes of Geto Boys and Eazy-E. Oh, and Esham, too.

Oooh, when I lived in Detroit, I was afraid of Esham! He was scary. ICP wanted to scare people just like he did. It was so cool to feel scared. Back then, Alice Cooper with all his snakes and KISS with all the face paint—that scary stuff hit hard in Detroit. They were both HUGE there—KISS used to sell out Cobo Arena before they sold anywhere else out. Detroit was into the wicked shit since the ’70s.

I was surprised how safe it was at the Gathering the year I went. There’s never any danger at the Gathering—nobody’s on any negativity shit, everybody’s on one big family trip. If you’re a Juggalo, everyone treats everyone, even strangers, like you would treat a family member. Nobody’s there to fight or hurt anyone. It’s a beautiful thing, and the exact opposite of being alone. I think when everybody goes home—especially the Juggalos, when they’re back at home—a lot of them have to be alone. Outside the Gathering, it’s not the most popular thing in this country to be a Juggalo.

What did you think of that short film American Juggalo? I thought it was AWESOME!

My favorite was the girl halfway through the film who said, “Juggalos are down with the clown…” “…down with the clown till you’re dead in the ground!” That’s what they say. Juggalos been sayin’ that for years.

“Outside the Gathering, it’s not the most popular thing to be a Juggalo.”

When did you and Shaggy 2 Dope first put on the clown makeup? We looked at the two rappers who were making the most noise here. One, again, was Esham, and he was comin’ out

What do you want YOUR gravestone to read? Damn! Never been asked that before. I wanna be remembered, which might be greedy or selfish, but I do want to be remembered for having done something. Everybody gets just a little bit of time here, and I hope I’ll be remembered as somebody who kicked ass. I guess I’d want it to say, “Here Lies a Bomb-Ass Father. A Dad.” That’s most important. Then underneath, I’d want it to say, “The Duke of the Wicked.” That’s what I go by, in the Juggalo world—I am the fucking Duke of the Wicked.

Comment on this interview at THESTRANGER.COM/MUSIC

Fin Records Showcase (Fri, 6 pm, Fountain Lawn Stage) Ballard label Fin Records brings you an indie-roots showcase, with performances by Lures, Davidson Hart Kingsbery, Red Jacket Mine, and Low Hums.

The Soul of Seattle (Sat, 6:30 pm, Mural Amphitheater) Saturday’s festivities close with a dance party soul get-down hosted by Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme with Soul Senate, Kissing Potion (best band name!), the Braxmatics, and Little Big Band.

Northwest Fiddle Traditions (Sun, 11:40 am, Fisher Green Stage) First catch Sarah Comer, then be sure to stick around for Vivian and Phil Williams. Besides teaching and playing fiddle and other “old-timey” music for more than 50 years, Vivian and Phil helped found Folklife!

Gaelic Crankie Show (Sun, 3 pm, Center Theater) An Appalachian tradition, the excellently named crankie is a backlit piece of cut-paper illustrated cloth that’s animated by hand-cranking a “reel” and presented with Gaelic music accompaniment.

Vamos!: A Latin Dance Party (Sun, 6:45 pm, Mural Amphitheater) Drink a 5-Hour Energy shot and wear your finest dancewear! VamoLá! Brazilian Drum & Dance Ensemble, Cambalache, the Cumbieros, and SuperSones will make you move. Bring a date—it’s going to get caliente

You Can’t Fake Fresh—NW Live-Band Hip Hop (Sun, 7 pm, EMP Sky Church) Hiphop at Folklife? Neat! This showcase is brand-new this year and features Global Heat, the Sharp Five, Eastern Sunz, and Irukandji Physics of Fusion.

Everett Norwegian Male Chorus (Mon, 1 pm, Center Theater) Founded in 1902, the Everett Norwegian Male Chorus upholds Nordic culture through traditional songs. Sounds interesting, jah?

Open Dance and Drum (Fri and Sun, 6 pm, Rhythm Tent) I’m pointing these out just in case you want to avoid them at all costs check them out.

For more: nwfolklife.org/festival.

INSANE CLOWN POSSE Violent J, the Duke of the Wicked, is on the left. Whoop, whoop!

SOUND CHECK

LES CLAYPOOL OF PRIMUS, STILL SAILING THE SEAS OF CHEESE

Off and on for 29 years, Primus have been rollicking about the land with the sound of their three-piece, psycho-funk, Nor-Cal frizzle-fry. Singer, storyteller, and slap-bass progenitor Les Claypool is an alchemical king. He’s their heart and oil-soaked soul. To think of Primus is to think of Claypool’s weird, impossible playing, and his chickenleg strut across the stage in long johns. He pulls off ultrafingered metrics on the fret, singing with a quirked-up, redneck joie de vivre. In 1991, Primus had a major-label breakthrough with album Sailing the Seas of Cheese, and the song “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” became a worldwide spittoon-anthem. It wasn’t a feel-good hit, it was a feel-strange, somewhat-inbred-genius, Deliverance-type hit. Like someone huffin’ spray paint in the shed and seein’ how many tadpoles they can eat ’cause they ain’t got nuthin’ better to do. Claypool is every bit the genius, sans the pig squealing and tadpoles. He spoke from Denver, and for someone who’s released albums entitled Pork Soda and Green Naugahyde, he sounded like an upper-level calculus professor who ingests quarks and equations, not tadpoles.

Your new tour is a 3-D tour. What does Primus 3-D entail? Everyone in the crowd gets a pair of goggles. There’s a big screen behind us onstage—when we start playing, a bunch of crazy shit comes flying out over our heads and into the audience.

There’s a laser dome in Seattle that does amazing shows. You know, Laser Floyd, Laser Metallica, Laser Green Day You lay down on the ground to watch. I’m pretty sure there’s a Laser Primus Have you ever seen the Laser Primus? I haven’t had a chance to check out a Laser Primus yet. It’s on my list of things to do.

How the hell does Green Day have a Laser Green Day? I understand the Pink Floyd one, and Zeppelin. But Green Day? You gotta be fucking kidding me. That Billy Joe dude doesn’t translate well to the laser realm. An interesting point. Someone may be kidding you, but it is not me. Investigate further and get back to me with a full report of your findings. You can break it down to me with an informative luncheon.

Your bass playing is so unique. You’ve formulated and pioneered your own sound. Besides your physical ability and mastery of short muscle control, what does your sound pull from? Apart from Jaco Pastorius. As a young fellow back in the old days, I watched all the guys that could wiggle their fingers fast and tried to emulate some of them. But once you get the fundamentals down, you kinda move beyond that. It’s like learning to use a pencil or a crayon, you know? You start doodling on a piece of paper with that crayon, and shapes begin to pop out. And that’s the way the bass is for me. My sound just happens to be the crayon I picked out of the box. Once I got to where my fingers would do what my head wanted them to do, it was like having a conversation. I like

it to be as casual as possible. I like to have good musical conversations with other fellows and fellowistas [laughs] who have similar inclinations.

I’m upping the Laser Primus to scratch ’n’ sniff. Hear me out: Primus Laser 3-D Scratch ’n’ Sniff. I believe I could get into some laser scratch ’n’ sniff. Isn’t that what they’re doing with particle acceleration at the Large Hadron Collider?

Your music always has had a swampy feel to me. Specifically, swamp creatures such as the alligator, possum, raccoon, and/or platypus. Have you spent lots of time in the swamps of the Georgia-Florida border? No, I haven’t spent too much time in the Southern swampland. What I draw from is Northern California, semirural, blue-collar suburbia. I come from a long line of auto mechanics. I tend to like to be outside, on or near a body of water. Most of my friends are contractors, fishermen, and blue-collar people.

But what about my whole Primusswamp-creature vision? I’m enhancing your vision [laughs].

Okay, but if you had to make up a swamp story, right now, what would it be? And make it include a possum. Why would I make up a swamp story when I have plenty of stories about mucking around in the delta, the ocean, and San Pablo Bay near San Francisco? I go with what I know, otherwise I’m a poseur. And I don’t wanna be a poseur.

Your lyrics come from a character’s perspective. How do you choose the characters you’re going to write from? I do tend to impart my social commentary through characters. I’m not the type of guy who gets up there and says, “Rally round the family with a pocket full of shells.” I appreciate that, but it’s just not my style. I grew up watching Elia Kazan films and the Coen brothers’ films. I’m a fan of writers and directors that develop characters in their pieces. Plus, I was never really comfortable, especially early on, with being the singer of the band. I always considered myself to be the narrator. It was easier for me to go onstage and do “John the Fisherman” or “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” as a character than it was to get up there and sing, and hit the notes.

Will there be any new Primus in the future? We just got finished doing an HD and 5.1 remix and remaster of Sailing the Seas of Cheese for its 21st anniversary. It comes out in two or three weeks. I was more involved than I wanted to be [laughs]. The original session notes and automation discs were lost, so we had to start from scratch, and we did the whole thing at my studio over the span of a few months. I used all this old, vintage gear, and I thought it came out amazingly well…

TRENT MOORMAN

Primus

Primus

Sun May 26, Sasquatch!, midnight, all ages (sold out)

TOD BRILLIANT

MY PHILOSOPHY

NBA, FLYING LOTUS, KATIE KATE

As of this writing, everybody’s upset at the hated NBA head-corpse David Stern, even more than they were before, because he cock-blocked Seattle getting hold of the Sacramento Kings. I only bring this issue up in this column because the loss of the Supersonics back in 2008 was an important moment for the self-esteem of this town. I always contended that the shared loss felt in the city, especially among sportsrabid hiphop heads, would result in a very necessary swell of Seattle pride, and so it went. That’s been the battery in the back of our scene for five years now. (Everybody who hates on that can go stick a thumb in their ass and time-travel to the days when cats acted like they weren’t from here—oh, what a lucky, golden era.) Anyway, now everybody’s clamoring to jump right back into the greasy corporate fuckery of the NBA—and that’s fine. But the new Derek Erdman–designed, Stranger-made T-shirts sum up my personal feelings about the National Basketball Association, with its racist overtones, slave-auction-ass drafts, and corporate piracy: The NBA can go fuck itself Forever. Chris Hansen, good dude that he is, maybe could spend this interim time funding schools, or helping our homeless, or a million other things? Just kidding!

Now: Flying Lotus returns to Seattle on Wednesday, May 22, at the Showbox Sodo—if you haven’t yet, go to your robot and watch the short film for his “When the Quiet Comes” directed by Khalil Joseph, whose previous work with Shabazz Palaces very clearly informed that clip. More pressing, though: FlyLo is executive-producing the new album from his tourmate Thundercat—and the two new cuts from it that are out in the world (“Heartbreaks + Setbacks” and “Oh Shiet It’s X”) are pure Schedule II eardrugs.

Thursday, May 23, is my favorite conflict of interest: the Don’t Talk to the Cops! CD-release party at Neumos. It’s totally free and features Katie Kate, Ononos, and the legend DJ Riz. Katie Kate’s new album, which you’ll hopefully hear soon, is some bold fusing of rap styles (including appearances from some of the town’s favorites) with avant-garde Kate Bush–esque eclecticism, and one sweet-ass pop jam in the form of “Sadie Hawkins.”

The bio for Tacoma’s Stunna Kid sorts the pros and cons of both “swag” and “YOLO,” which is pretty appropriate to the heavily-inked-up D-boy rapper. He makes clear from the door what he’s about, going down the whole checklist (from ice to Styrofoam), and if you’re about that life, he might be exactly what you feel the NW’s particular game has been missing. He’s swangin’ through Nectar on Sunday, May 26, with a Moor-heavy support bill featuring Cam the Mac, Steezie Nasa, and Chief N’ Jones, plus Nottus Tre, D-Pro, and Cla$$ick

All that said: Remember that your government is listening to and recording all your phone calls, and everybody from the police to private citizens are fighting for their right to have drones peeping through your windows! Sweet dreams.

THURSDAY MAY 23RD TURTLE T  RA SCION + SUPERFIRE + CAMILA RECCHIO

FRIDAY MAY 24TH IN CAHOOTS DEATH BY STARS + BIG WHEEL STUNT SHOW

SATURDAY MAY 25TH AVI BUFFALO

SUNDAY MAY 26TH HOUSES D33J

THURSDAY MAY 30TH GRAVES33

STOOP KIDD + BLACK MAGIC NOIZE + JULIE C + SHARK DENTURES

SATURDAY JUNE 1ST DEAD SHIP SAILING  PANAMA GOLD + SHAKE SOME ACTION! COMING UP • 5/29 FELA! After Party ft. Big World Breaks • 6/5 A Hawk And A Hacksaw • 6/6 JK Pop! • 6/7 Lenka • 6/8 Small Black • 6/11 Splash ft. Bluetech • 6/12 Khingz • 6/13 Shy Girls • 6/14 Durge Fest 5 ft. Half Light • 6/15 Snowden • 6/16 Nguzunguzu • 6/17 Dust Moth • 6/19 Cayucas • 6/20 John Grant • 6/21 Colin Stetson • 6/22 TH3RDZ • 6/23 Frankmusik •  6/26 Giraffage + Mister Lies • 6/28 The Purrs • 6/29 The Glass Notes • 7/3 Juan MacLean 7/10 Futurebirds • 7/20 The Piniellas • 7/21 Tu B’av Fest

NIGHTS DANCE UNTIL 3AM FRIDAY & SATURDAY

JUST GOT PAID FRIDAYS INFERNO SATURDAYS

BALL READING ROOM

COMING UP: 5/29 Bolt Thrower • 6/7 Don Carlos • 6/13 Parquet Courts • 6/14 Mount Kimbie • 6/15 Rob Garza (of Thievery Corporation) • 6/19 The Intelligence • 6/20 Luciano • 6/22 BellaMaine • 6/27 Christian Grinds • 6/28 Mark Farina • 6/29 RED The Men's Party of Pride • 7/12 Oblivians • 7/13 Autopsy • 7/17 Rogue Wave • 7/23 The Cat Empire • 7/25 Caravan Palace • 7/30 The Uncluded (Aesop Rock + Kimya Dawson) • 8/2 Foxygen • 8/4 White Fence • 8/16

CRYSTAL

HIPHOP YA DON'T STOP BY LARRY MIZELL JR.

Katie Kate

UP&COMING

Lose your weird-ass “Wiggle Wiggle” stuff every night this week! For the full music calendar, see page 41 or visit thestranger.com/music For ticket on-sale announcements, follow twitter.com/seashows

Wednesday 5/22

Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Teebs (Showbox Sodo) See Stranger Suggests, page 19, and Data Breaker, page 45.

Michael Mayer, Chloe Harris (Barboza) See Data Breaker, page 45.

Thursday 5/23

Don’t Talk to the Cops!, Katie Kate, Ononos, DJ Riz (Neumos) See Stranger Suggests, page 19.

Rainy Dawg Radio 10th Birthday Bash: Naomi Punk, Futurewife, Keyboard Kid, more (Sylvan Grove Theater) See Underage, page 46.

New Weather, Airport, Brain Fruit, Ecstatic Cosmic Union, DJ Dr. Troy (Comet) Tonight, New Weather—consisting of the Midget’s guitarists/keyboardists/vocalists Amber Rossino and Sean Curley, plus Tomory Dodge—will be road-testing some material from their new selftitled full-length (out October 22 on Brooklyn’s Butterscotch Records and mastered by Dave Fridmann). The prevalent mood here is deep, hypnotic, and exploratory—imagine Stereolab if they were sponsored by NASA or Italian horror-film masters Goblin if they were more monomaniacally aerodynamic. New Weather’s destined to be one of the most enthralling releases out of our city this year. The rest of the lineup consists of some of the most inspired

local acts working right now. Let’s just say that this bill is stacked with more goodness than a tower of Moogs. DAVE SEGAL

Cumulus, Sean Nelson, Invisible Shivers (Tractor) I never gave up on you, Sean Nelson! I knew you still had music in your heart, and since Harvey Danger’s last show, I have been waiting for some kind of official release—the time has finally come! Nelson’s debut solo record, Make Good Choices, will be out June 4 via Really Records, a newish label cofounded by Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry! Guest musicians on the album include Peter Buck, Chris Walla, Rachel Blumberg, and Dave Depper, and the wonderful, poppy title track was debuted by way of a very cute stop-motion video made by Your Heart Breaks’s Clyde Petersen. So, basically, a whole bunch of my favorite musical people have come together to make my pop-loving heart flutter with anticipation, and tonight is the first time we Seattleites get to see the magic happen live. I can hardly wait. MEGAN SELING

Lord Dying, Glose, Tacos!

(Chop Suey) Tacos! is the unlikely name of rambunctious heavy-metal duo Don Stewart (guitars/vocals) and Lupe Flores (drums). The two just wrapped up four days of recording at Matt Bayles’s Red Room studio with Chris Common, who’s in town working on the upcoming Helms Alee record. Stewart says they don’t yet have solid plans for the release, but judging by the strident sounds of their tour CD (tacosband.bandcamp.com), we’re in for a fun one. Tonight’s a good chance to preview the stuff with the band fresh off four days’ worth of tightening things up. GRANT BRISSEY

Friday 5/24

Insane Clown Posse, Moonshine Bandits, Kung Fu Vampire (El Corazón) See preview, page 31.

Magic Mountain High, Joe Bellingham (1927 Events) See Data Breaker, page 45.

Northwest Folklife Festival: Hippies (Seattle Center) See preview, page 31.

Sasquatch! Music Festival: Jherek Bischoff, Erik Blood, Built to Spill, Arctic Monkeys, Japandroids, and many more (Gorge Amphitheater) On the first day of Sasquatch!, two thousand and thirteen: Nacho Picasso, Telekinesis, Father John Misty, seven tiny tube tops, Vampire Weekend, and the “Thrift Shop” makers themselves. On the second day of Sasquatch!, are we still camping here? Devendra Banhart, Rose Windows, the xx, RA Scion, Michael Kiwanuka, and are lady bands even allowed at the Gorge? On the third day of Sasquatch!,

dude, is your friend okay? Twenty screaming preteens, Elvis Costello, Grimes, OCnotes, Torche, Fang Island, and seriously, though, there should be more women. On the fourth day of Sasquatch!, we should have stayed in George, Toro Y Moi, Ariel Pink, Dippin’ Dots for breakfast, Death Grips, Twin Shadow, and Azealia had better play “212.” EMILY NOKES

Yevtushenko, Sex with Strangers, Triceracorn (Lo-Fi) I was recently handed a sticker that said nothing more than “Yevtushenko. ROOM FULL OF FUCKS.” Well, lemme tell you, because my brain is partially that of a horny 15-year-old boy, I immediately ran for a computer to find out WHERE this room could be and WHAT, in fact, was “a yevtushenko.” Instead of being an exotic… well, I’m not going to TELL you what I thought (because then you would tell me my brain is fried from too many years of watching HUMP! The Stranger’s amateur porn fest), Seattle’s Yevtushenko are a new, unsigned, female-fronted indie-rock band. They list their influences as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Florence and the Machine, and listening to them proves this is true. They’re good! You should give ’em chance or, rather, “give a fuck.” KELLY O

Bob Dylan Tribute Night: Garth Reeves, Kevin Murphy, Fredd Luongo, Ian Moore, Kim Virant, more (Sunset) In honor of Bob Dylan’s 72nd birthday, a whole bunch of local musicians—including Garth Reeves, Kevin Murphy, Fredd Luongo of the Swearengens, Ian Moore, and Kim Virant—light up the Sunset with a show devoted to the beyondamazing Dylan songbook. I imagine there will be the requisite standards—“Knocking on Heaven’s Door” is practically mandatory for cover bands— but here’s hoping they get into some weird stuff. (I don’t mean lesser-known “Sign on the Window” stuff. I mean weird-ass “Wiggle Wiggle” stuff.)

DAVID SCHMADER

Rain Fest 2013: Bouncing Souls, Shook Ones, the Mongoloids, CodeXRed, more (Neumos) For years now, Rain Fest has been offering fans of punk and hardcore a Memorial Day weekend alternative to the generally less punk and hardcore Folklife and Sasquatch! festivities. Tonight’s the first night of the three-day festival (and the night I’m most stoked for) with New Jersey pop punks the Bouncing Souls (“We are the true believers!”), Bellingham’s Dan Yemin–obsessed Shook Ones, straight-edgers the Mongoloids, and many more. Rain Fest continues through Sunday (and don’t miss the Hysterics on Saturday!)—you can see each day’s lineup at neumos.com. The mosh pits will be frantic and sweaty. There will be no banjos; there will be no porkpie hats. MEGAN SELING

Lori Goldston

(Chapel Performance Space) The fantastic, phantasmagoric, anti-suburbanite 2012 Stranger Genius Award winner in music. JEN GRAVES

Dragging an Ox Through Water, Huge Rock, Marcus Price, Pill Wonder (Cairo) Brian Mumford’s Dragging an Ox Through Water is not your little brother’s Americana outfit. The Portland folk freak of nature sounds like he’s more enamored of Arthur Russell than Gram Parsons, as he upends rustic folk-rock tropes with unexpected structural fissures and injects textural

oddities that blast away the form’s ho-hum-iness. He also sings like a bedridden Tim Rutili (of Califone), which may be a taste you can acquire. Marcus Price makes unpredictable, disorienting electronic music that obeys no allegiance to any scenes or conventions, which is why he’s one of my favorites in the region. Huge Rock is a new collab between the Numbs and Secret Colors, which portends strange and wonderful things. DAVE SEGAL

Fonzarelli, Half-Breed (Cafe Racer) At times, Half-Breed sound like a rough sketch for stadium pop. Like if they had big production money behind them, their sound could be huge and super slick. Which makes the contrast all the better when these delightful pop songs are filtered and presented in the lo-fi/K Records aesthetic while still simultaneously lending themselves to a larger sound. The upbeat, queercore, guitar/drum duo gave an impressive show to a lot of first-time

listeners during their slot at this year’s ’Mo-Wave festival and gained a bunch of new fans. Plus, it’s always fun to see an on-the-rise Capitol Hill band like Half-Breed play the flourishing U-District DIY music scene at Cafe Racer. BREE MCKENNA

Saturday 5/25

Insane Clown Posse,

Northwest Folklife Festival: Fiddles (Seattle Center) See preview, page 31.

Sasquatch! Music Festival: Sigur Rós, Surfer Blood, Knowmads, Andrew Bird, and many more (Gorge Amphitheater) See Friday.

Miles Davis Birthday Tribute: Thomas Marriott, Cuong Vu, George Colligan, Mark Taylor, Matt Jorgensen (Tula’s) Thomas Marriott (a prolific local jazz trumpeter who has won several awards), Cuong Vu (a Saigon-born, American-raised jazz trumpeter), Mark Taylor (a popular local jazz saxophonist), George Colligan (a New York–based jazz pianist), and Matt Jorgensen (a local jazz drummer who has worked with Marriott) come together tonight to celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest musicians and heroes of the 20th century, Miles Davis. If you’ve read my criticism, you know that I’m not a fan of his late work, work after his second quintet, the work he electrified [i.e., his best work —Dave Segal]. But altogether, my feelings for Davis’s style, mode, and thinking are some of the deepest feelings I have. Consequently, I can’t help feeling strongly about the different stages of Davis’s career. If you feel mildly about Miles, then you’ve never really heard his music. Tonight will be a special night.

CHARLES MUDEDE

Avi Buffalo

(Barboza) These normal-looking, nature-loving humans are a band backing up frontman Avi ZahnerIsenberg, and their sound is of the now. Cue up their first single, “What’s In It For,” and hear the dulcet tones of the current indie era—aaaahs and a tambourine and some surfy guitar, oooooohhhh, ambiguous feelings. They’re signed to Sub Pop and opened for Modest Mouse; they look earnest and sweet in their videos. They seem to meet approval everywhere. Their 2011 single “How Come?” whisper-whine-sings over layers of pleasant organ and guitar. My skirt, it hath not been blown up—but boy, if you want to put a band in a time capsule to explain now to your kids in 10 or 20 years, Avi Buffalo would be a solid choice. ANNA MINARD

Sunday 5/26

5.23 Thursday (Salsa/Flemenkito/Reggae) Nectar Presents: PICOSO

LoCura, DJ’s Izzy Wise & GNotes

$6 adv, $8 Doors, 8pm doors, 21+

5.24 Friday (Bluegrass/Folk)

Wild & Scenic Festival Launch Party: Spare Rib and The Bluegrass Sauce The Blackberry Bushes opening performance by STAR ANNA $7 adv / $10 dos, 8pm doors, 21+

5.25 Saturday (NO COVER - Funk / Hip Hop / Reggae)

Redhook and Nectar Present: 2013 FREE SOLSTICE KICKOFF

Presenting the musical lineup for 2013 Fremont Fair with musical performances by MORE OF ANYTHING MIGHTY HIGH

Feverton, DJ Funkscribe NO COVER - Free Party 7pm doors, 21+

5.26 Sunday (Hip Hop) Nectar presents: STUNNA KID

Cam the Mac, Steezie Nasa, Chief N’ Jones, Nottus Tre $10, 8pm, All ages UP & COMING: 5.29

Uglies 5.30

Moonshine Bandits, Kung Fu Vampire (El Corazón) See preview, page 31.

Northwest Folklife Festival: Barefoot Children (Seattle Center) See preview, page 31.

Naomi Punk

Thursday 5/23 at Sylvan Grove Theater

KARAOKE!

Sasquatch! Music Festival: Earl Sweatshirtn FangIsland, Sean Nelson, Grimes, and many more (Gorge Amphitheater) See Sound Check interview with Primus, page 33, and Friday.

Houses, D33J

(Barboza) Houses make that kind of maudlin, tinkling pop with a glaze of electronic frosting and mournful vocals that Hollywood filmmakers think connotes poignancy. I counter that it sounds very dull and frigid. Houses’ new album, A Quiet Darkness, comes off—brace yourselves, pun haters—as overly domesticated. Much better is the music of fellow LA dweller D33J (Djavan Santos). His tracks sound like the iciest specimens of the Low End Theory style of avant-hiphop. His Tide Songs EP cryogenically freezes the beat science of J Dilla for 2013 specs. It’s very cool. DAVE SEGAL

Slashed Tires, Angelo Spencer, Schwervon!, Abductee (Chop Suey) Several of The Stranger’s music interns have gone on to create impressive work in the field after leaving our clutches. Some examples: Scott Goodwin (Operative, Polonaise), Chris Aldrich (Ctrl_Alt_Dlt), Kaleb Gubernick (Chance Random, the Knowgooders), and some dude named Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes). Kenneth Piekarski (aka Slashed Tires) joins that illustrious litany with his debut release, Alarm Clock. Over its nine songs, Slashed Tires forges a skeletal, dub-inflected strain of funky rock that recalls Ike Yard, Maximum Joy, Tussle, and Seattle’s own Flexions. A couple of tracks—“Mirror” and “Exhibit”—even evoke the blissfully cyclical minimalism of Terry Riley. Very few musicians in the area are exploring this rich vein of sonic territory, and Slashed Tires does it with a deft touch. DAVE SEGAL

Monday 5/27

Joan Jett (Snoqualmie Casino) See Stranger Suggests, page 19.

Northwest Folklife Festival: Spanging (Seattle Center) See preview, page 31.

Sasquatch! Music Festival: the Lumineers, Cake, the Postal Service, Steve Akoi, Death Grips, Azealia Banks, and many more (Gorge Amphitheater) See letters to the Postal Service, page 17, and Friday.

Billy Martin and Wil Blades (Royal Room) Billy Martin you know as the drummer of Medeski Martin & Wood, one of the baddest avant-soul-jazz trios ever. His loose-limbed funkiness and percussive adventurousness rank highly among the all-time greats. Organist Wil Blades has played with Dr. Lonnie Smith, John Lee Hooker, Idris Muhammad, and other important figures. Together, they’re natural conspirators in unstoppable groove manufacturing. Martin and Blades find endless ways to boggle your mind with their provocative compositional brilliancies. YouTube their live-from-New-York-City performance of “Toe Thumb” for proof of the disciplined voodoo they conjure with the greatest of expertise.

DAVE SEGAL

Tuesday 5/28

Kylesa, Blood Ceremony, White Hills, Lazer/Wulf (Chop Suey) The heshers below the Mason-Dixon Line dominate their northern metal compatriots. Part of their success lies in the regional formula: Southern bands like Mastodon, Baroness, and Pallbearer all share a punk-rock rawness and lack of affectation with hefty hat-tips to their metal forefathers of the ’70s and ’80s. And, more importantly, they share a knack for a tasteful, melodic hook. While not as widely known as the aforementioned bands, Kylesa deserve credit for fine-tuning the Southern recipe. Even prior to their 2002 self-titled debut, members of Kylesa were blending crusty hardcore with slow-hand sludge in Damad. And much like the recent works of the bigger-name acts in Southern metal, Kylesa’s newest album, Ultraviolet, veers even further into the palatable rock world. Maybe the South will in fact rise again.

COOK

BRIAN

ABBOTT

MOSHE KASHER

PROGGY AND FROU-FROU

Lotus, Thundercat, Teebs, 8 pm, $26.50/$28

SKYLARK CAFE & CLUB Open Mic: Guests

a STUDIO SEVEN Tobias Wiley, DBS, Scace, Sconone, Wreck the Machine, 6:45 pm, $13

SUNSET TAVERN Week of Wonders, Animal Eyes, Charms , $6

TRACTOR TAVERN Blackheart Honeymoon , Vaudeville Etiquette, Sunday Evening Whiskey Club, 8:30 pm, $6

VITO’S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE The Brad Gibson Trio, Free

DJ

BALTIC ROOM Reverb: DJ Rome, Rozzville, Zooty B, Antartic

CAPITOL CLUB Roll

$6

HIGHLINE Cave Dwellers

JAZZ ALLEY Gerald Clayton Trio with Sachal Vasandani, $20.50

NECTAR Blue Lotus, Swindler, Goldbar, 8 pm, $5 NEW ORLEANS Legacy Band, Clarence Acox OHANA Live Island Music

PINK DOOR Casey MacGill

& the Blue 4 Trio, 8 pm

SEAMONSTER Rippin Chicken

a SHOWBOX SODO Flying

Bounce: OCNotes, Spirit Fingaz, EverGrimeState, free CONTOUR Rotation Tryouts: Guests

THE EAGLE VJDJ Andy J

ELECTRIC TEA GARDEN Passage: Jayms Nylon, Joey Webb, guests

HAVANA SoulShift: Peter Evans, Devlin Jenkins, Richard Everhard, $1

LAST SUPPER CLUB Vibe Wednesday: Jame$Ervin, DT, Contagious

LAVA LOUNGE Mod Fuck

Explosion: DJ Deutscher Meister

MOE BAR The Hump: DJ Darwin, DJ Swervewon, guests, 10:30 pm, free

NEIGHBOURS Undergrad: Guest DJs, 18+, $5/$8

Q NIGHTCLUB DJ Martini, Free

SEE SOUND LOUNGE Fade: DJ Chinkyeye, DJ Christyle, 10 pm

THURS 5/23

LIVE

2 BIT SALOON Furniture

Girls Grown Up Avenger Stuff, Ghost Tribe Fires AQUA BY EL GAUCHO Ben Fleck, 6 pm

BARBOZA Turtle T, Ra Scion, Superfire, Camila Recchio, 8 pm, $7

BARÇA Clark Gibson Trio, free BLUE MOON TAVERN The Funk & Groove Band, Sidewinder, $6 a BROADWAY PERFORMANCE HALL

Breaking Hearts: Vocalpoint!, $5-$19

CAN CAN Vince Mira CHOP SUEY Lord Dying, Glose, Tacos!, 8 pm, $8

COLUMBIA CITY THEATER

MR. BANANA PANTS TRIKES FOR BEERS

What’s better than drinking an ice-cold pitcher of beer (right out of the pitcher) on a sunny Sunday afternoon, while sitting in the customized “racing wheelchair” you just bombed down Queen Anne Hill with, as part of Seattle’s annual Trike for Beers downhill tricycle race? Answer: NOTHING! Nothing is better than this! This year’s race (which allowed two-wheelers) was smaller in attendance, but just as much (slightly dangerous) fun. See more photos at thestranger.com/ drunkoftheweek. KELLY O

Autumn Electric, Alice in the River, Kite Repair, 8 pm, $6/$8

COPPER GATE Fu Kun Wu

Trio, 8 pm, free

a CROCODILE The Cellar Door, Mary Lambert , Wayfarer, Dearborn, 7 pm, $10

DISTRICT LOUNGE Cassia

DeMayo Quintet, 8 pm, free

a GUAYMAS CANTINA

Oleaje Flamenco, 8 pm, free

HIGH DIVE Gashcat, Fellow Traveler, Phosphenes, Ian Jones & The Fremont Whiskey Team, 8 pm, $6

HIGHLINE Sudor, Kurraka

JAZZ ALLEY Spyro Gyra, $25.50

LUCID The Hang: Caffeine, 9:30 pm, free

NECTAR Locura, Picoso, Izzy Wise, Gnotes, 8 pm, $6

a NEPTUNE THEATER ThePianoGuys, 8 pm, $41.50

NEUMOS Don’t Talk to the Cops, Katie Kate, Ononos, DJ Riz, 8 pm, free

PINK DOOR Bric-a-Brac, 8 pm

RENDEZVOUS Grown Up Avenger Stuff, Intisaar, Angel Trumpet, Bob and the Dangerous Brothers, the Resets , 10 pm

THE ROYAL ROOM Bob

Dylan Birthday Celebration: Space Owl

SCARLET TREE How Now

Brown Cow , 9:30 pm, free

SEAMONSTER The Suffering Fuckheads

SKYLARK CAFE & CLUB

Guests, 8 pm, $6

THE STEPPING STONE PUB

Open Mic: Guests

a STUDIO SEVEN Stitched

Up Heart, Avoid the Void, 7 pm, $8 / $10

SUNSET TAVERN Truckasauras, Stres, DJAO, Miniature Airlines, $8

TRACTOR TAVERN Cumulus, Sean Nelson, Invisible Shivers, $8/$10

a TRIPLE DOOR Black

Stax , Felicia Loud, Silent Lambs Project, 7:30 pm, $10 / $20

a VERA PROJECT Rainfest Pre-Show: Sinking Ships, Stop at Nothing, Barricade, Vanguard, Drug Culture, Adjustment to Society, Column, 7 pm, $10/$11

VITO’S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE Julie Cascioppo, Free, Casey MacGill, 5:30 pm, Free

THE WHITE RABBIT Marmalade, $6

DJ

BALLROOM DJ Rob, free

CAPITOL CLUB Citrus: DJ Skiddle

THE EAGLE Nasty: DJ King of Pants, Nark

HAVANA Sophisticated Mama: DJ Sad Bastard, DJ

Nitty Gritty

LAST SUPPER CLUB Open House: Guests

LAVA LOUNGE Rock DJs: Guests

MERCURY Isolation: DJ Coldheart, $3

NEIGHBOURS Jet Set Thursdays: Guest DJs

NEIGHBOURS UNDERGROUND The Lowdown: DJ Lightray, $3

OHANA Chill: DJ MS

Q NIGHTCLUB Drama Thursday: Kill City, Matei Craciun, Riley Del Fierro, Free

SEE SOUND LOUNGE

Damn Son: DJ Flave, Sativa Sound System, Jameson Just, Tony Goods, $5 after 10:30 pm

TRINITY Space Thursdays: Rise Over Run, DJ Christyle, Johnny Fever, DJ Nicon, Sean Majors, B Geezy, guests, free

KELLY O

THU/MAY 23 • 7:30PM TAF PRESENTS black stax featuring felicia loud and silent lambs project

FRI/MAY 24 • 8PM bill payne of little feat w/ dennis mcnally & hooligans

SAT/MAY 25 • 8PM & 10:30PM HIGHWAY 99 BLUES CLUB AND BLUE VELVET RHYTHM AND BLUES DANCE REVUE PRESENTS: duffy bishop in “rock me baby”

a celebration of the music of etta james featuring blue velvet dancers fuchsia foxxx, the shanghai pearl and sydni deveraux

SUN/MAY 26 • 8PM tony furtado band w/ danny barnes

WED/MAY 29 • 7:30PM & 9:30PM sara gazarek

THU/MAY 30 • 7PM SIFF ‘FACE THE MUSIC’ AND HOTHOUSE PRESENT patterson and david hood w/ jeff fielder and friends

6/2 coyote

6/3 mice parade w/ ghost of kyle bradford

6/5 andré mehmari

6/7

maldives

score to the wind

6/6 yogoman

band & blvd park

6/8 blue street jazz

6/9 school of rock presents pink floyd’s the wall • 6/11 indigenous • 6/12 peter tork • 6/14 alice smith • 6/13 the local strangers

• 5/22 the side project • 5/23 correo aèreo • 5/24 danny godinez / hot mcgandhis

5/25 charles mack • 5/26 kareem kandi • 5/27 free funk union w/ rotating hosts: d’vonne lewis and adam kessler • 5/28 singersongwriter showcase with karl valentine, ronan o’mahony and joel tipke • 5/29 katy bourne with tim kennedy / eric hullander group

FRI 5/24

LIVE

2 BIT SALOON Stone

Iris, Wet City Rockers, Georgetown All-Stars, Trees Without Leaves

AQUA BY EL GAUCHO Ben Fleck, 6 pm

BARBOZA In Cahoots , Death By Stars , Big Wheel Stunt Show, 7 pm, $8

BLUE MOON TAVERN Into the Storm , Skies Below, Greenriver Thrillers

a BROADWAY

PERFORMANCE HALL

Breaking Hearts: Vocalpoint!,

$5-$19

a CAIRO Dragging an Ox Through Water, Huge Rock, Marcus Price, Pill Wonder, 8 pm

CENTRAL SALOON Far From the Genuine, Whywolves, Three Quarter Minus, free

CHOP SUEY The Kids, the Cute Lepers , the Chemicals, Sex Crime, Big Eyes, DJ Brian Foss, 8 pm, $12

COLUMBIA CITY THEATER Us on Roofs , Stag, Gibraltar, $8

CROCODILE the West , Tomten, Prism Tats, Ozarks, 8 pm, $10/$12

DARRELL’S TAVERN The Fabulous Miss Wendy, guests, $7

a EL CORAZON Insane Clown Posse, Moonshine Bandits, Kung Fu Vampire, 8 pm, $30 / $35

a GORGE

AMPHITHEATRE Sasquatch

Music Festival: Mumford & Sons, the Postal Service, Sigur Rós, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Vampire Weekend, and many more, sold out

HEARTLAND Valley Green

HIGH DIVE The Nines, 9:30 pm, $7

HIGHWAY 99 Kalimba Band

JAZZ ALLEY Spyro Gyra, $25.50

a KENYON HALL Arthur Migliazza, Del Rey, 7:30 pm,

$10 - $14

THE KRAKEN BAR & LOUNGE Blood of Kings, Iron Kingdom, Last Bastion, the Devils of Loudun, $5

THE MIX Crawler, Radio Telescope, Stereo Creeps

NECTAR Spare Rib and the Bluegrass Sauce, the Blackberry Bushes, Star Anna , 8 pm, $7

a NEPTUNE THEATER

ThePianoGuys, $41.50, thePianoGuys, 8 pm, $41.50

a NEUMOS Rain Fest

2013: Bouncing Souls, Shook Ones, the Mongoloids, CodeXRed, guests, 8 pm NEW ORLEANS The Joseph Barton Trio

OWL N’ THISTLE CrowQuill Night Owls

PINK DOOR The Eric Miller Band

RAVIOLI STATION

TRAINWRECK Dizzy, guests

RENDEZVOUS Werebearcat, the Sea & the Stars, 10 pm a THE ROYAL ROOM Piano Royale, 5:30 pm, Ranger and the “Re-Arrangers” with Neil Andersson, 8 pm, free SEAMONSTER Funky 2 Death, 10 pm, free SEATTLE CENTER Folklife: Nu Klezmer Army, Worn Out Shoes, Total Experience Gospel Choir, Red Jacket Mine , Low Hums, Davidson Hart Kingsbery, Lures, and many more, 3 pm, free

SERAFINA Alex Guilbert Duo

SKYLARK CAFE & CLUB

Dead Sonics, Illuminatrz, Sam Marshall Trio, 8 pm, $7

a STUDIO SEVEN Bermuda, Becoming the Archetype, Toarn, 7 pm, $10 / $12

SUNSET TAVERN Bob Dylan

Tribute Night: Garth Reeves, Kevin Murphy, Fredd Luongo of the Swearengens, Ian Moore , Kim Virant, guests, 9:30 pm, $10

TRACTOR TAVERN Little Hurricane, Dillon Warnek and the Dismal Tide, Justin Froese, $10/$12 a TRIPLE DOOR Bill Payne, Dennis McNally, 8 pm, $25 / $30

VITO’S RESTAURANT &

THURSDAY 5/23

HISSY FIT WITH ROBBIE TURNER

LOUNGE Joe Doria Trio, Free

DJ 95 SLIDE DJ Fever One

BALLROOM DJ Tamm of KISS fm

BALMAR Body Movin’ Fridays: DJ Ben Meadow, free

BALTIC ROOM Bump

Fridays: Guest DJs

BARBOZA Just Got Paid: 100proof, $5 after 11:30 pm

CONTOUR Afterhours, 2 am

CUFF TGIF: C&W Dancing: DJ Harmonix, DJ Stacey, 7 pm, Guest DJs, 11 pm, $5

FUEL DJ Headache, guests

HAVANA Rotating DJs: DV One, Soul One, Curtis, Nostalgia B, Sean Cee, $5

LAST SUPPER CLUB Madness: Guests

LAVA LOUNGE DJ David James

MERCURY Re:Surgence: DJ Major Tom, $5

NEIGHBOURS The Ultimate Dance Party: DJ Richard Dalton, DJ Skiddle

NEIGHBOURS UNDERGROUND Caliente

Celebra: DJ Polo, Efren

OHANA Back to the Day: DJ Estylz

Q NIGHTCLUB Dana Dub, Free

RE-BAR TRIBAL!: Rob Noble, Michael Manahan, Guest DJs, 10 pm, $10

SCARLET TREE Oh So Fresh Fridays: Deejay Tone, DJ

Buttnaked, guests

SEE SOUND LOUNGE Crush: Guest DJs, free TRINITY Tyler, DJ Phase, DJ Nug, guests, $10

THE WOODS Deep/Funky/ Disco/House: Guest DJs SAT 5/25

LIVE

2 BIT SALOON 2000 Tons of TNT, Ottly Mercer, DJ Skalithea, Free AQUA BY EL GAUCHO Ben Fleck, 6 pm

BARBOZA Avi Buffalo, 7

BY ADRIAN RYAN

Our darling Robbie Turner has been in the news for horrible reasons lately (note to terrible people who do bad things: Please stop it). So of course she’s been on all of our minds. Tonight graciously provides us with an opportunity to turn away from the ugliness of a few weeks back and give Robbie some love and appreciation for her skills as the dazzling little queen she is (and to drink and dance and hump on hot people, too, of course—everyone’s a winner!). She’s the hostess of Hissy Fit her new gay-gay-GAY Thursday night at the Baltic Room. We shall dance (thank you, DJ Bret Law) and maybe drink a bit (naughty!) and generally conjure some good juju in Robbie’s general direction. Baltic Room, 9 pm, $3, 21+.

SATURDAY 5/25

PEACHES DOES HERSELF

Peaches! The raging queen of raunchy rock and spectacle headlines the gayest film in SIFF this year, Peaches Does Herself—a loud, naughty, “no-holds-barred, operatic, neo-queer extravaganza!” I’m pissing my pants for this one. Probably yours, too. Egyptian Theater, 9:30 pm, $12, all ages.

SUNDAY 5/26

MIMOSAS WITH MAMA 2.0

When the Broadway Grill died, she cast whole islands of drag queens adrift. Sylvia’s Bacon Strippers are on “hiatus”

pm, $10

BLUE MOON TAVERN The Raging Maggots, the Bluebird Specials

a BROADWAY PERFORMANCE HALL

Breaking Hearts: Vocalpoint!, $5-$19

CENTRAL SALOON In The Between, Catatone, Leona X, free

COMET The Bad Things , Blackbird Raum, the Mongrel Jews, Sourmash Hug Band, $10

a CROCODILE The Hoot

Hoots , Julia Massey and the Five Finger Discount, Wishbeard , 8 pm, $10

a EL CORAZON Insane

Clown Posse, Moonshine Bandits, Kung Fu Vampire, 8 pm, $30 / $35

a GORGE AMPHITHEATRE Sasquatch

Music Festival: Mumford & Sons, the Postal Service, Sigur Rós, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Vampire Weekend, and many more, sold out

HARD ROCK CAFE Michael Jackson vs. Prince: Surround Sound, $10/$13

a HEARTLAND Plateau, the Vonvettas, Karl Blau, Grand Hallway , Katie Jacobson, Thousands

HIGH DIVE Aaron Daniel’s

One Man Banned, Full Moon Radio, Lucky Girl, 9:30 pm, $8

JAZZ ALLEY Spyro Gyra, $25.50

THE KRAKEN BAR & LOUNGE Poorsport , Angie & the Carwrecks, the Whywolves, Regional Faction , $5

THE MIX Naked Bacon Band , Rainy Day Devils, Steel Beans

a NEUMOS Rain Fest

2013: Ill Intent, Young Turks, Hysterics, Damnation AD, 100 Demons, guests

NEW ORLEANS Armed & Dangerous Blues Revue OWL N’ THISTLE Hennessy Brothers

QUEEN CITY GRILL Faith Beattie, Bayly, Totusek, Guity, free

(please note for emphasis “HIATUS,” as Lady O’Stayformore hastens to assure us that the show is not dead, merely resting its eyes), and the Capitol Hill Talent Show must now occur elsewhere, along with, of course, poor Mimosas with Mama, the Sunday drag brunch. So young! So fresh! I was concerned. But I was silly to be—Mama Tits merely shrugged her massive shoulders and moved the crew over to the festive, boozy carnival that is the Unicorn, where they’ll revive their punchy 30 Minute(ish) Hairspray and their drag cabaret, and assure that the tradition of way too many Sunday-morning mimosas lives on. (It makes the Jezuz baby cry! I love it.) Of course, there won’t be ice in the urinal, but we are all just going to have to let that go. Let. It. Go. Unicorn/Narwhal, 1 pm, $12 adv/$15 DOS, 21+.

WEDNESDAY 5/22

AIRLINES 9PM • $8

FRIDAY 5/24

ALL STAR BOB DYLAN BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE BENEFITING BIG PICTURE SCHOOL: GARTH REEVES BAND KEVIN MURPHY OF MOONDOGGIES AND MANY SPECIAL GUESTS 9:30PM • $8

SATURDAY 5/25

80’S INVASION 10PM • $10

SUNDAY 5/26 TRACTOR PRESENTS: PACIFIC AIR • HIGH HIGHS • A BREAKTHROUGH IN FIELD STUDIES 8PM • $6

TUESDAY 5/28

TEACHER TEACHER

WEST COAST IMPROVEMENT COMPANY JARED CLIFTON 8PM $6

Peaches Does Herself

Laurie has done standup on CONAN, Showtime, Jimmy Kimmel and Comedy Central. She’s appeared as a funny talking head on Best Week Ever, the Today Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show and Fox & Friends and Oprah. She was a top Ten Finalist on the 2010 season of Last Comic Standing, and she is currently an Emmy-nominated staff writer on CONAN.

$1 Tallboys $2 Well/ Prem. Draft 3pm-5pm Sat&Sun starts @ 1pm

You don’t see a lot of Brian Standeford’s posters on the streets these days, but when you come across one, it really jumps out at you. Nobody else can do the psychedelic-collage thing quite like he does. Look him up at cargocollective.com/ standeforddesign.

AARON HUFFMAN

The Midget w/Brain Fruit, Airport, Ecstatic Cosmic Union Thurs May 23, Comet Tavern

RE-BAR Klezmer Folklife After Party: Guests

RENDEZVOUS Phaedrus & Sumi

a THE ROYAL ROOM Funk

E Fusion, Piano Royale, 6 pm

SEAMONSTER Porkchop

Express, Every 10 pm, free

a SEATTLE CENTER

Folklife: Brite Lines , Spoonshine, Sun Tunnels, Levi Fuller & the Library, Bushwick Book Club, Science!, and many more, 11 am, free

SERAFINA Tim Kennedy Trio

SUNSET TAVERN 80’s Invasion, 10 pm, $10

TRACTOR TAVERN Polecat, Sugarcane, Pickled Okra 9:30 pm, $8/$10

a TRIPLE DOOR Etta James Tribute: Duffy Bishop, 8 pm, $22 / $25 / $30

VITO’S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE Ruby Bishop, 6 pm, the Casey MacGill Trio, 9:30 pm, Free

DJ

BALLROOM DJ Warren BALTIC ROOM Good

Saturdays: Guest DJs

BARBOZA Inferno: Guests, 10:30 pm, free before 11:30 pm/$5 after

CAPITOL CLUB Get Physical: DJ Edis, DJ Paycheck, 10 pm, free

CHOP SUEY Talcum:

Gene Balk, Mike “Teal Pants” Nipper, Marc Muller, Mike Chrietzberg, Last 9 pm, $5

CONTOUR Europa Night:

Misha Grin, Gil

CUFF Bliss: DJ Harmonix

ELECTRIC TEA GARDEN

Shameless

HAVANA Rotating DJs: DV One, Soul One, Curtis, Nostalgia B, Sean Cee, $5

LAVA LOUNGE DJ Matt

MERCURY HEX: DJ Hana Solo, guests, $5

MOE BAR Panther Down: DJ N8, Anthony Diamond, free

NECTAR 2013 Solstice

Kickoff: More of Anything Mighty High, Feverton, DJ Funkscribe, 7 pm, free

NEIGHBOURS Powermix: DJ Randy Schlager

NEIGHBOURS

UNDERGROUND Club

Vogue: DJ Chance, DJ Eternal Darkness

OHANA Funk House: DJ Bean One

PONY Stiffed: DJ Pavone

RE-BAR Cherry: Amateur Youth , Mathematix, 10 pm, $5/$7 after 11 pm

SEE SOUND LOUNGE Switch: Guest DJs

STUDIO SEVEN Bubble

Bobble 8: Just One, PressHa, PowerMitten, Ryan

Heese, Ian K, Jemni Cricket, Bouncy & K-Zar, guests, $10-$25

TRINITY ((SUB)): Guy, VSOP, Jason Lemaitre, guests, $15/free before 10 pm

THE WOODS Hiphop/R&B/

Funk/Soul/Disco: Guest DJs

SUN 5/26

LIVE 2 BIT SALOON Rat City

Ruckus, Rum Rebellion, Shakin’ Michael J, Red White & Die, Enemy Combatants AQUA BY EL GAUCHO Ben

BY DAVE SEGAL

WEDNESDAY 5/22

WHOLE LOTTA BRAINFEEDING GOIN’ ON WITH FLYING LOTUS, THUNDERCAT, TEEBS

About 19 million words have been written about post-astral-jazz-hop producer Flying Lotus, including some by The Stranger’s Charles Mudede, in this issue’s Stranger Suggests. If you don’t love FlyLo’s music by now, seek help. Let’s focus on billmates/ fellow LA studio rats Teebs and Thundercat, both of whom record for Mr. Lotus’s Brainfeeder label. The former makes delicately beautiful electronic music imbued with the DNA of both underground hiphop and shoegaze rock. Back in 2010, I wrote that Teebs’s emotionally resonant output falls somewhere between that of Boards of Canada and Nobody, and I’m sticking to that. Thundercat (Steve Bruner) is a first-call session bassist who can get as fluttery and rococo as jazz-fusion giants Jaco Pastorius or Stan Clarke when the mood strikes, but he also can program calculus-level rhythms and sing some gangbuster falsetto. Thundercat’s new album, Apocalypse, takes electronic music into some seriously proggy and frou-frou territory. Fuck being hard; Thundercat is complicated. Showbox Sodo, 9 pm, $26.50 adv/$28 DOS, all ages.

MINIMAL-TECHNO NIRVANA WITH MICHAEL MAYER AND CHLOE HARRIS

Cody Morrison and Jeremy Grant’s weekly Wednesday night at Shelter has

Fleck, 6 pm

BARBOZA Houses, D33J, 8 pm, $10

BLUE MOON TAVERN 20

Years of John Baker: The Gordon Shumway Blues Project, Caleb & Walter, Sunday Evening Whiskey Club, the Brothers Balthazar, 7 pm

a BRECHEMIN

AUDITORIUM Catalin

Rotaru, 2 pm, $15

a BROADWAY

PERFORMANCE HALL

Breaking Hearts: Vocalpoint!, $5-$19

CAFE RACER The Racer

Sessions

CHOP SUEY Slashed

Tires , Angelo Spencer, Schwervon!, Abductee, 7 pm, $6/$8

CONOR BYRNE Open Mic: Guests, 8 pm

CROCODILE The Dusty 45s, Country Lips, Dead Man, 8 pm, $12

a EL CORAZON Texas In July, Seize the Sun, 7 pm, $10 / $12

a GORGE

AMPHITHEATRE Sasquatch

Music Festival: Mumford & Sons, the Postal Service, Sigur Rós, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Vampire Weekend, and many more, sold out

HIGH DIVE the Archelons, Godzillian, Myrmidon, 8 pm, $6

JAI THAI BROADWAY Rock

Bottom Soundsystem, free JAZZ ALLEY Spyro Gyra, $25.50

KELL’S Liam Gallagher

LITTLE RED HEN Open Mic

Acoustic Jam with Bodacious Billy: Guests, 4 pm

a MOORE THEATER

The Gossip, Capital Cities, Twenty One Pilots, Willy Moon

NARWHAL Ill Intent, theories, Nomads, Sleepwalkers , Amigo the Devil, $5

NECTAR Stunna Kid, Cam the Mac, Steezie Nasa, Chief N’Jones, Nottus Tre, D-Pro, Cla$$ick, 8 pm, $10

a NEUMOS Rain Fest

2013: Comeback Kid, Power, the Loss, Rotting Out, Permanent Ruin, Losing Skin, guests

left Q Nightclub and relocated to the basement milieu of Barboza. The downsize in dance-floor real estate is a shame, but no need to mope when you have a boss like Kompakt Records cofounder Michael Mayer headlining your inaugural night in a new space. Mayer’s Immer mixes have been key, vastly influential documents of melodic, minimal techno, but live, Mayer’s been known to break out of his trademark coolbrowed steez and get hot and tropical. He will control your soul for as long as he’s on the decks. Seattle DJ/producer Chloe Harris coruns the experimental-electronic label Further Records and creates a rugged, challenging strain of left-field techno under the name Raica. Her tastes and skills as a DJ are wide-ranging and impeccable, too. Barboza, 9 pm, $10, 21+.

FRIDAY 5/24

MAGIC MOUNTAIN HIGH’S PEAK-TIME TECHNO

Magic Mountain High—the supergroup of Germany’s Move D and the Netherlands’ Juju & Jordash—live up to that lofty nomenclature. These veteran producers are masters of the subtle buildup and the soul-inflating melody while keeping the beats stealthily propulsive. This is Juju & Jordash’s first appearance in Seattle, and if you consider yourself a connoisseur of interesting, intelligent dance music, you’ll be there, with leg muscles already stretched. With Joe Bellingham 1927 Events, 9 pm, $12 adv, 21+.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 19 | 7:30 PM THE

MAY 30TH

WEDNESDAY JUNE 26 | 7:30 PM DEFIANCE, OHIO YOUR HEART BREAKS CORNER KICK $8ADV / $10 DOORS WEDNESDAY JULY 24 | 7:30 PM THE EXCEPTIONALLY ORDINARY TOUR RAVEN ZOE, TODD WILLIAMS & MORE! $15

FRIDAY JULY 26 | 7:00 PM TAKE WARNING & THE VERA PROJECT PRESENTS TALLHART, FROM INDIAN LAKES MAKESHIFT PRODIGY $11 ($10 W. CLUB CARD)

II and Sabretooth in X-Men  Co-writer & star of the new thriller Compound Fracture playing 5/29 at 7pm at the Varsity Theatre

PIES & PINTS Sunday Night

Folk Review: Guests, free RENDEZVOUS Baby Gramps, 8 pm, TBD THE ROYAL ROOM Jazz Night School

SEAMONSTER Tim Kennedy and Friends

a SEATTLE CENTER Folklife: Eastern Sunz , Baby Gramps, Day Laborers And Petty Intellectuals , Irukandji Physics of Fusion, and many more, 11 am, free

SERAFINA Alex Guilbert, 6:30 pm

SHOWBOX AT THE MARKET Ozomatli, 7:30 pm, $19.99/$25

a SKYLARK CAFE & CLUB

City Reek, Ben Guernsey, Forest Van Tuyl, 3 pm, $5, Holly Figueroa, 8 pm, Free a STUDIO SEVEN Prelude to a Pistol, Jack Mozie, the Degenerates, Deadly Poets, Servants n Saints, 4 pm

SUNSET TAVERN Pacific Air, High Highs, A Breakthrough in Field Studies, $6 TIM’S TAVERN Burn Band, 8 pm, free

TRACTOR TAVERN Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Snug Harbor, $17/$20

a TRIPLE DOOR Tony Furtado Band, Danny Barnes, 8 pm, $15 / $18

VITO’S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE Ruby Bishop, 6 pm, the Ron Weinstein Trio, 9:30 pm

DJ

BALTIC ROOM Mass: Guest DJs

CAPITOL CLUB Island Style:

DJ Bookem, DJ Fentar

CONTOUR Broken Grooves:

DJ Venus, Rob Cravens, guests, free

THE EAGLE T-Bar/T-Dance:

Up Above, Fistfight, free a FULL TILT ICE CREAM

Vinyl Appreciation Night: Guest DJs, 7 pm

LAVA LOUNGE No Come Down: Jimi Crash

MERCURY ’80s New Wave: DJ Trent Von, $5

MOE BAR Chocolate Sundays: Sosa, MarsONE,

Phosho, free

NEIGHBOURS Noche Latina: Guest DJs

PONY TeaDance: DJ El Toro, Freddy King of Pants, 4 pm Q NIGHTCLUB Revival: Riz Rollins, Chris Tower, 3 pm, free

RE-BAR Flammable: DJ Wesley Holmes, 9 pm

SEE SOUND LOUNGE Salsa: DJ Nick

THE STEPPING STONE PUB

Vinyl Night: You bring your records, they play them

MON 5/27

LIVE

2 BIT SALOON Metal Monday: Agonizer, Cake ‘n’ Bowls, guests, $5 AQUA BY EL GAUCHO Jerry Frank

BLUE MOON TAVERN Andy Coe Band, free CHOP SUEY Future Fridays, Sick Kids, Polyquertinium 7, Bryn King, $6 a GORGE

AMPHITHEATRE Sasquatch

Music Festival: Mumford & Sons, the Postal Service, Sigur Rós, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Vampire Weekend, and many more, sold out

KELL’S Liam Gallagher MAC’S TRIANGLE PUB Jazz and Blues Night: Guests, free MOLLY MAGUIRES Open Mic: Hosted by Tom Rooney, free NEW ORLEANS The New Orleans Quintet, 6:30 pm THE ROYAL ROOM Billy Martin & Wil Blades SEAMONSTER Monday Night Open Mic: 10 pm a SEATTLE CENTER Folklife: The Fabulous Downey Brothers, Clinton Fearon & Boogie Brown Band, Kore Ionz, Brian Lee & the Orbiters, the Georgetown Orbits, and many more, 11 am, free SNOQUALMIE CASINO Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, 7 pm, $40-$80

TRIPLE DOOR Musicquarium: Free Funk Union, free THE WHITE RABBIT Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder, $6

DJ BALTIC ROOM Jam Jam: Zion’s Gate Sound, $5 BARBOZA Minted: DJ Swervewon, 100proof, Sean Cee, Blueyedsoul, free CAPITOL CLUB The Jet Set: DJ Swervewon, 100 Proof CHOP SUEY Tigerbeat, 10 pm, free COMPANY BAR Rock and Roll Chess Night: DJ Plantkiller, 8 pm, free

CONOR BYRNE Get the Spins: Guest DJs, free HAVANA Manic Mondays: DJ Jay Battle, free THE HIDEOUT Introcut, guests, free LAVA LOUNGE Psych/Blues: Bobby Malvestuto LO-FI Jam Jam: Zion’s Gate, Sound Selecta, Element, Mista Chatman , $5 THE MIX Bring Your Own Vinyl Night: Guests, 6 pm MOE BAR Minted Mondays: DJ Swervewon, 100proof, Sean Cee, Blueyedsoul, free NEIGHBOURS UNDERGROUND SIN: DJ Keanu, 18+, free

BY JACKSON HATHORN

THURSDAY 5/23

RAINY DAWG RADIO’S 10TH BIRTHDAY BASH

This is how you throw a party. Rainy Dawg Radio is celebrating its 10th birthday with a blowout. Seven mostly local acts will descend upon the Sylvan Grove Theater, a secluded outdoor spot on the University of Washington campus, and take part in a one-day musical journey that reflects the student-run online station’s diversity of programming. Where to begin? If you still haven’t checked out rockers Pony Time or Naomi Punk, you’re seriously neglecting your ears. Pony Time’s two-person assault is a friendly battering of fuzzed-out garagerock thrills, and Naomi Punk gouge deep holes into your brain with their warped sludge-rock. You’ll also find two worthwhile electronic musicians. The most energetic dancing of the day might come during Futurewife’s set: I can already see limbs flailing on the lawn, while the house producer’s jams sizzle, slink, and clank into oblivion. Portland-based Natasha Kmeto sings about all the good and bad kinds of loving, melding spacey and lustrous beats with her splintering, soulful voice

Seattle’s verdant hiphop field is represented here as well. Expectations are high for Jarv Dee, whose relentless, unbridled flow results in some unmatched paeans to getting fucked up. Key Nyata might be the most angst-ridden member of the diabolical Raider Klan rap collective, but

for good reason: How can the dude play at Coachella this year and deal with the comparative tedium of still being in high school (although the senior only has a few weeks left)? I’ll be eager to see his hazy, tripped-out phonk in person. Keyboard Kid is on another level in 2013, fusing his own blue-and-green Northwest #based style. With this year’s #TREEGOD and Based in the Rain 3, the prolific producer for Lil B has achieved rare transcendence, pulling disparate and distorted samples into a vision that’s truly his own.

So whether you buy into all that liberal-arts ish about exposing yourself to different modes of thought and becoming a well-rounded person, or you just want to take in some cool, free music, this evening will be a festive education deserving of your time. Sylvan Grove Theater, UW Campus, 5–10 pm, free.

Pony Time

FILM

About a Girl

The Many Faces of Frances Ha

BY ALISON HALLETT

Frances Ha is a perfectly simple, straightforward little film, but there’s an awful lot to say about it. Whichever way you turn the movie, it catches some light: This way, the plight of millennials;

that way, the stylistic nods to French New Wave. There’s a whole trend piece to be written about the young female writers (Greta Gerwig cowrote the film) who are changing the way women are depicted in popular entertainment. And then there’s parsing how this generous, optimistic film fits into the context of Noah Baumbach’s previous work (his films aren’t known for their generosity of spirit; see Margot at the Wedding and

young can be refracted just as well through a woman as a man. Men get most of the good stories—but not this one.

Frances is 27 years old, an aspiring dancer, and slightly delusional about her career prospects in her chosen field. As Frances Ha opens, she lives happily in a Brooklyn apartment with her best friend, Sophie (the brilliantly dry Mickey Sumner), whose job in publishing provides a level of financial security that Frances’s apprenticeship (surprisingly!) does not. The two women have been best friends since college—they’re “the same person,” as Frances occasionally ex-

Gerwig’s Frances is charming and hilarious, even when she’s fucking everything up. Frances Ha dir. Noah Baumbach

Greenberg) and of Gerwig’s career, as she’s emerged from the trenches of mumblecore to become a versatile, incredibly likable actress. So here’s what I thought when I looked at Frances Ha: What a tremendous relief it is to find a movie that acknowledges that women are interesting—that a woman can be the protagonist in a story that doesn’t end in romance or a makeover, and that all the vitality and confusion and excitement of being

BY PAUL CONSTANT

While it’s true that The Hangover, Part III doesn’t exactly duplicate the plot of the original Hangover, the way the atrocious Part II did, it doesn’t bring anything much new to the screen, either. Doug (Justin Bartha) is kidnapped by a mob boss named Marshall (John Goodman), in order to convince the Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis) to chase down Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), who has stolen

The Hangover, Part III

millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars from Marshall. It gets more implausible from there, with a series of heists and stunts and a chase scene or two, all around Tijuana and Las Vegas. I laughed out loud a couple of times—is it telling that the best jokes in the movie have to do with cocaine, I wonder?— but mostly, I just wanted it to be over. The problem is that it’s the same humor as the other two Hangover movies, over and

plains, overenthusiastically, to disinterested strangers—but their paths are about to diverge sharply, as Sophie first moves out into a nicer apartment and then becomes engaged to an investment banker.

As Sophie transitions, apparently seamlessly, into adulthood, Frances basically falls apart. She bounces from apartment to apartment, heads home for Christmas to wallow in the temporary comfort of her parents’ house, and falls into jobs she considers beneath her—because she is broke and her future is uncertain and the one relationship that sustained her suddenly isn’t where it used to be. And she lies, a lot, to her friends and family, because even though she knows she doesn’t have her shit together, she can’t bear to see that knowledge reflected back at her by the people who know her the best.

Frances Ha is about a decent young woman trying to find her way in the world. Mistakes are made, bottles of vodka are stolen from expensive restaurants, but Gerwig’s Frances is goofy and charming and hilarious, even when she is fucking everything all up.

The dialogue is realistic and often funny, the relationships are deep and complex, the sense of youthfulness and exuberance is infectious, and anyone who isn’t already under Greta Gerwig’s spell will be by the end of this film—an ending that, incidentally, is about as perfect and uplifting as it gets.

over again. Ken Jeong acts batshit crazy, Zach Galifianakis is inappropriate to just about everyone, and Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms get all the “can you believe this shit” lines, playing the fussy adults who have to chauffeur the hyperactive kids from one set piece to another. But they’re not even given character arcs this time, unless you count bugging your eyes out and shouting “ALAN!” over and over again as a symbol of emotional growth. None of this would matter if there were a lot of crazy humor in The Hangover, Part III, but there just isn’t. The film suffers from great comedic droughts throughout, especially when director/cowriter Todd Phillips tries extra-hard to connect this final chapter to the other two films in the trilogy like it’s all part of some grand plan. On the contrary, it should be obvious to everyone now that the first Hangover movie was a freak accident, a goofy comedy that juiced itself up on the unexpectedly vivacious chemistry of the cast. The second one was a desperate, greedy attempt to re-create that chemistry. And this third movie feels like everyone involved realized it was a terrible idea halfway through the filming of it, but pride—not to mention a studio insistent on filling a hole in its summer release schedule—demanded that they drag themselves across the finish line. They do, just barely.

FRANCES HA “I call this dance ‘Black and White Bug Stomp.’”

FILM SHORTS

More reviews and movie times: thestranger.com/film

LIMITED RUN

GEEKGIRLCON: SUPERGIRL

The film that earned Peter O’Toole a Razzie for his role as Zaltar. Central Cinema, Mon May 27 at 7 pm.

GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY

Tim Buckley’s prodigious musical gifts bloomed in inverse proportion to his paternal instincts. The legendary folk-jazz singer wrote some of the most beautiful songs ever and sang like a demonic angel. But—unfortunately for his son Jeff, also an inordinately talented vocalist/composer—Tim couldn’t father worth a damn (he reputedly saw his child only twice). “My wife hates my music” seems to be his rationale to cheat. Greetings

from Tim Buckley revolves around the conflict the ignored offspring feels about performing at a tribute concert in Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Church for his absentee pa, who died at 28 of an accidental drug overdose. (Jeff died at 30 while swimming fully clothed in Memphis’ Wolf River.) Light on dramatic tension, the film toggles between Jeff’s preparation for the 1991 event—and the attendant mixed feelings toward his father’s legacy—and Tim’s musical and sexual conquests circa 1966, the year Jeff was born.The extraordinarily cheekboned Penn Badgley portrays Jeff as a tormented artiste who broods cutely. He adequately approximates Buckley’s soaring, ululating vocal style, and at the climactic concert, aces two Tim songs—“I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain” and “Phantasmagoria in Two”—with the makeshift band,

TYPING IS HARD

Every day, someone tells me, “Wm.™ Steven Hump-Me? You got it EEEEEEEASY. All you do is sit around on your spectacular honey-baked ham and watch TV! I call that EEEEEEEASY.” Well, it’s not so EEEEEEEASY! I thought this TV-criticizing gig would be the EEEEEEEASiest job in the world— until I discovered there’s a considerable amount of typing involved! As it turns out, the pearls of wisdom shooting from my mouth don’t automatically land on the page—unless, we’re talking about my other “pearls of wisdom.” I actually have to type them or hire an intern to type them for me. Not easy when all I have to offer for payment are “pearls of wisdom.” (I’ll let you guess which “pearls” I’m talking about.)

Typing is especially a “p” in the “a” when it comes to television stuff. For example, the ABC show starring Sarah Chalke called How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life). That took me, like, 10 minutes to type! And I had to look up how to spell Sarah Chalke’s name! Fuck YOU, Sarah Chalke! And fuck How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life), too!

HOWEVER! Since How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life) — UGGNNHHH!—just got canceled, I should be happy I never have to type How to Live

announced it’s picking up Joss Whedon’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.—which just took me 20 minutes to type! Not only did I have to look up Joss Whedon’s name (Fuck YOU, Joss Whedon and your hard-to-spell “special snowflake” name!), but the constant CAP LETTER PERIOD CAP LETTER PERIOD CAP LETTER PERIOD DRIVES ME INSAAAAAAAANE!! (Fuck YOU, too, M*A*S*H!)

Here are some other shows debuting this week that aren’t doing me any typing favors.

• Does Someone Have to Go? (Fox, Thurs May 23, 9 pm): Less of a reality competition than a “social experiment,” Does Someone Have to Go? makes the disgruntled employees of a crappy company the bosses—and they vote on who gets fired! That was hard for me to type, because I don’t think writers who hate to type would do very well in this scenario.

• Behind the Candelabra (HBO, Sun May 26, 9 pm): Here’s hot-poop director Steven Soderbergh’s (had to spell-check that twice!) new biopic with Michael Douglas as Liberace (only checked once) and Matt Damon as his closeted lover Scott Thorson (three times). Seriously though, guys—don’t miss this one because it’s gonna be AH-MAY-ZING. And it took 13 minutes to learn how to spell “candelabra”—so don’t make it a waste of my time.

• Arrested Development (Netflix, starting Sun May 26): The highly anticipated fourth season of Arrested Development debuts Sunday on Netflix—and they are releasing all the episodes at once! So let’s welcome back Michael, George Michael, Buster, Gob, Tobias Fünke, Lindsay Fünke, Maeby Fünke, Bob Loblaw, and OH MY

including Jeff’s real-life musical partner Gary Lucas. The show concludes with Jeff owning the tenderly gorgeous ballad “Once I Was” solo. Thus, Jeff Buckley’s career was launched. The budding-romance side plot between Jeff and tribute-concert factotum Allie (Imogen Poots) adds little to the real meat of Greetings : the immortal compellingness of Tim Buckley’s songs—even in the film’s rearranged versions of them. (For a more thorough homage to Tim’s music, see the 2007 doc My Fleeting House .) (DAVE SEGAL) Northwest Film Forum, Fri 7 pm, Sat-Tues 7, 9 pm.

LOVE ON THE RUN

One of Francois Truffaut’s final films, presented on 35 mm. Seattle Art Museum, Thurs May 23 at 7:30 pm.

OUT OF THE MIST

The lush natural beauty of the Olympic Peninsula is the subject of this documentary, in which we hear from four people who’ve made it their home. Keystone Church, Fri May 24 at 7 pm.

FESTIVE

SIFF: WEEK TWO

The 39th Seattle International Film Festival saunters into its second week, bringing screenings of a bunch of stuff The Stranger loves, including Lynn Shelton’s new Touchy Feely (see Stranger Suggests, page 19), the fledgling cult classic Fateful Findings (ditto), and more. Here are but four films Stranger staffers wholeheartedly recommend.

More Than Honey

Filmed in Switzerland, the United States, and China, this lively documentary covers the gamut of the bee world: part beekeeping family reminiscence, part incredible close-up of bee culture and physiology, part modern-day beekeeping in all its variety, part scientific bee study, part philosophical thoughts on industrial culture. The filmmaker muses, “The plants are rooted to the ground, they can’t run across the field and hug each other. They can’t have children on their own. What they need is a messenger of love: a bee.” This film made me want to drop everything and devote my life to beekeeping. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)

Barzan

A brisk but depressing documentary about Sam “Barzan” Malkandi, who emigrated from Iraq to Seattle and watched his family prosper here for years. After 9/11, he found himself arrested, detained in jail for years, and finally deported for an ephemeral and very probably nonexistent connection to terrorism, aggressively prosecuted by a paranoid Homeland Security. It suffers a little from your standard documentary talking-head syndrome but is enlivened by some lovely animated sequences and great location photography in Iraq. This is happening everywhere. (MATT LYNCH)

The Punk Singer

So many music documentaries feel like laurelbuffing victory laps, but Sini Anderson’s The Punk Singer feels like a revelation. Its subject: Kathleen Hanna—cofounder of riot grrrl, creator of the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, coiner of the phrase “smells like teen spirit,” and spouse of Ad-Rock—who’s captured in all her explosively multifaceted glory. I’ve been a Hanna fan for decades; this film introduced her to me as someone new. To quote talking head Carrie Brownstein, it’s “an empowering and surreal experience.” (DAVID SCHMADER)

The Land of Eb As someone who has rarely seen the world of workingclass native Hawaiians, this film truly opened my eyes. Directed by Andrew Williamson, the film is about a middle-aged man who is ill and struggles day-by-day to build some kind of economic security for his family. The images in this movie are rich and beautifully capture the almost otherworldly geography of the volcanic island. (CHARLES MUDEDE)

The Seattle International Film Festival continues through June 9 all over town. See full info at thestranger.com/siff. (DAVID SCHMADER)

Got a film festival you want us to write about? E-mail festive@thestranger.com.

REPULSION

Roman Polanski’s harrowing classic, starring Catherine Deneuve as a young, repressed woman enveloped by fear, paranoia, and claustrophobia. New 35 mm print! Grand Illusion, Fri 7, 9 pm, Sat-Sun 5, 7, 9 pm, MonTues 7, 9 pm.

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT

“I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many, I am the Borg.” Central Cinema, Fri-Sun, Tues 7 pm.

TANK GIRL

A goofy, manic Mad Max-ish dust-hell of a future where water is in short supply, courtesy of 1995. King’s Hardware, Mon May 27 at dusk.

VENUS AND SERENA

As a documentary, Venus and Serena is nothing special. It has no real vision, no aesthetic program, no depth. It moves from one situation to another (the Williams sisters as girls, the Williams sisters as housemates, the William sisters as glamorous models, the Williams sisters as controversial icons) with almost with no thought or direction, like a piece of paper in the wind. Despite the documentary’s general stupidity and shallowness, it’s still engaging because, yes, it’s about two of the strangest, most fascinating, most amazing humans who ever entered this side of existence. They came from the ghetto, their father (their coach) is a madman, they have dominated the tennis world for almost two decades. No kind of filmmaking, no matter how bad, could make the Williams sisters uninteresting. (CHARLES MUDEDE) Northwest Film Forum, Fri-Tues 7, 9 pm.

NOW PLAYING

THE GREAT GATSBY

Tobey Maguire stars as the creepy Nick Carraway, the passive voyeur who lives to tell the tale. He inserts himself into the relationship of Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) with aplomb. Daisy’s husband, Tom (Joel Edgerton), isn’t quite dumb enough to not notice that something’s going on. As in the book, terrible things happen. The one thing that Baz Luhrmann instinctually understands is that The Great Gatsby is packed with creepiness. Carraway leers on the outside, looking in. Gatsby treats Daisy like a human doll. Tom toys with the lives of the poor like a petulant, horny Greek god. If you resign yourself to the inevitable fact that not even half of the book’s intricacies survive the adaptation, you can relax and enjoy what did make it to the screen. And there’s a lot to enjoy. (PAUL CONSTANT)

KON-TIKI

Five men and an accident-prone parrot take to the sea on a handmade raft in this almost ridiculously gorgeous retelling of Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 expedition, in which he attempted to prove that ancient settlers sailed between Peru and Polynesia. The most expensive film in Norway’s history, this Oscar nominee has beauty to spare, with no shortage of sights aimed at making the viewer’s jaw rebound off of the theater floor. Unfortunately, the lack of any real character development causes the narrative to sputter out quickly, leaving a repetitive cycle of shark sightings and sweet beards. Which isn’t all that bad of a thing, really. (ANDREW WRIGHT)

SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF’S

Cut with montages and jazzy beats and images of customers drifting among the shiny surfaces, the documentary Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s brings a peek behind the closed doors of the legendary New York fashion emporium. Not much is there, it turns out. Just some props, some stark white mannequins, and loads of vague facts concerning the store’s legacy, its architecture, its strategic merchandising of collections. There are testimonials from celebrities you’d forgotten, like Candice Bergen and Susan Lucci. Designers and businessmen weigh in, but they’re either too cloistered or too commercially motivated to have any really interesting stories, and style experts describe the allure of shopping. “It helps you focus on self-expression,” says one. “High heels bring an empowering attitude. You’re on your way to being a full person.” One unexpectedly lively segment profiles balking personal shopper Betty Halbreich. “That’s really terrible. But buy it, because it’s not as terrible as what you came in wearing,” she says to clients, but even still, she can’t save the film. Credits finally roll to after-hours footage of Barbra Streisand clowning with products arranged on Bergdorf’s countertops. She moves well, but the space surrounding her is so dark and still, and watching her, you get to feeling empty. (MARTI JONJAK)

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

For the Week of May 22

ARIES (March 21–April 19): “I’m still learning,” said Michelangelo when he was 87 years old. For now, he’s your patron saint. With his unflagging curiosity as your inspiration, maybe your hunger for new teachings will bloom. You will register the fact that you don’t already know everything there is to know… you have not yet acquired all the skills you were born to master… you’re still in the early stages of exploring whole swaths of experience that will be important to you as you become the person you want to be. Even if you’re not enrolled in a formal school, it’s time to take your education to the next level.

TAURUS (April 20–May 20): Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman admitted that physicists can’t really define “energy,” let alone understand it. “We have no knowledge of what energy is,” he said. “We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount.” While it’s unlikely that in the coming weeks you Tauruses will advance the scientific understanding of energy, you will almost certainly boost your natural grasp of what energy feels like both inside and outside of your body. You will develop a more intuitive knack for how it ebbs and flows. You will discover useful tips about how to make it work for you rather than against you. You’re already a pretty smart animal, but soon you’ll get even smarter.

GEMINI (May 21–June 20): Giant sequoias are the biggest trees on the planet. Many are more than 300 feet tall and 30 feet wide. Their longevity is legendary, too. They can live for 2,000 years. And yet their seeds are tiny. If you had a bag of 91,000 seeds, it would weigh one pound. I suspect there’s currently a resemblance between you and the giant sequoia, Gemini. You’re close to acquiring a small kernel that has the potential to grow into a strong and enduring creation. Do you know what I’m talking about? Identify it. Start nurturing it.

CANCER (June 21–July 22): Don’t take yourself too seriously. The more willing you are to make fun of your problems, the greater the likelihood is that you will actually solve them. If you’re blithe and breezy and buoyant, you will be less of a magnet for suffering. To this end, say the following affirmations out loud. (1) “I’m willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them.” (2) “I’m sorry, but I’m not apologizing anymore.” (3) “Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. I’d rather travel.”

(4) “My commitment is to truth, not consistency.” (5) “The hell with enlightenment, I want to have a tantrum.” (6) “I stopped fighting my inner demons. We’re on the same side now.”

LEO (July 23–Aug 22): Would you buy a stuffed bunny or a baby blanket that was handcrafted by a prisoner on death row? Would you go to a cafe and eat a sandwich that was made by an employee who was screaming angrily at another employee while he made your food?

Would you wear a shirt that was sewn by a 10-year-old Bangladeshi girl who works 12 hours every day with a machine that could cut off her fingers if she makes one wrong move? Questions like these will be good for you to ask yourself, Leo. It’s important for you to evaluate the origins of all the things you welcome into your life—and to make sure they are in alignment with your highest values and supportive of your well-being.

VIRGO (Aug 23–Sept 22): Having good posture tends to make you look alert and vigorous. More than that, it lowers stress levels in your tissues and facilitates the circulation of your bodily fluids. You can breathe better, too. In the coming weeks, I urge you to give yourself this blessing: the gift of good posture. I encourage you to bestow a host of other favors, too.

Specialize in treating yourself with extra sweetness and compassion. Explore different ways to get excited, awaken your sense of wonder, and be in love with your life. If anyone calls you a self-involved narcissist, tell them you’re just doing what your astrologer prescribed.

LIBRA (Sept 23–Oct 22): The German word Fernweh can be translated as “wanderlust.” Its literal meaning is “farsickness,” or “an ache for the distance.” Another German word, Wandertrieb may be rendered as “migratory instinct” or “passion to travel.” I suspect urges like these may be welling up in you right now. You could use a break from your familiar pleasures and the comforts you’ve been taking for granted. Moreover, you would attract an unexpected healing into your life by rambling off into the unknown.

SCORPIO (Oct 23–Nov 21): We call it “longing,” says poet Robert Hass, “because desire is full of endless distances.”

In other words, you and the object of your yearning may be worlds apart even though you are right next to each other.

For that matter, there may be a vast expanse between you and a person you consider an intimate ally; your secret life and his or her secret life might be mysteries to each other. That’s the bad news, Scorpio. The good news is that you’re in a phase when you have extraordinary power to shrink the distances. Get closer! Call on your ingenuity and courage to do so.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22–Dec 21): Are you ready to go deeper, Sagittarius? In fact,

would you be willing to go deeper and deeper and deeper? I foresee the possibility that you might benefit from diving in over your head. I suspect that the fear you feel as you dare to descend will be an acceptable trade-off for the educational thrills you will experience once you’re way down below. The darkness you encounter will be fertile, not evil. It will energize you, not deplete you. And if you’re worried that such a foray might feel claustrophobic, hear my prediction: In the long run, it will enhance your freedom.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22–Jan 19): In the course of his 91 years on the planet, artist Pablo Picasso lived in many different houses, some of them rentals. When inspired by the sudden eruption of creative urges, he had no inhibitions about drawing and doodling on the white walls of those temporary dwellings. On one occasion, his landlord got upset. He ordered Picasso to pay him a penalty fee so that he could have the sketches painted over. Given the fact that Picasso ultimately became the best-selling artist of all time, that landlord may have wished he’d left the squiggles intact. In every way you can imagine, Capricorn, don’t be like that landlord in the coming week.

AQUARIUS (Jan 20–Feb 18): “I was often in love with something or someone,” wrote Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. “I would fall in love with a monkey made of rags. With a plywood squirrel. With a botanical atlas. With an oriole. With a ferret. With the forest one sees to the right when riding in a cart. With human beings whose names still move me.” Your task, Aquarius, is to experiment with his approach to love. Make it a fun game: See how often you can feel adoration for unexpected characters and creatures. Be infatuated with curious objects… with snarky internet memes… with fleeting phenomena like storms and swirling flocks of birds and candy spilled on the floor. Your mission is to supercharge your lust for life.

PISCES (Feb 19–March 20): Scientists in Brazil discovered a huge new body of water 13,000 feet beneath the Amazon River. It’s completely underground. Named the Hamza River, it moves quite slowly, and is technically more of an aquifer than a river. It’s almost as long as the Amazon, and much wider. In accordance with the astrological omens, Pisces, I’m making the Hamza River your symbol of the week. Use it to inspire you as you uncover hidden resources. Meditate on the possibility that you have within you a secret reservoir of vitality that lies beneath your well-known sources. See if you can tap into deep feelings that are so deep you’ve been barely conscious of them.

Homework: Write your ultimate personal ad. Address it to your current partner if you’re already paired. Share it at Freewillastrology.com.

Stranger Sales Account Executive

Do you love The Stranger and want to be a part of it? We are currently looking for an Account Executive to join our amazing sales team. You will build your own desk by prospecting for new leads, contacting potential clients through cold calls and drop-ins, developing relationships with local business owners and providing them with tailored, multi-platform advertising solutions best suited to their needs. Must possess superior organizational, customer service, and communication skills. Must be hard working, self-motivated, goal-oriented, and be able to thrive in a deadline-driven environment. Creativity and entrepreneurial attitude a plus! At least one year of experience in commission-based print/media sales or a related field preferred. Vehicle or vehicle access required. First year compensation includes base salary, commission and bonuses. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, Simple IRA, as well as paid vacation/sick time. If you are a fearless, personable, focused sales professional, we’d like to hear from you. For consideration, please submit your resume, cover letter and desired salary range to: salesjob@thestranger.com or The Stranger, 1535 11th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Seattle, WA 98122, Attn: Sales Job. No phone calls please.

APARTMENTS

MASSAGE

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

VOLUNTEERS

$$$HELP WANTED$$$ EXTRA Income! Assembling CD cases from Home! No Experience Necessary! Call our Live Operators Now! 1-800-405-7619 EXT 2450 www.easywork-greatpay.com (AAN CAN)

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ADULT ACTORS WANTED Make $200-$400/hr in Adult films.

ROOMMATES

LESSONS

SING WITH CONFIDENCE. Beginners welcome. Breathing/Range Dev. Sliding Scale. Call Rosy 782-9305 singwithconfidence.com

SING! JANET 206-781-5062 FreetheVoiceWithin.com

THE VOCALIST STUDIO

We Train Vocal Athletes www.thevocaliststudio.com Scream technique, 5 Octave range. Eliminate Tension. Downtown Seattle studio. 425.444.5053

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE

ELECTRONIC MUSICIANS/PROGRAMMERS/SONGWRITERS CALL Murphy at 206 860 3534. I’m ready to make videos and get back on stage. If you live in Seattle and want a steady gig with me, give me a call.

PIANIST AVAILABLE

I’m Richard Peterson, 64 year old composer, arranger, and pianist.

I’m available to play parties, weddings, clubs, shows, etc. $200/gig. Covers and originals.

Please call 206-325-5271, Thank You! CD available.

MUSIC INSTRUCTION & SERVICES

ESTABLISHED LOCAL BAND look-

MUSICIANS WANTED

ALTERNATIVE HIP-HOP/ELECTRONIC/FUTURE-BEATS PRO-

DUCER seeks creative, original MC for new project. No drama, no guns, no hard drugs, just weed and music. Send demos/mix tapes/inquiried to spectre. sound@gmail.com (soundcloud link appreciated)

BASS PLAYER WANTED - Founding member of The Shining Skulls is looking for a bass player for a new rockbased cross genre project. If you have experience and know how to play for the song email me at delvecko@gmail.com

DRUMMER WANTED: DEDICATED/ MOTIVATED/RELIABLE. Listen @ www.alkijones.bandcamp.com. Email/ contact: alkijonesmusic@gmail.com.

DRUMS WANTED - blues/rock coverband. Infl: Bonham, Kirk, Baker, etc. Please be pro, hard hitting with lots of exp. 40s+. Call for details 206-7553044 or 206-919-0514

BAND REHEARSAL SPACE

1 Shared Room @$220/month

Incl. 36hrs/month & Private closet

Visit wildersoundstudios.com Located in SODO Seattle. Contact Samantha 425.445.9165 s.wilder@wildersoundstudios.com

SAXOPHONE AND CLARINET lessons as well as improv and music theory. All levels and ages welcome. Check out saxbombproductions.com for more

WANTED: BASS PLAYER

Dedicated/motivated/reliable. Practice two times per week. Gig often. Listen at www.alkijones.bandcamp.com. Email/ contact: alkijonesmusic@gmail.com.

RECORDING/REHEARSAL

I’m Richard Peterson, 64 year old composer, arranger, and pianist.  I’m available to play parties, weddings, clubs, shows, etc.  $200/gig.  Covers and originals.  PLEASE CALL 206-325-5271

Thank You!  CD available

,/.

WOMEN SEEKING MEN

THERE YOU ARE!

I live by myself and have a car and a job. I have a sense of humor and find the best out of everyone. I’m looking for someone outdoorsy, smokes weed, listens to rock n roll and is artistic. Fairywings, 23

METALASFUCK, FUN, COMPASSIONATE. Blond metal chick looking for my mountain man. I’m tough on the outside but squishy on the inside; compassionate, intelligent, and fun(ny). You: tall, bearded, metal guy with a sense of humor and a brain on his shoulders.

Smile_Octopussy, 30

SMART CITY GIRL

I’m a foodie and like wine, primarily old world. I love Pilates. I enjoy word games and reading. I’ve got a great sense of humor and can be pretty funny. I’m good at logistics and lack a sense of direction. neo247, 51

GOLDEN HEART VIVACIOUS

SMART ASS

Nice, kind, funny,curvy, horrible at spelling, snores, likes making out, tea, art, movies, plants, animals, books, shows, crafting, flowers, music. You -funny, kind, likes chainsaws, kissing, tea pots, culture, the earth, animals, rainy days, sleeping in, movies,. seattleage, 35

SHUTTERBUG EXCITED FOR WHAT’S NEXT

Seattle is a tough place to find companions whether it be friends or lovers. I figure it’s time I raised the bar a bit and found someone worth my time. If you’re into that, then I’ll probably be into you. MoreThanItSeems, 33

SUPER FUN AWESOMENESS!!

Hey! I’m a fun, loyal, down to earth gal who is looking for someone to hangout with, do stuff, and other general Tom-foolery. I am not looking for hook-ups. Send me a message if ya wanna chat!! ;). Bluebugg78, 35

PASSIONATE, OLD SOUL, OPTIMIST

MEN SEEKING WOMEN

SEATTLE’S GREAT. LET’S KISS.

I run a website, play soccer and volleyball, love art as well as science(fact or fiction), like to be around lots of people and/or music and/or natural wonders.

I’d love to start a family eventually. SergeiMixalot, 37

LAID BACK SAILOR

Looking for friend’s to hang out with first. If something clicks then something clicks. I don’t expect anything, but hope for something. Let’s go get a drink and see if I can make you laugh. That’s the most important thing. SailorMan, 35

PROFILES OF THE WEEK

Pierced, tattooed punkunicorn seeks same.

NEW IN-TOWN LOOKING FOR FRIENDS

Hi, I’d love to meet someone with whom to get to know the area better, going dancing, museums, dinning out (or in I love to cook). Make new friends and have a blast in the summer. Let’s do something fun. hotonegdl, 29

LONELINESS IS KILLING MY AWESOMENESS

I ‘m handsome, super fun, witty, well traveled, well educated, slightly cynical and machievious, highly talented but somehow can’t meet hotties to spend time in city I am new to. looking for a slim/petite girl who wants to get spoiled! lonelyck, 29

ALL OF ME...

WSW

Honest, authentic, fun, emotionallyintelligent, conscious, whole, open-hearted, grounded, playful, and present man finds woman who is self-aware, full of life, sees growth and beauty everywhere, shines light into darkness, and who laughs, cries, dances, and explores with an open heart. yesiam, 38

Howdy ladies. I like picnics, swingsets, acoustic guitar, roadtrips, good music, La Dispute, blushing, Doc Martens, body modification and orange juice. I know I’m not the only one who likes all that junk. Let’s go on a picnic, cutiepatootie :3. snippykitty, 20

WSM

Soon to be RPCV

Back in Seattle after two years abroad! Funny, curious, challenging, active & adventurous, laid-back, skeptical yet positive about life. Looking to enjoy being with someone who has passion, politeness, and a love for life and people.

Flight, 24

Let us know if you would like to be featured in the Stranger. If selected, you will receive a 2 week complimentary subscription (photo required). Visit: thestranger. selectalternatives.com/gyrobase/Personals/Contact

MYSTERIOUS YET CHARMING

AREA MAN. Seeks like-minded sharp-asa-fucking-tack area woman for dinner, drinks, dancing, staying up all night, eating mushrooms the next day after not having slept, getting nicely dressed and taking a substantial dose of LSD before heading to the opera. Mixameanmetaphor, 31 CEREBRAL, SWEETNESS, SOOTY

A friend once described me as having a brain full of crazy wires that are all running in one direction. I only have time to burn, burn, burn. robopete, 25 WOMEN

SEEKING WOMEN

WHERE’S THE LOVE? I am very honest, trustworthy and fun.Life is to short,we all need to have some fun.I am looking for my bestfriend and soulmate. Im looking for that special someone to grow old with,Is that really to much to ask for. loveoflife101, 37

I love my dog, cat, and corn snake. I enjoy reading and music. I am an optimist and have been called an old soul by many. Looking for: Intelligent, passionate, creative, music, beer and coffee lover. JamesyAmanda, 26

OVERACTIVE IMAGINATIVE OUTSIDER AMONG MOUTHBREATHERS

I am a 35 year old single mom who indulges in life to extremes. I geek out over mostly music, art, lierature, and random knowledge. I seek an equally strange one to ravage and enjoy. miss_ jumpingjacks, 35

GOT COURAGE?

Confident? Handsome? Courageous? If you answered ‘Yes’ to all, you’ll be the king of my castle. Tell me a story about a time you felt courageous--anything from hand-feeding a tiger to confronting a boss...your throne is waiting. AudreyAlisa 43

GREAT SIDEKICK

5’7” SWF BBW Redhead into dance, books, music, karaoke, geocaching. I am a Libra, indecisive but very easy to please. ISO LTR w/SWM 21-39 who is taller than me, average/athletic build, who can make me laugh and likes to dance. XxLilacKittyxX, 29

I’m a creative type looking for someone who is both physically and mentally stimulating. I’m generally easy going so I tend to be open to anything. Enjoy yoga, biking, movies, etc. Activities are greatly enhanced by the right company.

nattybumpoe, 27

ACTIVE AND IMAGINATIVE ADVENTURE

SEEKER

just back in Seattle after a year in Santa Cruz hills, just looking for connections, camping, dinner out and potentially something real for the longer lift to the top of this mountain. firemonkey13, 44

HELP OUT AN ANTISOCIAL MOOSE

I am looking for someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously but can when they need to. I am not much of a social butterfly but I am here trying. :). Moosechan, 33

GARFIELD WASN’T FUNNY.

I’m really funny. I’m really good looking.

I’m really a great friend. Just kidding about all of those things. I’m actually serious, ugly and a flaky friend! Just kidding about that second sentence.

Just email me. nicebutnaughty, 34

SOCIAL, SMART, GEEKY, FUN

Socially competent geek looking for same. I run gaming events, read comics and books, play role-playing games that explore real life issues, or strategy games where I can kick your ass. Looking for confident geek to game and explore with. geektastic, 30

MEN SEEKING MEN

LOOKING FOR LOVE AND PASSION Hi guys. I’m sick of being single and want to share my life. I want someone serious, but would be happy with coffee and a kiss. Love music and going to shows. Indie rock, 90’s rock. Cobain, Oberst and Morrissey. Jrpacnw, 33

WITTY, PASSIONATE, CREATIVE, FUN, MATURE

I’m an author of four novels and an amazing cook. I love to read and devour cinema. I prefer hotel bars and dining out versus just going to some bar and getting trashed. I’m 28 not 21. benshermanguy, 28

Envy on Alki:

Summer is coming and Envy on Alki would like to help smooth out all the roughness. Providing body waxing for men and women in all regions, southern and northern. Appointments are highly recommended to ensure your much deserved quality time. Take a trip down to Alki, we’re located right across from the beach.

Brazilian Wax ($70 Value) at Envy on Alki. Your Price: $35.

Adrift Hotel & Spa:

On the ocean, in the heart of Long Beach, WA, you will find a modern and unique eighty room hotel. This deal is good for a two night stay at Adrift (check-in Sun-Wed), plus some additional perks to make your stay extra special. Two night stay with $10 dining credit and ‘bonfire package’ ($198 Value) at Adrift Hotel & Spa. Your Price: $99.

Tasty Tiger:

Tasty Tiger has been producing quality spandex and slinky knit products since 1997. We take pride in creating fashions that leave people feeling fulfilled and expressed in their lives. All of our products are durable, washable, long lasting, and sweatshop free. Your satisfaction is our pleasure!

$20 to Spend at Tasty Tiger. Your Price: $10. LONG BEACH!

SAVAGE LOVE

Closure BY DAN SAVAGE

Twenty-one-year-old female here. When we were both 14, my first boyfriend took advantage of me. I wanted to explore my sexuality a little, but things went further than I wanted. One day, we were kissing with him on top of me. We were both fully clothed, and he started rubbing up against me. I didn’t realize he was dry-humping me until after he had to leave to clean himself up. He never asked for my permission. Once I understood what had happened, I felt violated. He’d also groped my boobs on another occasion without asking. He broke up with me a couple months later. I haven’t spoken to him in seven years.

dismissed. And the sex has been amazing. We have explored things I only dreamed about. Anal sex, public sex, sex toys, and video cameras are all part of our routine now. She asks me for things, and I try them. I ask her for things, and she tries them.

For the most part, this hasn’t scarred me too much. I’m comfortable with my sexuality. However, it’s very painful for me to think about what happened. I also avoid having sex with someone on top of me, because it reminds me of what happened and I start panicking. I want some closure so I can move on with my life. I don’t want to report him to the police because it’s not necessary—it happened so long ago. As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t rape. But I do feel like I was exploited, and it was not consensual.

I want to contact him and ask him to apologize because I feel a sincere apology would help me get over this. The problem is that he lives on the other side of the country, and I have no way of contacting him besides looking him up on Facebook. I don’t think FB is the right place to talk about this, but it’s not possible to talk in person. How can I get in touch with him in a way that’s appropriate without having to see him?

Would’ve Said No

Let’s game this out.

While it’s possible your ex-boyfriend did this on purpose—he knew you wouldn’t agree to it, he went ahead and did it anyway, you feel violated because you were violated—it’s also possible that this was an accident. I’m not excusing his behavior, particularly the nonconsensual boob groping, but as a former 14-year-old boy myself, WSN, I feel obligated to toss this out there: Very few boys have achieved complete mastery over their dicks by age 14. Sometimes those things go off when we do not want them to. And accidentally blowing a load in your pants during a hot-andheavy make-out session is an experience that most boys find deeply humiliating.

You were there, WSN, and I was not; you dated this dude, and I did not. If your boyfriend was a generally decent guy, and if there’s a chance this was an accident, contacting him— even via Facebook—will probably get you the apology you want.

But if it wasn’t an accident—if your ex-boyfriend was a selfish, manipulative piece of shit at age 14—odds are good that he remains a selfish, manipulative piece of shit at 21. If he’s an asshole, WSN, and you speak to him about this—on Facebook or face-to-face—you’re unlikely to get the apology you want. Ask yourself how you’ll feel if he responds to your request for an apology with GIFs of people laughing their asses off. If the answer is “infinitely worse,” don’t contact him. P.S. Two more tips to avoid feeling worse: Don’t go to the police with this, WSN, and stay out of the online comments.

I am a straight, 45-year-old, monogamous male. I am married for the second time, to a wonderful 42-year-old woman. The few times I shared fantasies with my first wife, she used them as weapons in the many battles we fought over the years. She also betrayed my trust by sharing these fantasies with others. Fastforward to wife number two. She is fabulous. We can talk about anything. She is respectful of my trust issues and has helped me immensely in getting over much of it. When she says, “I’ll think about it,” she really does. I never feel

So what is the problem? I can’t bring myself to ask her for two things that are more than bucket-list issues to me. I am a closet crossdresser. I want to make love to her in stockings and a teddy. I made this request to my ex, and it resulted in humiliation. She even shared it with my son out of spite. And I want us to try watersports. When this came up during marriage counseling with my first wife, the counselor blew up at me and accused me of degrading my marriage.

So how do I screw up the courage to ask wife number two, who always listens and never judges, to let me dress up in women’s underwear and make love to her and then have her pee on me? Just writing about it is making my stomach twist, but when I look into her eyes and feel the trust, I almost blurt it out. I won’t die if these wishes go unfulfilled, but I would die if my second wife stopped respecting me. Pretty Under Normal Things

You love your new wife, she loves you, you’re both GGG—it all sounds so good, so functional, especially compared to your nightmarish first marriage. Congrats. But you held your two biggest kinks back from the new woman in your life, PUNT, and now you’re sweating the reveal because the stakes are so high. This is precisely why I urge people to lay those kink cards on the table early. The longer you wait, the more emotionally invested you become in the relationship, the higher the stakes. Because what if your kinks aren’t just things your second wife isn’t interested in exploring, PUNT, but attraction-killers?

My advice: Instead of having an open and honest here-are-two-things-I-wanna-do conversation, PUNT, go with an indirect hereare-two-things-some-people-do conversation.

Find a way to broach the topics of crossdressing and piss play without having to admit that they turn you on, e.g., go see a drag show (drag isn’t crossdressing, of course, but it will allow you to broach the men-in-dresses subject generally) and find a porn film with one brief, not-too-hardcore piss scene in it and watch it together. Pay attention to her response. If she reacts in a neutral or positive way to men in dresses and/or piss play, lay those last two kink cards on the table. If she reacts negatively, you might just die with those wishes unfulfilled.

Pro tip: Nervous kinksters can screw up indirect here-are-two-things-some-people-do conversations by telegraphing disgust. Someone who’s into rubber says, “Isn’t it weird how some people get off on wearing rubber clothes and gas masks?” The non-kinky partner picks up on the word “weird” and responds with, “Yeah, that rubber stuff is fucked up.” If you set a negative tone, your wife is likely to pick up on that. So keep your reactions—at the drag club, during the porn—as neutral as possible.

This week on the Savage Lovecast, Dan chats with the amazing Mistress Matisse about where kink comes from, how to meet a kinky mate, and more at savagelovecast.com.

My newest book— American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics —has been called one of the best books of May by Amazon.com, and Publishers Weekly says it’s one of the best books of the summer. And it comes out this week. Look for American Savage in bookstores now!

mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

BECOME A WEDDING OFFICIANT A

Next class June 2nd, 9:30am - 1:30pm

Last Class of the Year! Cost $200

After attending this fun and interactive class you will become a legal Wedding Officiant and Ordained minister. Taught by: Reverend JoAnne Averett For more information go to www.proofficiants.com 13901 NE 175th St. Suite E Woodinville WA 98072 Call JoAnne @ 425-481-7479 joanneaverett.com

Ahh! Time to get *Ahh-thorized* 24/7 Patient Verification

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Become a Pilates Teacher!

Enroll now for our summer intensive Pilates Instructors are in high demand!

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Do you suffer from any of the following?

Facial Acne, Painful Menstrual Cramps, Migraine Headaches, or are you a female that has difficulty with orgasms?

Seattle Health and Research is looking for eligible volunteers. Visit SeattleHealthandResearch.com to see a list of requirements to participate for each. Or call 206-522-3330 x2

Donate Your Car, Truck or Motorcycle

Support Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound.

We offer free pickup of used vehicles in most cases running or not. Tax deductible. (206) 248-5982

FREE CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING

Age: 21+. Volunteers will receive either self-collected at home HPV testing or regular Pap test screening. Up to $200 compensation for study completion. Call 206-543-3327 or e-mail homehpv@uw.edu.

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Major credit cards accepted

New! Increased Compensation for Egg Donors!

Get paid for giving infertile couples the chance to have a baby. Women 21-31 and in good health are encouraged to apply. $5,000 compensation. Email Amy.Smith@integramed.com or call (206)301-5000.

OLD TIME

PHOTO EVENTS klondikepennys.com

PIANIST AVAILABLE

Clubs, Weddings, Parties I’m Richard Peterson, 64 year old composer, arranger, and pianist. I’m available to play parties, weddings, clubs, shows, etc. $200/gig. Covers and originals. Please call 206-325-5271, Thank You! CD available.

Must have piano!

Volunteer! Hempfest Needs You! It takes 1000 volunteers to produce Hempfest! Join us and make history! HEMPFEST.ORG

We may be able to help to remove that requirement. The Meryhew Law Group, PLLC (206)264-1590 www.meryhewlaw.com

The Pantry Raid~ Cooking Classes Simple Cooking, for Smart People. Cannabis and other cooking classes available. See website for details www.ThePantryRaid.com