Seattle Weekly, May 27, 2015

MAY 27-JUNE 2, 2015 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 21

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SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM I FREE

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Un-American Act

One legislator wants to punish teachers for striking. Is it a stunt, or overdue?

By Ellis E. Conklin Page 5

Amid the Madding Crowd

A totally sober comic artist shares some sights and sounds from Sasquatch!

By Kelly Froh Page 25

THE SUN WILL COME OUT...

GUIDE

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ON STANDS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

JUNE

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THE RESOURCE FOR SUMMERTIME FUN • • • • •

complete concert guide every fair and festival the best bike rides a parks primer outdoor dining + more!

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inside» May 27–June 2, 2015 VOLUME 40 | NUMBER 21 » SEATTLEWEEKLY.COM

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news&comment 5

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PLAYING HOOKY

BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN | A new bill enrages striking teachers. Plus: Updates on Seattle’s bad-boy athletes; and when whites shoot blacks, it’s never about race.

DOWN AND OUT

BY CASEY JAYWORK | How should we solve homelessness—with punitive ordinances? Or with homes?

11 NO EXCUSES

BY DERRICK COLEMAN JR. | What’s

it like being the NFL’s first deaf offensive player? An excerpt from the Seahawk fullback’s new memoir.

food&drink

14 COCOA NUTS

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE | Bringing fine chocolate to Pioneer Square.

15 | FOOD NEWS/THE WEEKLY DISH 16 | THE BAR CODE

arts&culture

17 WHAT’S IN THAT BOX?

BY BRIAN MILLER | An arts and tech

festival displays its portable works in shipping containers.

17 | THE PICK LIST 19 | OPENING NIGHTS | A love triangle

on Capitol Hill, Wodehouse in Greenwood.

20 | PERFORMANCE/BOOKS 21 | VISUAL ARTS WEEK 3 AT SIFF | Notable docs,

and a few feature tips.

23 | OPENING THIS WEEK | Dylan

Thomas goes rogue!

24 | FILM CALENDAR

25 MUSIC

BY KELLY FROH | The weekend’s choicest Sasquotes. Plus: Cat HarrisWhite’s advice to DIY musicians.

28 | THE WEEK AHEAD

odds&ends

4 | CHATTERBOX 29 | HIGHER GROUND 30 | CLASSIFIEDS

»cover credits

PHOTO OF DERRICK COLEMAN JR.

BY JENNIFER BUCHANAN

EDITORIAL News Editor Daniel Person Food Editor Nicole Sprinkle Arts Editor Brian Miller Music Editor Kelton Sears Editorial Operations Manager Gavin Borchert Staff Writers Ellis E. Conklin, Casey Jaywork Calendar Assistant Diana M. Le Editorial Interns Olivia Anderson, Kate Clark, Warren Langford Contributing Writers Rick Anderson, Sean Axmaker, James Ballinger, Michael Berry, Roger Downey, Alyssa Dyksterhouse, Jay Friedman, Margaret Friedman, Zach Geballe, Chason Gordon, Dusty Henry, Rhiannon Fionn, Marcus Harrison Green Robert Horton, Patrick Hutchison, Seth Kolloen, Sandra Kurtz, Dave Lake, Terra Clarke Olsen, Jason Price, Keegan Prosser, Mark Rahner, Tiffany Ran, Michael A. Stusser, Jacob Uitti PRODUCTION Production Manager Sharon Adjiri Art Director Jose Trujillo Graphic Designers Nate Bullis, Brennan Moring Photo Intern Joanna Kresge ADVERTISING Marketing/Promotions Coordinator Zsanelle Edelman Senior Multimedia Consultant Krickette Wozniak Multimedia Consultants Cecilia Corsano-Leopizzi, Rose Monahan Peter Muller, Matt Silvie DISTRIBUTION Distribution Manager Jay Kraus OPERATIONS Administrative Coordinator Amy Niedrich Publisher Bob Baranski 206-623-0500

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COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. ISSN 0898 0845 / USPS 306730 • SEATTLE WEEKLY IS PUBLI SHED WEEKLY BY SOUND PUBLISHING, INC., 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 SEATTLE WEEKLY® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT SEATTLE, WA POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO SEATTLE WEEKLY, 307 THIRD AVE. S., SEATTLE, WA 98104 • FOUNDED 1976.

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

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Editor-in-Chief Mark Baumgarten

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

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SO LONG, LITTLE SAIGON

Last week, Ellis E. Conklin reported on the resentment many in the Vietnamese community feel toward the city for what they called decades of neglect in Little Saigon (“The Fall of Saigon”). However, as Conklin found, the real risk to this small, exotic strip of the International District may be the redevelopment brought on by the new Seattle streetcar and Paul Allen’s development plans for Yesler Terrace.

Readers weighed in:

with a few archived favorites on their laptops and phones.” Readers shared their own laments:

20 years ago I came out of my office to find my 2-year-old son chewing on the edge of my first edition Hemingway, and that was the beginning of the end of books as a showcase for me. The post-grad school shuffle and the advent of digital were strike 2 and 3, and now it’s all in the cloud.

My kids can’t figure out why we keep this remnant bookshelf around—anybody want it?

Tom Pendergast, via Facebook

The Vietnamese have known for a decade Yesler Terrace was going to be torn down and a huge development put in. Plus the streetcar was When I left Michigan for Seattle I had to get rid explained to their delegate Quang Nguyen, of the of many things, as there is no room in this shitty Vietnamese American Economic Development expensive little apartment for so many of the dear Association. Norm Rice treasures I had acquired. One of Send your thoughts on headed the “Citizen Review the hardest things for me to give Committee at Yesler Terup was my collection of books. this week’s issue to race,” and the financial backCertainly things are things, but letters@seattleweekly.com there is nothing quite like the ers of Sound Transit 2 were on the committee as well to tangible credence of words put inform the locals. Vulcan always was the only real there on paper for all to see. contender to do the redevelopment, and it wanted Nichole Nadkarni, via Facebook the streetcar to add value to its market-rate condos and class-A office space on the land it bought MINOR DRUG INFRACTION from the city there. OF COURSE rents will go And on the blog, we noted the news that about 20 up on Jackson Street there, and the low-rise compercent of recreational marijuana shops failed a mercial buildings will be torn down. Everybody state-run underage-buying sting recently—the first has known that for years. Suck it up. such sting ever conducted in Washington (“Recreational Pot Is Having Its First PR Fiasco”). “For toofatforyou, via seattleweekly.com an industry that only wanted its wares to be treated like alcohol, it seems to have completely forgotten its I love Little Saigon. Food is incredibly affordable end of the bargain,” Daniel Person wrote. Readers and produce is abundant. There is sometimes a responded: section of, say, a bin full of moldy tarot root, or flies whizzing around. So it sometimes lacks the They ran these same checks in Colorado and sterility of a chain grocery store, but if you can came up 100 [percent] clean. Something has brave it, there is a ton of awesome produce. A lot gone wrong in the Washington system and it of merchants and workers have a no-nonsense, needs to be corrected. no-fake-smile “I care so much about you” “niceness” that Americans seem obsessed with. It’s Weedbay Guy, via seattleweekly.com kind of a relief. And some people seem genuinely nice and appreciative of business. . . . I’m always Each time they run these checks on bars and amazed by the lack of a grudge of Vietnamese liquor stores regarding alcohol they net several folks to Americans, what with the invasion of offenders. Violations barely get noticed by the their country and all. public and press. But of course this is the “devils lettuce” we are talking about, so sound the PrivacyisGood, via seattleweekly.com alarm and rally the troops. Or simply retrain the workers to perform their jobs correctly and ON THE BOOKS move on like every alcohol establishment in the Roger Downey last week documented “The Death of nation does. the Home Library,” suggesting that those old dusty tomes that baby boomers are hanging on to have no Rob Shaffer, via seattleweekly.com place these days but the landfill. As Downey put it, “Second-hand bookstores are almost extinct, and the Marijuana users forgot something? There’s a market for used CDs or DVDs is fast following the news flash. fate of VHS. Apart from vinyl collectors, millenniWarren Wiesman, via Facebook E als aren’t buying such stuff. They live on the cloud, Comments edited for length and clarity.

news&comment

Walk It Out

Race Did Not Play a Factor: A Timeline

Are efforts to penalize teachers for striking a stunt, or long overdue?

BY DANIEL PERSON

E

BY ELLIS E. CONKLIN

arly Thursday morning, Olympia police officer Ryan Donald shot two unarmed stepbrothers, Andre Thompson and Bryson Chaplin, after Donald said one of the men assaulted him with a skateboard. Donald is white. Thompson and Chaplin are black. Both are expected to live, and Donald is on paid administrative leave as the shooting is investigated. That the shootings did not prove fatal allows Olympia a thankful distinction from other cities that have seen young, unarmed black men die at the hands of white police officers in recent months. But in one respect, the case has born a striking early resemblance to these others: the quick denial that race could have played a factor. Here’s a timeline of recent such claims:

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JULY 15, 2013 “Anybody would think anybody walking down the road, stopping and turning and looking—if that’s exactly what happened— is suspicious. I think all of us thought race did not play a role.” —Unidentified juror speaking to Anderson Cooper about acquitting George Zimmerman in the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin.

The Washington Education Association staged “rolling walkouts”across the state last week.

Sheldon noted that the three Democrats who

I mean, what’s to stop them next time from going on a five or 10-day walkout?”

WEA spokesman Rich Wood called Sheldon’s bill “political grandstanding” and a “meaningless distraction,” since districts simply add extra days at the end of a school year to compensate for strike days, a fact Sheldon’s bill does not address. “The real issue here,” Wood said, “is that the legislature is in contempt for failing to meet the McCleary obligation.” Wood is referring to the 2012 state Supreme Court McCleary decision that demands Washington—which is 43rd in the country in the amount of money its spends per student—to fully fund basic K-12 education by lifting per-student yearly funding from $10,175 to about $11,425, or just $100 above the national average.

walked out of the hearing all have strong ties to organized labor. “I think what they did was rude,” he said. “In my 24 years here, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Asked what reactions he’s received since dropping the bill, Sheldon replied, “Well, most people have some pretty strong views on this.

I’m getting a lot of calls from constituents saying, ‘Way to go.’ And I’ve also had some who’ve said, ‘So how come you’re getting a raise?’ ” The very day after the one-day teacher walkout, the state’s independent citizen salary commission voted 10-5 to approve an 11.2 percent legislative pay raise. The first part of the pay hike goes into effect Sept. 1; the full increase will be realized in 2016, pushing lawmakers’ salaries from $41,106 to $46,839. As Rep. Chris Reykdal (D-Tumwater), a master of understatement, said at the time: “Horrific timing.”

Sheldon, meanwhile, stressed that he believes teachers, whose average annual base pay is $52,669, according to the WEA, deserve to be paid more. “It’s a tough job. I know it is,” he said. For two years, 1968–69, as a college student at the University of Pennsylvania, Sheldon said he worked several days a week as a substitute teacher at an inner-city school in west Philadelphia. “There was a flu epidemic at the time, so I got the job—$25 a day they paid me. So yes, I’d definitely like to see our teachers making more money.”

That is, as long as they’re not striking. E

econklin@seattleweekly.com

AUG. 18, 2014 “According to a new HuffPost/ YouGov poll, Americans are divided over whether Brown’s shooting was an isolated incident . . . or part of a broader pattern in the way police treat black men. . . . Among black respondents, 76 percent said that the shooting is part of a broader pattern, while only 35 percent of white respondents agreed.” —The Huffington Post, reporting on a poll following the shooting death of Michael Brown, a black man, by police officer Darren Wilson.

DEC. 4, 2014 “If he had not been obese, if he had not

had diabetes, if he had not asthma, this probably would not have happened. Nobody intended this to have happened. From my knowledge of the case, there is absolutely no elements of racism here, and there was no intent by the police officer to cause deadly or physical harm to the deceased, Mr. Garner.” —Rep. Peter King (R-New York), speaking to FOX News about the death of Eric Garner, who is black, while being arrested by New York City police officers.

MAY 1, 2015 “The only people who are saying that

this is about race are the outside media. This is not another George Zimmerman, it’s not another Ferguson. This is completely different.” —Family member of a Baltimore police officer charged in the death of Eddie Gray, speaking to the UK Daily Mail.

MAY 21, 2015 “Chief Roberts said Thursday morn-

ing that race did ‘not play a factor’ Thursday morning when a white police officer shot two unarmed young black men. ‘There is no indication to me that race was a factor in this at all,’ Roberts said at a news conference.” —MyNorthwest.com, reporting on Chief Ronnie Roberts’ reaction to Black Lives Matter protests in Olympia. E

dperson@seattleweekly.com

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

en. Tim Sheldon has been called many things during his 24 years in the state legislature: maverick, quixotic, traitor. Un-American is the latest label being hung on the Mason County tree farmer after he introduced a bill last week to cut off pay and benefits to public-school teachers when they are on strike. The bill also requires a teacher to get a doctor’s note if they are absent to confirm that they were actually sick during a strike day. Sheldon’s legislative move infuriated teachers and legislative colleagues, several of whom walked out of a Senate Commerce & Labor Committee before Senate Bill 6116 was even read.

“This was totally inappropriate, a waste of time, and, in my judgment, it is a misuse of the legislative process,” groused Sen. Karen Keiser (D-Kent), who left the hearing in protest.

“We’re in the 20th day of a 30-day special session and he pulls this!”

Said Sen. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma), who also up and left: “Penalizing teachers for their right to protest their working conditions is unAmerican.” The other legislator to boycott the hearing was Sen. Bob Hasegawa of Seattle, the committee’s ranking Democrat.

Sheldon unfurled his retaliatory measure on May 19, the same day that nearly 2,000 teachers from Seattle, Issaquah, and Mercer Island shut down their classroom and marched en masse from Seattle Center to Westlake Park. It was one of a series of rolling one-day strikes being guided by the Washington Education Association (WEA)—the powerful union that represents Washington’s 53,119 teachers—designed to pressure the legislature to approve cost-of-living increases that have been put on hold the past six years and reduce class size to the levels voters approved in November.

This isn’t the first time Sheldon, a conservative Democrat, has sought to put the screws to striking teachers. He introduced a similar bill in 2001 and again in 2003, but both efforts failed in the House. The man who earned the unflattering moniker “Turncoat Tim” when he joined fellow Democrat Rodney Tom of Medina (now retired) two years ago to spearhead an unprecedented coup that wrested control of the Senate from his own party, explained his motivation to dock striking teachers’ pay in a recent interview with Seattle Weekly. “What I’m trying to do,” Sheldon said, “is to say that there needs to be a downside for teachers [if they choose to strike]. The downside has always been on the public.”

Sheldon conceded, as did a number of other legislators the Weekly spoke with, that the law is ambiguous on the legality of teacher strikes in Washington. Regardless, Sheldon insists there should be some kind of punishing consequence. “Where in America can you go on strike and still get paid by your employer?

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news&comment»

Hiding the Homeless

Seattle spends tons of money playing whack-a-mole with the destitute. And, surprise, it’s not making the problem go away.

BY CASEY JAYWORK

K

JOSHUA BOULET

stands up, struggles into his soaked clothes, slings his soaking pack over his back, grasps the worn handle of his rolling suitcase, and walks numbly into the night.

Seattle has the fourth-largest homeless population in the country. With a 21 percent increase over 2014, according to this year’s annual One Night Count, the city is fixing to overtake Las Vegas for the bronze. Of the roughly 640,500 souls who live here, one in six live below the federal poverty line, putting them one catastrophe away from joining the three or four thousand who lay their heads to rest in the Emerald City’s streets and alleys, on its benches and doorways, inside its parks and bus stops, or hidden behind its bushes and underbrush.

That they are here does not mean they are welcome. Seattle, like virtually all Washington cities, has effectively criminalized visible homelessness through a variety of ordinances which homeless people cannot help but violate if they want to survive. Law professor Sara Rankin and her students at Seattle University’s Homeless Resource Advocacy Project (HRAP) examined 72 municipalities in Washington. They found that “Washington cities increasingly criminalize homelessness by making it illegal to perform necessary, life-sustaining activities,” like sleeping and peeing, in public, without offering any private alternatives.

These are not labeled “Anti-Homeless Laws” in the Seattle Municipal Code. For the most part they’re motivated by reasonable priorities like not wanting someone to shit on your doorstep (SMC 12A.10.100) or the desire not to be yelled at by a schizophrenic while walking down the sidewalk (SMC 12A.12.015). Some have been around since at least the 1970s, when the King County Bar Association rewrote parts of the city’s “obsolete, duplicative, incomplete” criminal code; all appear to predate the current council’s longeststanding member, Nick Licata.

“Everyday people, citizens of the city,” says City Council president Tim Burgess, “don’t like it when people defecate on the sidewalk in front of their house or in front of their business.”

But, HRAP shows, combine these middleclass priorities with ignorance about or apathy toward the contingencies of life on the street, and suddenly you’re writing ordinances that effectively outlaw the very existence of homeless people by outlawing their use of the only resources they have. When it costs money to obey the law, the poorest among us necessarily become criminals.

Burgess is no stranger to the kinds of laws

HRAP’s report examines. In 2010 he sponsored an ordinance making “aggressive solicitation” a civil infraction, to complement the city’s existing

criminal ordinance against “aggressive panhandling.” Critics including the ACLU, the city’s Human Rights Commission, and Real Change attacked Burgess’ proposal as ineffective, inhumane, and possibly unconstitutional. Mayor Mike McGinn ultimately vetoed it, and Burgess was unable to gather the votes for an override.

With this on his resume, Burgess is ideally situated to answer one basic, pressing question: Where do these laws come from? In other words, which constituents are calling for them?

“The most outspoken tend to be neighborhood business folks,” he says. “That’s certainly true downtown, [with] shop owners and restaurants and different folks who complain about what we might refer to as ‘antisocial behavior’ . . . I think that’s the group that’s often saying, ‘Hey, city, police: fix this problem.’ ” Burgess’ answer is echoed by Burien city manager Kamuron Gurol, who told The Seattle Times earlier this year, “What we hear from the public is they want to feel safe in public places, particularly places where they take kids.” He was describing the rationale for an ordinance Burien passed last year that allowed police to banish a person from public libraries and parks for, among other things, body odor or using a restroom to shave. The law was partly revised earlier this year after widespread public criticism, but, as HRAC notes, Burien, like Seattle, still has plenty of antihomeless laws on its books.

It’s worth emphasizing that many of these laws have some legitimate policy goal as their motive. Don’t bully people into giving you money; don’t block the sidewalk; don’t pee on someone else’s window; don’t hog scarce parking.

Proponents point out that each one offers the same protections to all Seattleites, regardless of wealth or housing status. Seattle police spokesperson Sgt. Sean Whitcomb points to sporting events as one instance where prohibiting public urination and pedestrian interference pretty clearly target people with money (and homes) for the sake of a larger public good.

To advocates, such laws prevent the injustice of regular citizens getting saddled with the results of antisocial behavior. They keep people safe from threats of violence. They promote sanitation, to create a clean and pleasant living environment. They guarantee accessibility, allowing everyone to use public space. They protect fairness by preventing one group of people from bullying another. While they may disproportionately affect the homeless, they also benefit the homeless by keeping public spaces safe, clean, and accessible to everyone.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the

rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread”—so says French novelist Anatole France, quoted by HRAP researchers Javier Ortiz and Matthew Dick.

The arguments for the laws in question are not lost on them. The problem with these laws, they say, is not that they are applied in selective and discriminatory ways, but that they are applied consistently to people in profoundly disparate

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

irk McClain is wet and miserable. It is fall 2014, late at night.

After the cops kicked him out of Cal Anderson Park at 11:30 p.m., the unemployed office manager walked a mile uphill to Freeway Park over I-5, unrolled his bedroll onto the frigid ground beside his backpack and his rolling suitcase, and commenced slumbering. McClain has been sleeping in parks for a couple of months now, since summer, when a night at one of Seattle’s packed shelters infested his clothes and body with some kind of bug. But then summer’s blazing days and gentle nights gave way to bitter chill.

At Freeway Park, McClain lay on his back, rolled to one side and then the other, trying to get comfortable. After a few minutes of selfsituating, he finally began to drift off.

And the sprinklers switched on.

The spray was abrupt and violent, like electricity stabbing his nerves. His body, his clothes, his bags—everything sucked up the water like a greedy sponge. McClain bolted upright, still half-asleep. He jumped to his feet, grabbed his luggage and bedroll, and scrambled away from the blast zone.

But now he is wet with nowhere to go, and it’s early autumn in the Pacific Northwest. His waterlogged backpack is heavier than ever, and the thighs of his pants rub together with every step. McClain wanders downtown, cursing his luck, wishing for one thing only: a way to get dry.

Finally one occurs to him. “At that point, I knew of one place I could go that was outside where there was heat,” he will recall later.

That place he calls “The Grate”—a two-footsquare exhaust vent situated in the pavement of an alley by Second and James, public property right by the entrance to the bus tunnel. A steady stream of warm air constantly wafts upward from the Grate, as though it covered the mouth of an ever-exhaling subterranean giant.

McClain trudges to the Grate, half a mile from Freeway Park. He removes his shoes, socks, coat, and shirt and lays them delicately on top of the improvised dryer. One sock shoots into the air like a deflating balloon, and McClain has to retrieve it. He huddles beside the sum of his worldly possessions and tries once again to catch a modicum of comfort.

And a private security guard, probably from a nearby building, shows up. He’s big, burly, blond.

Later, McClain will recall their conversation: “You can’t lay there,” the guard says.

McClain looks up at him. “I’m wet,” he says truthfully. “I’m tired, I’m cold. It’s 2:30 in the morning. I don’t have anywhere to go. And I’m wet,” he repeats.

The guard looks at him like, so what? “I don’t care,” he says. “You have to leave. You cannot sit here.”

They argue back and forth for a few minutes.

When the guard threatens to call the police, McClain thinks to himself, I don’t want any problems. A homeless black man, in the middle of the night, soaked and penniless, who already got evicted from one public space just a few hours before—no, the cops aren’t a great option. He

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Hiding the Homeless » FROM PAGE 7 circumstances—like submerging both a fish and a baby beneath water.

“Camping outdoors, urinating in public, sitting or lying down on sidewalks—these laws target homeless people either in practice or outright,” write HRAP researchers Scott MacDonald and Justin Olson. “For those without shelter, there is no alternative but to conduct these behaviors in public.” Rather than pick up the slack of a social-services system that is broken at the state and national levels, they say, cities faced with homelessness “fall into the trap of vilifying already vulnerable populations in the name of safety and public health.”

Cities pour scarce public funds into enforcing these laws, to questionable effect: HRAP’s research finds that far from mitigating homelessness (or even making it less of an inconvenience to housed people), laws like sit/lie ordinances (in effect in Seattle from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and public camping bans work like a multimillion-dollar game of whack-a-mole against the homeless.

HRAP reports that for the six anti-homeless laws they identified—pedestrian interference,

which can carry jail time, more fines, and more court dates, in turn providing you with more opportunities to run afoul of a complex legal system. You’re caught in a vicious cycle, a snowball that’s picking up speed—and you’re now even likelier to pop back up on the streets rather than regain housing and employment.

(HRAP notes that since 2013, the city attorney’s office has managed to minimize the number of such snowballs by reining in citations for failure to appear at court, though that’s a matter of discretionary policy that could change with a new administration.)

Solving homelessness with homes, HRAP

argues, would be a lot cheaper than compounding it with handcuffs. “Investing the $3.7 million spent in criminalization ordinances [in Spokane and Seattle] over the five years covered in this study in housing the homeless [instead] could save taxpayers over $2 million annually and over $11 million total over the five years,” write Howard and Tran.

The term for this approach is Housing First, and it means what it says: The solution to homelessness is housing, not patronizing speeches, arcane paperwork, or punitive laws. The idea, Howard and Tran write, is that “addressing and solving the primary problem of permanent housing will have a positive domino effect, resolving many other problems that homelessness presents to homeless people and society generally.

With stable housing, homeless people no longer need to worry about finding a place to sleep each night; instead, they can focus on other issues such as finding employment, rehabilitating various health challenges, and otherwise being a more active and productive member of the community.”

This implies something of a no-questions-asked approach, or Kirk McClain, formerly homeless, now works at at least no-more-questions-thanCapitol Hill Housing. a-normal-renter-is-asked. Which is the whole point: let formerly public urination, aggressive panhandling, sit/lie, homeless tenants figure out how to work out camping in public places, and storing personal their own lives like any other renter instead of property in public—Seattle police issued 5,814 micromanaging their behavior. citations (more than any other city in the state) Seattle’s successfully experimented with this and made 93 arrests from 2009–13 at a total cost approach, albeit on a small scale. As of 2010, the of $101,169.24 in police labor. Court costs for city hosted 280 Housing First units, including pedestrian interference—which includes “aggres- a “wet” house for alcoholics at 1811 Eastlake. sive beg[ging],” and is the only law for which That house saved taxpayers $4 million in its first HRAP was able to get court data—totaled year alone, largely by reducing residents’ trips to $24,351.74, and those court decisions led to a jail and the emergency room. Housing homesentencing total of 15,217 days in jail. It’s likely less alcoholics turns out to be about 6.4 times that the number of days actually served was cheaper than criminalizing them, according to less—although one man, Gregory Justin Hughes, an evaluation of 1811 Eastlake published in the spent 364 days in jail for pedestrian interference.

Journal of the American Medical Association.

At an average cost of roughly $145 per inmate With this preliminary success, Burgess says, per day, the total cost of incarceration for pedesthe city government is trying to shift more of the trian-interference violations could have been as $40 million the city currently spends on homelow as $670,505 or as high as $2,245,518. Overlessness funding from intervention (like shelters) all, HRAP estimates that “an estimated five-year into Housing First and similar projects. Whether minimum of $2,300,000 is directly attributed to they can effect that shift, and whether it will be enforcing” these laws, though Howard and Tran enough to solve Seattle’s homelessness crisis, emphasize that this is a lowball estimate due to remains to be seen. inadequate data.

There’s grassroots enthusiasm for this That’s just the city’s price tag. Suppose you’re common-sense approach. “If you want to get homeless, unemployed, perhaps mentally ill and/ someone off the street, the best way to do that or an addict, and you get a citation for sitting on is to get them a permanent house, a permanent a downtown sidewalk. You don’t respond, either home,” says McClain, who spent that wet night because you can’t afford to or because you don’t in Seattle in 2014. “Can you think of any other get to the right courtroom on the right day at the solution that would deter people from pissing on right time. This triggers misdemeanor penalties, the street or deter them from panhandling?”

Well, yes. Another alternative to criminalization is encampments like Nickelsville. These shantytowns have been no small source of controversy in Seattle for years, thanks largely to standoffish neighbors. “My husband said ‘There’s tents up there,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, no,’ because we have trouble with transients already,” property manager Jan Beruman told a KIRO reporter in 2013, after part of Nickelsville had pitched camp on nearby land owned by the Low Income Housing Institute.

Despite NIMBY concerns, in March the city council finally brought itself to allow three new encampments in industrial areas. At 100 souls apiece, these new encampments will serve only a small fraction of the city’s homeless population,

Investing the $3.7 million spent enforcing antihomeless ordinances in Spokane and Seattle into housing instead could save taxpayers over $2 million annually, a study shows.

the street a year into my future,” he says. “Each year I was out there, the next year I figured I’d have it together, I figured I’d get a break, I figured something would happen, that I would be able to get off the street.” This was palpably unrealistic: McClain says he became homeless in 2009, yet didn’t find work and housing until last fall. But some people have faith.

Knowing in his gut that he’d make it, he says, motivated him to do what he needed to actually make it—five years later: staying sober, going to work-placement agencies, filling out applications, occasionally going to job interviews.

It could have gone differently. “Things compound fairly quickly when you don’t have any resources,” he says. “All the sudden you’re smoking more weed or you’re taking some drug that you never had before. Because it’s like, ‘Fuck it,’ is what you end up saying to yourself. ‘Why not?

I got nothing. I have nowhere to go . . . Why not get high?’”

Now on the other side of the doorway, McClain understands the impulse behind antihomeless laws. “If someone comes up to you [panhandling] and they’re aggressive and you don’t know whether you’re going to be assaulted by that person, that’s common sense” to be afraid or repulsed, he says. “No one likes to go through that.

“But the way to solve it,” he says, “is not to pass laws that violate people’s human rights”—not to commit to a kind of city-wide NIMBYism and hope the problem goes away. “You have to fix the entire system. You can’t work within the system when the system itself is broken, because there are no levers that create actual results.

“It’s all an avoidance of trying to solve the entire problem.” E

cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

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but that’s not nothing. “300 more tents means that at least 300 more people will have shelter,” said tent city resident Roger Franz after the council vote passed.

And 300 fewer people littering and pooping in the bushes. Nickelsville, says Sola Plumacher, a Strategic Advisor with the Seattle Human Services Department (HSD), “looks really different, and is much more sustainable, than an illegal, unsanctioned encampment that has no trash removal, has no sanitation services.” HRAP reports that sanctioned encampments generally cost cities about $50 per resident per month, although Nickelsville has reported a number as low as $30. Letting folks set up a couple dozen tents and shacks on unused land allows the city to streamline sanitation services: porta-potties and trash removal. It also outsources a lot of public-safety and case-management work to the encampment community, where people tend to work together because they know their lives depend on it.

Plumacher acknowledges that Seattle’s shelter capacity is nowhere near adequate to handling the thousands of homeless who need it, but she doesn’t think it’s feasible to pick up most or all of that short-term slack by expanding encampments until they meet homeless demand. “Camping’s great, for a weekend,” she says. “But living at a tent city for a long period of time is not fun . . . Going there in the wintertime when it’s horrible and wet and rainy—when they were at West Marginal Way Southwest, they were in a basin of water. It was horrible. The rat infestation problem was atrocious. It is not a way for people to live, long-term, even with adequate supports to attempt to deal with public health and safety issues. What does make more sense is that we focus on prevention and upstream diversion efforts, and try and hit people before they become homeless or become engendered to street dependency.”

Plumacher notes that the city plans to expand its shelter capacity in coming months—100 beds for men this summer, 15 beds for youth on Capitol Hill, and eventually a new shelter in north Seattle, she says. But neither she nor elected officials have offered a plan to immediately shelter the thousands who live on Seattle’s streets. Given how far demand for shelter outstrips supply, and given how long it will take to build Housing First units, it’s not clear what alternatives to widespread encampments exist. Other than doing nothing, of course.

Not long after McClain spent his long night fleeing from park to sprinkler to grate to streets, he got a job running the counter at the Downtown Emergency Services Center, and today works at Capitol Hill Housing. Nowadays he wears khakis and button-downs; a passerby would likely sooner peg him as a Lands’ End catalogue model than as someone less than a year past sleeping in doorways.

There wasn’t any particular reason for him to catch that break at that moment. He’d been looking for work for years, and then all at once he got a job offer from DESC, he says, and interviews with Amazon and a swank law firm downtown.

Part of what kept him going, he says, was stubborn hope. “Even when I was out here for a long time, for years that went by, I knew that I wasn’t going to be here. I never saw myself on

9

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J

erramy Stevens, you’ll recall, is the former Seattle Seahawks bad boy. Gary Payton is the ex-Seattle Supersonics’ trash-talking, nine-time all-star. Today they’re teammates of sorts in the same California court system.

Stevens recently wound up his latest legal scrimmage—another drunk-driving arrest ending with another wrist-slap. He still faces four years of probation and must complete a twoyear alcohol program. But after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge gave him 30 days, the L.A. county jail kicked him loose after two.

It’s the kind of punishment Stevens is used to. Over the past 15 years, the standout UW and Seahawks tight end has

BY RICK ANDERSON received a series of reprieves and second chances. He escaped a rape charge thanks to his star-athlete reputation, though he and his UW fraternity later paid the victim a $300,000 legal settlement.

A hit-and-run accident on the Seattle freeway got him a speeding ticket. After he drunkenly ran into a Seattle retirement home, pinning a 92-year-old woman under her dresser, he pleabargained a suspended sentence. He pled a subsequent DUI down to reckless driving, then drove without a license and got 90 days, suspended. Another DUI led to a 30-day sentence; he did 12.

He was suspended by the NFL for substance abuse, and later arrested for marijuana possession, getting three years probation. He was arrested for felony battery for punching a pair of bouncers, and walked. And he was arrested for fighting with his wife-to-be, pro soccer star Hope Solo, the night before their 2012 wedding, and walked. Solo herself was arrested for domestic violence last year, and walked, after her relatives refused to testify.

In the latest DUI case—his fourth, at least— Stevens was arrested in Manhattan Beach, an L.A. ’burb, in January. His blood-alcohol content was .15, about twice the legal limit. Police said he was drunkenly driving his wife in a U.S. women’s-soccer team van. Solo was in no condition to drive, either, police indicated, and both she and Stevens reportedly tried to use their fame, if not infamy, to avoid arrest. Solo was later suspended by the soccer federation for 30 days.

With his 30-day term reduced to two by the jail, Stevens got off even easier than his wife, who wasn’t arrested. He seems to have set a sort of lifetime record for serial leniency. TMZ reported that Stevens was released early “due, at least in part, to good behavior during his time behind bars.” Now if he could just carry that off as a free man.

SEATTLELAND

Payton, who faces civil allegations of assaulting his date in Seattle, likely hopes the L.A. justice system will be at least as kind to him. He is being sued in L.A. County Superior Court by Trishtan Williams, a L.A. TV producer who accuses him of assaulting her while the two were visiting here January 21–22 for the MTR Western Sports Star of the Year award ceremony at Benaroya Hall.

Williams has lawyered up with high-profile attorney Gloria Allred. She’s the go-to feminist

Stevens at Kirkland Municipal Court.

counsel when you’re suing a male star. Of late, she’s represented clients suing Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Bill Cosby; in the past, her clients sued Tiger Woods and Roman Polanski. She also unsuccessfully pushed for an investigation of Rush Limbaugh for calling law student Sandra Fluke a slut and prostitute on the air.

“Our client looks forward to her day in court and the opportunity to testify in this case,” Allred tells me in an e-mail about the Payton lawsuit.

“We are confident that justice will prevail.”

According to a copy of the suit I obtained, Williams and Payton had an ongoing “consensual relationship” and she went willingly to Seattle. After the awards dinner, at a bar, Payton allegedly shoved her in objection to something she said, then prevented her from leaving. During the drive to their hotel, Payton assaulted her, she claimed. In their hotel room, “Payton again assaulted and repeatedly battered the plaintiff.”

Noting that the 6´4˝, 180-pound Payton is considerably bigger than Williams, Allred and co-counsel Michael Maroko claim their client was terrified and physically helpless. Williams is seeking “exceptional” damages in an amount to be decided at trial.

The ex-Sonics guard known as The Glove says Williams’ claims are untrue, and his agent, Aaron Goodwin, calls the suit frivolous. “With the climate of claims against athletes for monetary gains, Mr. Payton is just another victim,” he said.

Payton, divorced father of four, has already been penalized by his employer, Fox Sports 1, which dropped him as a TV commentator.

In a statement, Fox said “Domestic violence is abhorrent and inexcusable . . . As soon as we were made aware of the claim, we began an internal investigation. Mr. Payton was suspended immediately.”

Trishtan Williams did not respond to my request for more information. But on her Twitter page, she describes herself thus: “Amazing Mother; all around Wonderful Woman! I Would Compare Myself To A Gummy Bear; Everyone Love Them!!!” The Glove, she suggests, is no gummy bear. E

randerson@seattleweekly.com

Rick Anderson writes about sex, crime, money, and politics, which tend to be the same thing.

His latest book is Floating Feet: Irregular Dispatches From the Emerald City.

During the Seattle Seahawks 2013 championship run, numerous team storylines captured the nation’s attention. Little-known fullback Derrick Coleman Jr. watched as second-year quarterback Russell Wilson led the team to a franchise-record 13-3 season, and cornerback Richard Sherman and running back Marshawn Lynch emerged as stars, one outspoken, one happy to let his play do the talking. But there were more stories to be told, and as the postseason approached, Coleman—the NFL’s first deaf offensive player—stepped toward the spotlight. This is his story.

B

POWER MOVE

needed to prove that I was just as good as everybody else. My Duracell commercial was telling people to believe in their dreams—and that was a message I could grasp with my whole heart.

Nobody’s perfect. Everybody has something to overcome. Everybody has an opportunity to do what they want to do. You have to go for your goal even though it’s going to take a long time to get there. Even if you don’t get there, make sure you’ve done everything you can in that direction.

The only person who can say no to you is God, and He wouldn’t put an opportunity in your sight if He didn’t know you could handle it.

After that, I pretty much forgot about the commercial. I wasn’t sure what it would do or when it would be aired. There are a lot of TV channels these days, tons, really, so it’s pretty easy for one commercial to get buried under all the noise. I pretty much put it out of my mind. Little did I know that commercial was going to be anything but small.

We went to the divisional playoffs on January

BY DERRICK COLEMAN JR. • WITH MARCUS BROTHERTON An excerpt from the forthcoming memoir, No Excuses.

11. We were playing the New Orleans Saints.

It was raining hard that day in Seattle. But we didn’t care about the weather. You get this championship mentality. You get confident. You can play through any storm.

I’d broken up with my girlfriend right before that. I respected her a lot, but it wasn’t going to work out long-term, so I was feeling down.

My friends Brandon, Dani, and Derek flew up to Seattle, and it was good to see them. They cheered me up, and we had some fun before the game. That helped me overcome that rough spot.

The Saints game began, and right away it was a dogfight. It was hard even to watch the game.

The action went back and forth, back and forth.

We were up 16-0 at halftime, which is way better than being down 16-0 at the half, but even so, we felt shaky. No game is finished at halftime, and they were still hitting us hard.

Near the end of the third quarter, the Saints had the ball and marched down the field, play after play, and on the fourth play of the fourth quarter they punched through for a touchdown. Instead of going for one point after, they attempted a two-point conversion and got it.

That cut our lead by half, 16-8, so things still felt uneasy. The Saints burned their time-outs—two the regular way. Then they challenged a catch that Doug Baldwin made from Russell, but lost the challenge, which meant they also lost their third and final time-out.

With about four minutes to go, I started to breathe easier. It was still our possession, and Marshawn ran hard off the left end for a 31-yard touchdown, which put us ahead 23-8. After that came a couple more hard hits, and a couple more passes. They scored again, 23-15. With 32 seconds left, the Saints attempted an onside kick and recovered the ball. The pressure was on, bigtime. Thankfully, time ran out and we won the game. I let out a huge sigh of relief.

But this was also big news: I didn’t find out until after the game that they’d played my commercial right before the start of it. I mean, this was no ordinary game—it was the divisional playoffs. How many people were tuned in? It had to be a ton. All the players were in the tunnel when they showed the commercial, and I didn’t see it. In fact, I hadn’t even seen the final mix yet. They showed it to the whole stadium—and right away it was already all over YouTube, too.

It turned out to be one of those mega-ads, and it was everywhere. People were texting me left and right saying things like, “Man, I cried when I saw your commercial.”

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

JENNIFER BUCHANAN

ack in the regular season, about a week before the Rams game, I had gotten a call from a media guy representing Duracell batteries. They’d contacted the Seahawks and the information had been forwarded to my agent, who set up a meeting. At first I wasn’t sure of what they were asking. I had a pack of Duracell batteries right there in my locker.

They were my favorite brand, and the company officials were asking me to be in a commercial. I figured the project was going to be pretty small, but that didn’t bother me. Seriously—the only thing I thought I’d get out of it was some free batteries. Hey, I could always use those.

The shoot for the commercial was scheduled for New Year’s Eve, 2013. It was going to take all day. The night before, I’d allowed myself to enjoy a rare late night out with some friends who were up from California. We’d gotten back at two in the morning. A car service was picking me up at 6 a.m. So I got a couple hours’ sleep, woke up and got in the car when it came, then slept all the way from my apartment to the stadium.

All this equipment was already set up there by the time I arrived, but I wasn’t giving it much notice. First thing I did was go get coffee—three of them—and I rarely drink coffee, but I was gathering that this was going to be a long day.

Man, as soon as it was in my system, I wondered what ever came over me to drink all that coffee. I started shaking, and there was no way to exercise and let out all the nervousness.

They filmed me a bunch in the stadium, then we went to another location and they filmed me in a bus, then we went to the practice facility at the University of Washington and they filmed me there, and then to a neighborhood to get some shots of me running. I got home at 10 o’clock that night, New Year’s Eve. You know what I did for New Year’s Eve that year? I slept!

On New Year’s Day, January 1, 2014, we needed to go back to a recording studio and do the voiceover for the script. The guy who wrote it, Lincoln Boehm—we totally hit it off, and I’m still in contact with him today. The script was great; I felt like a rapper making an album, and I probably said each line 20 different times, 20 different ways, so they could get the perfect sound and mix it all together. I had that script memorized by the end. It’s still embedded in my brain.

I got a bit of money for doing the commercial, and a year’s worth of Duracell batteries—and when I heard about the year’s worth of batteries I was like, Yes! because I was buying my own batteries by then, not my parents. So that was worth a lot right there. I grasped that there was a bigger reason for doing the commercial, too, although its full impact didn’t dawn on me right away.

Sure, I hoped to inspire people with the commercial, particularly children who are perhaps facing bullying or some obstacle they need to overcome. My big message was for them to trust the power within and achieve their dreams.

I mean, every kid faces some sort of challenge growing up. Every kid. For me, when it came to playing football, I needed to prove to other folks that I was just like them, that I belonged. I

The inside story of one Seahawk’s journey from underestimated unknown to viral sensation and hero for the hearing-impaired.

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 11

I didn’t even have a Twitter or Facebook account at the time. I wanted my life to stay private. But that wasn’t going to happen. hits, nobody could predict the outcome. It all came down to the final drive. The 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, took the snap and threw a hard strike meant for Michael Crabtree. But Richard Sherman jumped up into the air, twisted like nobody’s business, and swatted the ball away.

Malcolm Smith grabbed the interception in the end zone and we had the ball. Everybody cheered like mad. The stadium shook. It all happened so fast, I needed to watch the play again on replay to see what happened.

It was true. The game was over. We won, 23-17. We were going to the Super Bowl. It was hard to process that thought. The Super Bowl.

I mean . . . THE SUPER BOWL! After the Denver Broncos won the AFC title

game over the New England Patriots and the final matchup was set, there was a two-week wait for the Super Bowl. And I found a lot could get packed into those two weeks.

I mentioned how I was getting a lot of mail around then. One letter came after the 49ers game from a 9-year-old girl named Riley Kovalcik. She and her twin sister, Erin, had seen my commercial, and with her dad’s permission, Riley had written to me.

Her dad sent me the letter. Both the girls are hearing-impaired, and Riley’s letter said in part, “I know how you feel. I also have hearing aids. Just try your best. I have faith in you. I love sports. Go Seattle Seahawks.”

She went on to talk about what we had in common. And I guess something about that little letter really stood out to me. I don’t know exactly what it was. She was encouraging me on, I guess.

I was telling her that anything could be done, even with a disability, and she was saying right back to me, Yep, you know it, Derrick. You can do anything if you put your mind to it.

It was a really busy time for us as a team.

Every day the Seahawks had meetings in the morning, then we had a walk-through, then lunch, then practice. One morning I had 10 minutes free, so I sat down in the players’ lounge and wrote Riley and Erin back. I didn’t do it to be public. They weren’t asking me for anything. It

JENNIFER BUCHANAN

12

You gotta realize that I didn’t even have a Twitter or Facebook account at the time. I wanted my life to stay private. But that wasn’t going to happen. Right after the Duracell ad blew up, I got a Twitter account so I could be with the fans who were reaching out. The first mistake I made with Twitter was asking Richard Sherman to give me a shout-out to get fans, because he was hot already. He tweeted something and my phone went berserk. I hadn’t yet turned off my e-mail notifications, and my phone died in just two minutes. I had 15,000 e-mails. It took me an hour to deactivate the notifications and get rid of all that.

Everybody started writing me. I mean everybody.

I responded to as many messages as I could, but I still wasn’t realizing how big this thing had gotten.

America took this commercial to another level.

Over the next week, the Duracell spot continued to go crazy. (As of the writing of this article, it’s been viewed more than 22 million times.)

People said they connected with it; it inspired them. The commercial talks about how I was picked on as a kid, how people gave up on me, how they told me I should just quit. It traced back to how I wasn’t picked for the NFL Draft, and how I was sure my dream was over. But the good news was that I wasn’t listening to that— know what I mean? I wasn’t listening because I was tuning out all that negative talk. Despite all those obstacles, I made it to the NFL anyway. I was even scoring touchdowns in the NFL. The fans in the NFL were cheering me on, and I could hear them all, loud and clear!

Because of that commercial, and because we’d gotten so far as a team, I started getting requests for interviews left and right. Right after the Saints game, I had four interviews—two at the facility, and two later on that evening at the hotel.

These were like a half-hour each. I wanted to go home and relax like I normally did, but those days were behind me. My agent coached me through it and told me to ride the wave. ABC’s Good Morning America called after that. People magazine. More interviews came. And I was just thinking, All right then, let’s do this.

My family were all proud of me—and a bit protective, too. We had people calling us from Florida saying they’d seen the commercial. From Washington. From the Northeast. From all over Los Angeles. It was bigger than we’d ever thought it would be. My mom and dad both advised me that when fame comes to a person, there are often people who come along with that fame, and sometimes not all of them have your best interests in mind, or they just want to use your fame for their own purposes. But my mom and dad helped me strike a good balance there, I’d say. It was a proud moment for us all.

The second round of playoffs, the NFC Championship game, was set for January 19. The winner of this game would go to the Super Bowl.

We were set to play the San Francisco 49ers, and it was that big rivalry again, the exact matchup that a lot of people wanted to see. In the history of us playing them, the teams were tied at 15 wins. Exactly matched. It was the ultimate showdown to see who’d go all the way.

That week the Seahawks were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Some people thought that would jinx us, but even as superstitious as I can sometimes be, I wasn’t letting that bother me. As a team we were in great shape. We had the Beast mentality, and we were going to drive as hard as we possibly could.

The game began, and the play itself was very intense, maybe the most intense I’ve ever been in.

It felt like we were back at Troy [High School] and playing against La Habra, our biggest rival, or when I was at UCLA and we played Arizona State my senior year. It was a dogfight right from the start. I had a good tackle right on kickoff, but it was hard after that for us to get much traction.

Russell got hit hard on the first play and the ball came loose. The 49ers recovered it on our 15-yard line. Play after play went like that, back and forth, and it didn’t take long before they were up 10-0. Wilson got sacked four times in the first half, and when we went into the locker room, it was a seven-point game.

I hate the idea of big suspense. For example, I love Christmas because it’s Jesus’ birthday, but I hate waiting to unwrap presents under the tree.

Man, the second half of that game was all about suspense. Marshawn got a strong run, which tied the game at 10-10. But the 49ers scored right after that to pull ahead again by seven. Russell connected with Jermaine Kearse to even the score.

Back and forth, back and forth, fumbles, hard

JEREMY DWYER-LINDGREN

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

Power Move » FROM PAGE 11

Coleman celebrates with Sherman and Smith after the 2014 NFC Championship.

was just to let them know they weren’t alone, and to encourage them to do great, too. After I sent my letter, their father, Jake, wrote me back and said, “You have no clue how much this means to them. I know you’re busy with #SuperBowl prep & truly appreciate the note!”

That’s all I ever thought would happen. It was just one of many notes that fans wrote to me during that season. But, man, I hadn’t realized yet how public this world is these days. Word of that small exchange got out, and the next thing you know it’s on Fox Sports, ABC News, Washington Post—the story just made the rounds.

Around the second day we were in New Jersey, my agent called and said that the twins who’d written to me were getting interviewed in a nearby hotel, and would I mind coming over and surprising them? Their family lives in New Jersey, so their house wasn’t far away. I said sure.

So I showed up. Their mom and dad were there, along with their younger brother, Aiden. They weren’t expecting me at all, and I popped around the corner and said hello and personally thanked the girls for their support. It was pretty cool to see the surprise in their eyes.

“Oh my gosh, are you real?” Erin said when she saw me. I invited them to the Super Bowl, along with their parents and little brother, and handed them tickets. They were pretty good tickets, too, not far from the field.

The girls were stunned. Picture Disneyland and Christmas all rolled into one. They were

both grinning, and I think they only said two words at first. “Really?” and “Seriously?” Then they hugged me and said thank you. I hugged them right back. It was a pretty cool moment all around, and it was hard not to get a tear in your eye. I think their dad was about to cry, too. We all talked a bit and we took some pictures and just hung out for a while. I wish them and their whole family well to this day.

Two days before the Super Bowl, my agent told me a story about a 10-year-old hearing-impaired boy named Jack Coleman, who was a huge fan and doing everything he could to find a Seahawks No. 40 jersey with “Coleman” on the back. So far, he couldn’t find one, since stores on the East Coast typically don’t stock as much material from teams on the West Coast, even if the players are in the Super Bowl. I guess Jack had been a die-hard New York Giants fan all his life, but when he saw my commercial, he’d switched his favorite team to the Hawks. So I thought that was pretty cool.

The owner of the Modell’s Sporting Goods chain contacted my agent and told him they could find the boy a jersey. So my agent asked me if I could stop by the Modell’s store in Times Square and meet the boy and give him his jersey in person.

I said sure. It took a while to get there because of traffic. This was Friday night in New York.

They were all waiting at the store—Jack, his parents, and younger sisters—and they’d been there a long time. I heard later that nobody had told the little boy what he was doing there—they wanted

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JEREMY DWYER-LINDGREN

it to be a big surprise. Anyway, when I got there, I crept up from around a corner and surprised them.

I still remember their faces when I appeared. Jack looked like he’d just seen Santa Claus.

My agent had tears in his eyes—and he never cries. The dad walked away and started crying. It was one of those moments where a dad is feeling something strong for his son. He knows his son is going to have some hard times in life, but maybe this bit of encouragement will help him get through some of them. I gave Jack a signed football that said, “Stay strong, stay cool, have

From No Excuses by Derrick Coleman Jr., with Marcus Brotherton. © 2015

by Derrick Coleman Jr. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books/Jeter Publishing. news@seattleweekly.com

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

JENNIFER BUCHANAN

Coleman shows Lynch some love after a fourth-quarter touchdown.

fun!!!” And a jersey with “Coleman” on the back.

Definitely a good moment.

Another evening right before the Super Bowl, I went to Gallaudet University, which is located in Washington, D.C., and is for deaf and hardof-hearing students. They’ve got a football program there, and I met with some of the students and hung out. A big ol’ lineman talked to me for a while, and told me that basically I’d opened the door for all of them. He was very thankful.

I didn’t quite know what to say—I don’t think about what I’ve done that way. Basically, I just wanted to play football, so I found a way to play.

But he was telling me that we needed to prove to people that hearing aids won’t hold anybody back. I tried to encourage him to keep on going, keep working hard, keep doing his thing.

The night before the Super Bowl game, I didn’t do anything big. Me and my friends from California grabbed dinner at this random Italian place near the hotel. I think the nerves were starting to hit a bit by then, because the whole week had been a blur of activity and meeting people and practicing and living in the moment.

I was trying not to think about the game much, but enjoying every second of this experience.

I remember well how my friend Derek put things into perspective. We were all sitting at the table and he said in my direction, “Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow’s game, you need to realize where you came from, who you started with, and what chances people gave you.

They gave you zero chances, and now you’ve succeeded. You’ve already won over everybody.

You’ve overcome all these obstacles, all the things that were said against you. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, you will always be the Derrick Coleman Jr. we know and love. The things you’ve done, we’re so proud of you. We knew that someday this would be your path in life.”

I was on the verge of tears when he said that.

Yeah, I was. Tomorrow was the biggest game of my life, but I knew that in the eyes of my friends nothing was going to change. That meant a lot to me. It sure did. E

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food&drink

Talking Chocolates

In Pioneer Square, two guys are making some of the best truffles in town and inspiring delicious conversation.

BY NICOLE SPRINKLE

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

14

JOANNA KRESGE

S

ometimes Mom really does know best.

Such was the case for Minnesota native Aaron Barthel, who earned a degree in ecology (with emphasis on botany) in 1999, but then jumped from job to job: He was a farmer for a time, a brewer, a baker. By 2001 his mother, worrying that he wasn’t using his degree to its fullest, bought him a subscription to The Herb Companion, a horticulture magazine.

“There was a recipe for orange mint truffles in it, and I thought ‘Hey, this looks pretty easy,’ ” Barthel recalls. He didn’t have orange mint, so he instead used habaneros he’d grown, thinking, well, Mexican chocolate is spicy. “Then I added nutmeg, vanilla, and rum,” he says. Barthel was “blown away” by how good his truffle was. His career path was finally set.

Anyone who walks into the 620-square-foot tasting room and retail shop that Barthel and his business partner Karl Mueller recently opened as Intrigue Chocolate can taste a version of that truffle, now called “Jamaican Hot Chocolate.”

Barthel’s postgraduate wandering was not a waste. He credits his former jobs with helping him better understand the play of ingredients in his chocolates, and they allow him to more easily partner with breweries, wineries, distilleries, and coffee shops, pairing chocolates with food and drink: the real philosophy of their business. “The brand is about conversation, not just chocolate,” he says. While you can drop in to buy a 12-piece pack of Intrigue’s current selections ($22) or a truffle bar (2½ ounces for $9), the tasting table aims to keep you in the shop on South Jackson for a bit, to open your mind—and your palate—to chocolate’s possibilities, much as you would sample fine wine.

It’s at that long, black tasting table, surrounded by lots of reclaimed wood in a pleasing mixture of gray, blonde, and brown shades, where patrons can experience the intriguing ingredients. It starts with the ganache: dark chocolate, fresh cream, little sugar, and no altered fats or preservatives—the latter of which means these truffles need to be refrigerated and eaten within a month. There’s also no chocolate shell, which would make them less perishable.

But that dovetails just fine with Intrigue’s seasonal approach; Barthel changes the operation’s 12 flavors every month, using ingredients of the moment.

The two now have 250 flavors under their belts, including port wine, lemon & pink peppercorn, pear liqueur & lavender, mint, Meyer lemon, stout beer, porcini mushroom, balsamic & fig, and hibiscus & cinnamon. At our first meeting a month ago, I relish a bite of basil truffle, among others; the infusion of herb tastes straight from the garden.

Barthel says the secret is to steep the ingredients in the cream, unlike the more common and inferior practice of imparting flavor by adding “flavorings,” such as mint extract instead of actual mint leaves.

“Cream fills up with fat and water solubles, which gives you the whole flavor profile,” he says.

Besides his own garden, Barthel gets fresh herbs and fruits from farmers markets and finds obscure spices at World Spice Merchants. In fact, I

Top: Seasonal 12-packs and bars. Bottom: Mueller and Barthel; in the shop.

was there last weekend telling my shopping companion about Intrigue when a staffer overheard and said, “I know those guys. They buy spices here.

They’re great.” I had been eyeing a glass container of mahlab, a Persian spice that comes from the seed inside a Mediterranean cherry pit and is about as costly as saffron.

I remembered trying Intrigue’s mahlab truffle.

A baking spice, it’s a beguiling alchemy of cherry, floral, and vanilla notes. As it melts on your tongue, which Barthel tells me is the only way to properly eat a truffle, you get a “sandalwood finish. But pair it with a red zinfandel, and it’ll pull out the lilac notes.” It takes a while to let a chocolate fully dissolve, and I, impatient by nature, want to just chomp into it. But after a few, I get it. If you eat too fast, you can’t savor the complexities.

And then there are all the liquor-based truffles.

Barthel says that in most alcoholic versions, the liquor doesn’t stand up to the chocolate. That’s why they use two shots per batch and choose stronger flavors. “Glenlivet is my favorite scotch, but it didn’t work in our scotch truffles. We had to switch to a more smoky, peaty scotch.” Ditto for their orange

and rum truffle. Grand Marnier is the standard go-to for orange-flavored chocolates, but Barthel feels it just doesn’t come through, so Intrigue uses real orange zest. Their commitment to pure ingredients is obvious upon tasting. Besides truffles, they’ll also sell hot chocolate, spice- and herb-infused honeys, and desserts like chocolate mousse.

Intrigue Chocolate may be new to this block, but they’ve been doing business since 2006 in a tiny production/retail space, still used to make the chocolates, on South Washington Street in Pioneer Square. A cluttered and aesthetically unappealing spot that looks like a cross between a shady accountant’s office and a place selling used kitchen appliances, it belies the sophistication of Intrigue’s product. It was from here that the partners sold their goods to places like Zoka Coffee and Zen Dog Tea House while hosting pairings with wineries in Woodinville and perfecting their truffles as they sought funding to open the new chocolate-tasting bar and retail shop.

It’s partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign, but Barthel and Mueller also received $20,150,

a match of their own money, from Community Sourced Capitol (CSC). The investment group has become increasingly popular with restaurant start-ups in Seattle; Mueller says they appreciated that the investors looked at the business’ financials and the demand for the product without delving into their personal finances as traditional banks do.

The proof was obviously in the product.

Intrigue is continuing to build a community of support within its new space. Customers can peruse an “art wall” of hundreds of subway tiles emblazoned with Instagram photos of Seattle, from landmarks to food. You can take home any one of your liking; Intrigue just asks that you make a “donation” to pay for a replacement. It’s a truly an interactive affair in keeping with their business philosophy.

Send a photo for a tile and you’ll get a credit—and of course some of that marvelous chocolate. E nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com

INTRIGUE CHOCOLATES 157 S. Jackson St. #104, 829-8810, intriguechocolate.com. 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Sat.–Sun.

Lighten up for Spring FoodNews

BY JASON PRICE

COURTESY HITCHCOCK DELI

When it comes to charcuterie in this town, few can match the culinary skills of Miles James. The former Dot’s Charcuterie chef/ owner took a much-needed break this past year to recharge, but he has now returned, soon to be chef at Hitchcock Deli on Bainbridge Island. Perhaps we’ll see the return of some Dot’s deliciousness on the menu?

Fans of Brandon Pettit’s pizza-pie paradise Delancey will be happy to learn he plans a new location on, you guessed it, Capitol Hill. Dino’s Tomato Pie, at the corner of Olive and Denny, will serve Sicilian-style pies baked in large, rectangular pans. You’ll be able to get takeout from a front window or sit in the back.

The target opening is sometime this fall.

W W W. S E AT T L E W E E K LY. C O M / S I G N U P

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SUSHI & GRINDZ 2207 1st Ave • BELLTOWN 206.956.9329 OHANABELLTOWN.COM

Chef Eric Donnelly and partner Christy Given are set to open FlintCreek Cattle Co. at 85th and Greenwood Avenue in the former home of Antika Furniture.

Seattle Met reports that the two target a fall opening for the meat-centric spot. But don’t expect another The Met or El Gaucho; the focus will be on lean proteins such as buffalo, lamb, venison, and bison.

Here’s to more meat in our lives and to a centerpiece restaurant in Greenwood—the next place to be in Seattle. Mark my words! E

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It’s about time Seattle got a good Greek restaurant that does more than throw the same garlic sauce on everything. At Omega Ouzeri on Capitol Hill, the Greek culinary lexicon is greatly expanded and given a more current spin a la small plates. Last week I sampled several dishes, but one of my favorites was a special: three hefty, sautéed tail-on Gulf shrimp served on a bed of taramasalata, a Greek condiment made of cod roe mixed with bread crumbs, lemon juice, and olive oil. Creamy and briny, it enlivens the milder-tasting shrimp. To make it even more springlike, it’s served with a slaw of onions and fennel. Tiny pieces of fried potato throughout bring crunch, and triangles of pita bread allow you to sop up every last mouthful of the taramasalata. If it’s not on the menu when you go, you can’t go wrong with the kolokithofkeftedes: zucchini fritters with feta, mint, and scallions, served over a garlic aioli. E

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How I-1183 Failed to Make Drinks Cheaper

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hree and a half years after Washington voters overwhelmingly backed a proposal, Initiative 1183, to privatize liquor sales in the state, it’s clear that the winners have been large retail outlets and the distributors who supply them— they now have a stake in a sizable market that was closed to them. Similarly, the state has actually done just fine, maintaining if not expanding its tax revenue while no longer having to pay thousands of liquor-store employees.

Really, it’s just us, average citizens, who have suffered. Washington now boasts the nation’s highest liquor tax, and while competiBY ZACH GEBALLE tion was supposed to drive prices down, it sure hasn’t yet.

Basically we’re paying a hefty premium to be able to buy vodka more places more hours of the day.

Though it’s not all doom and gloom. One positive effect of I-1183 has been to expand the range of spirits that bars throughout the state can stock, and while that might not help keep prices in check, it has made our bar scene more vibrant.

Instead of the state being solely responsible for deciding which liquors to bring to Washington, distributors, both big and small, now are—which much improves the selection, especially for relatively obscure spirits like mezcal.

“After dealing with the state in a niche-spirits bar, privatization has been much better,” says Casey Robison, bar manager at Capitol Hill’s Barrio. “I wish we had understood the actual cost of passing 1183, but my job has gotten a lot better since.”

As I wrote in “How Craft Cocktails Are Robbing You” (April 14), cocktail prices have risen significantly in Seattle. In some circles, I-1183 is being scapegoated for that—except that “prices for on-premise places [bars and restaurants] didn’t go up significantly,” according to Erik Hakkinen, bar manager at ZigZag Cafe—“maybe 5 to 10 percent since 2011.” In fact, because private distributors are able and willing to make deals, buyers like Hakkinen actually have far more power than under the previous system, where they were subjected to the whims of the Liquor Control Board.

So what’s to blame for the price jumps? That’s a complicated question, but you don’t need to look much further than the stretch of 12th Avenue that Barrio sits on. The face of Capitol Hill (and Ballard, Fremont, and even Downtown) has changed massively in the past few years, with high-rise buildings sprouting like mushrooms and a more monied clientele seeking great drinks. Even if I-1183 didn’t bump up prices for bars as it did for retail consumers, rent and labor costs have pressured prices upward—which the minimum-wage increase is accelerating. All that can add a quarter here and a dollar there to the price of your drink.

Expensive cocktails are here to stay, and expensive liquor seems to be too. “We’re going to see the market start bearing more costly things,” Robison predicts. “There will be more people willing to buy $12–$14 cocktails.” As we extol the virtues of Seattle as a world-class food city, it’s worth remembering that world-class also usually means damn pricey. E

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A Movable Festival

The Black Box arts fest can be hard to find, much less define, but that may be part of its diffuse potential in a changing marketplace.

BY BRIAN MILLER

T

Fear, by Rice and Park, has been relocated to the Hub.

installations are displayed within steel shipping containers, an appropriate emblem of what Fryett intends to be a growing, ongoing, and portable exhibition series. “I think the festival will always be spread out,” she says of future years. “We want to have it in as many locations as possible. The festival and Aktionsart in general are designed to be nomadic. And that way it remains flexible. It’s important for the festival to be super-adaptable.”

One welcome exception is local artist Tivon Rice’s light and sound installation Fear, made in conjunction with L.A.’s Hannah Sang-hee Park. I first saw it in a shipping container outside the SIFF Film Center at Seattle Center (in the courtyard by the DuPen Fountain), but it’s since been relocated to the Hub, where one can also appreciate Park’s hushed spoken-word texts.

Much of what I’ve seen among Black Box’s half-dozen locations will be swapped out by the time you read this, so there’s little point to describing it. At the Hub, I did like Jonathan Monaghan’s computer-animated Escape Pod (possibly ongoing), which is like a seamless GQ tour through the luxuriously well-appointed lair of a James Bond villain.

Video art can tend toward a certain sameness of experience; if you watch too many of them on the same small screen(s), they blur together.

Black Box’s largest screen, apart from SAM’s Plestcheeff Auditorium, is within Cornish’s Raisbeck Performance Hall. The rest are mainly monitor-size, lacking the grandeur of, say, SAAM’s current wall-filling Takaamanohara video by Chiho Aoshima. Watch any of Black Box’s online-only offerings, and they seem even more diminished. And that speaks to the limitation of home viewing in general: It eats away at the aura of art experienced in a gallery or museum. It’s not separate. It’s not special. It’s just another form of channel surfing—TV, in other words.

Still, I like the experience and potential of shipping-container exhibition spaces, their shoebox-like layout (if not scale), and the notion that they can be carted and opened almost anywhere in the city—like a food truck, almost. Black Box had to temporarily remove its containers from Seattle Center during Folklife, which seems a missed opportunity. Bumbershoot manages to make room for visual arts (including videos); and sometimes it’s useful to force engagement with festivalgoers otherwise expecting music or hemp or food.

The problem for Black Box, however, is that it can’t simply dump containers in parks and expect people to appreciate the art. (CoCA’s summer Heaven & Earth show in Carkeek Park inevitably suffers vandalism.) Hence the need for gallery attendants, and hence the limitation on hours.

A permanent arts space requires the permanent costs of rent, upkeep, and staff. Black Box, with its borrowed venues and short duration, fits neatly— for now, at least—into the margins of a booming city. Whether its busy citizenry has time for art is a question that Black Box certainly engages, but can’t be expected to solve on its own. E

bmiller@seattleweekly.com

BLACK BOX 2.0 201 Westlake Ave. N., Seattle Center, Cornish College, Olympic Sculpture Park, and other locations. See blackboxfestival.org for schedule, venues, hours, and free passes. Ends June 7.

Kylee Kitchens and Seth Orza in Carmina Burana.

FRIDAY, MAY 29

Carmina Burana

Pacific Northwest Ballet opens its last rep performances of the season with former director Kent Stowell’s massive Carmina Burana and Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH. Carmina is as big as its massive score—a work full of men and women rushing at one another, spring on their minds (and ours). Ratmansky’s ensemble work to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto no. 2 is a more playful work, with its cast looking like a box full of toys strewn across the stage. The season finale means farewell performances from some of the ensemble, most notably company star Carla Körbes. (Through June 7.) McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 441-2424, pnb.org. $30–$184. 7:30 p.m.

SANDRA KURTZ

Everything Is Terrible!

The format to this curated mashup of old video oddities will self-select its audience. (Strong drinks also help.) The Legends tour is a package of EIT!’s greatest hits, featuring failed children’s shows, ’80s infomercials, workout videos, and PSAs from the past. And of course there will be the cat-massage lady—along with many, many pet-related clips—who became a viral sensation and even appeared on the Letterman show because of her EIT! fame. Though the Web makes this pastiche approach possible, EIT! really reaches back to the pre-Internet era: What’s being mocked here also evokes a feeling of nostalgia for VHS-era ads and detritus.

Once only a few networks sanctioned what we watched in childhood, lying on our stomachs on the living-room carpet. But EIT!, which bills itself as a collective, instead celebrates the dimly remembered ephemera from the predigital past: bad hair, garish leotards, desperate pitchmen, late-night evangelists, unfunny comics, and the televised dreck that we continued to watch because, well, the TV was on. Tonight’s

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

Fryett’s adaptable motto applies to its temporary home, which she found by happenstance. “I just walked by” last fall, she recalls, noticed the white DPD sign, and called the owner—who swiftly agreed to donate the space. the Hub may keep going after Black Box, she says. “Hopefully I’ll continue to program this space through the summer and maybe into the fall. I’d eventually like to have a dedicated space some day.”

For now, the Hub enjoys a terrific location (if limited hours), just up Westlake from the MadArt studio/exhibition space, where John Grade’s Middle Fork was recently created by volunteers and visitors. “It’s growing and changing,” says Fryett. “There’s a lot of foot traffic. ” SLU does have a few established galleries left (like Winston Wächter) and numerous pop-ups (e.g., the city’s Seattle Storefronts program). Vulcan and other landlords can provide short-term gallery spaces while waiting for their building permits.

Yet, as with Seattle’s apartment market, rents for long-term arts venues are rapidly rising out of sight. The Black Box website, which runs a month beyond the fest (until July 8), is one way to remain visible, Fryett explains. Still, if you missed a video in one of the shipping containers, “Most of the works that are in the physical venues are not online,” she says. (To be fair, the same is true of a film or video you might see at the Henry or Frye.)

BRIAN MILLER

he culture industry usually works like this: buy a ticket, stand in line, spend a few hours in appreciation, discuss with friends over coffee or drinks afterward. But since millennials aren’t exactly packing museums, opera halls, and traditional theaters these days, and since busy tech workers rarely have time to make a gallery opening or rising curtain, the challenge for arts mavens is to adjust their schedules and accommodate the needs of prospective new eyeballs. Journalists, too, are struggling to reach the same demo raised on Xbox and iPhone. Museum hours, like set movie start times, can seem an annoying imposition to such younger folk, an anachronism.

Computer games, after all, start whenever you like, and you can play them on the bus or a park bench. These cord-cutters are accustomed to streaming TV and movies whenever and wherever they want.

At the same time, however, some of us still like a fixed schedule and defined place for culture consumption—that’s what makes it special, separate from our harried daily routine, like a secular church. It’s not hard to find Seattle Art Museum or McCaw Hall; and the pre-movie routine at SIFF or the Seven Gables has a certain reassuring pattern: parking, popcorn, turning off the phone, watching the trailers. You come to the art, rather than having it come to you. Black Box 2.0 raises, and perhaps challenges, such notions of place, time, and spectatorship. It’s a distributed, amorphously defined affair, billed as an “art, film, and technology festival,” which opened on May 7.

Says Julia Fryett of its nonprofit parent Aktionsart, “The technology does draw people in in a way, and that gets people interested in the art. The more access people have, the more they’ll see. There are so many people working in tech.”

And Black Box certainly has a central location, dubbed the Hub, right in the heart of Seattle’s technology district. There in Amazonland a big garage door rolls up on a doomed former onestory school building—“It’s gonna be condos,” says Fryett—to reveal video monitors playing on continuous loop. The programming changes almost weekly, meaning that passersby can regularly see new works on their lunch breaks.

Nearby, Black Box is operating two venues at Cornish College, and the Hub is also open late on Thursdays to accommodate the after-work crowd. (Anne Couillaud co-curated the festival with Fryett.)

“Last year, it was a much smaller program,” says Fryett—Black Box 1.0 was basically a sidebar of shorts during SIFF. This year’s fest runs a week longer with a half-dozen locations. “It’s definitely more expansive,” says Fryett. “We’re going to have over 70 artists, including online.”

About 45 artists, some local, are having their works rotate at venues also including the Seattle Art Museum and Seattle Center. At the latter, and in a Ballard location, videos and new-media

ThisWeek’s PickList

© ANGELA STERLING

arts&culture

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 17

arts&culture» at On the Boards last month. Manuel Vignoulle started his career in France and later danced for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Both will debut new works along with Wevers’ own contribution. We’ll learn their titles tonight. (Through Sunday.) Cornish Playhouse 201 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), brownpapertickets.com. $15–$30. 8 p.m. SANDRA KURTZ MONDAY, JUNE 1

Silent Movie Mondays

Douglas Fairbanks (1883–1939) was the preeminent action star of the silent era: Imagine Dwayne Johnson, Tom Cruise, and Robert Downey, Jr. all rolled into one charismatic, acrobatic performer. Remember when the running, leaping French sports phenomenon of parkour was a new thing at the movies? Fairbanks did that 100 years earlier, always with a good-natured smile. He shows his athletic skills to fine effect in 1920’s action-packed The Mark of Zorro, in which our masked, daring hero fights the evil Spanish overlords then ruling colonial-era California. His Robin Hood-style populism had great resonance at the box office during the Roaring ’20s, when the income tax was new and what we now call income inequality was at record levels (since surpassed). Following in the series, which runs through June 22, are My Best Girl (starring Mary Pickford, Fairbanks’ equally famous wife), The Unholy Three (a crime/suspense flick starring Lon Chaney), and the venerable fairy tale Snow White. Walt Strony provides live accompaniment tonight on the Wurlitzer organ, with other musicians rotating through the four vintage features.

Paramount, 911 Pine St., 877-7844849, stgpresents. org. $36–$51. 8 p.m.

GAVIN BORCHERT

» FROM PAGE 17 show will incorporate audience suggestions à la those Choose Your Own Adventure books—only here you’ll be flipping through pixels instead of pages. Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684,

central-cinema.com. $12. 7 & 9:30 p.m. (Repeats Sat.) BRIAN MILLER

The Kids in the Hall

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

18

Choreographer Olivier Wevers has recognized from the beginning that one way to insure variety for his Whim W’him company is to share the stage—he’s never wanted it to be a one-choreographer show. For this program, called X-POSED, he’s invited a pair of artists to make new work, one from this area code and one from much further away. Kate Wallich is having her moment in Seattle dance coming on the tail of her evening

The Paramount. $10. 7 p.m. BRIAN MILLER TUESDAY, JUNE 2

Hampton Sides

Wevers’ dancers in rehearsal.

BAMBERG FINE ART

Though Phil Hartman, at least, always made Saturday Night Live worth watching through the early ’90s, the real kings of TV sketch comedy in those years were this Toronto quintet.

Two things kept their half-hour show fresh: the total lack of lazy pop-culture sendups, and their handling of women. They were comic actors playing female roles, not guys in drag for a laugh. (They rarely even fell back on Canada jokes, as SCTV had been prone to do.) Despite an approach no one since has attempted to duplicate—careening from character-driven

Whim W’him

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A polar explorer and his ship get stuck in the ice . . . but no, we’re not talking about Ernest Shackleton. Instead, Sides has written an account of U.S. Naval Capt. George Washington De Long, who sailed past these waters en route from San Francisco to the Bering Sea in 1879. Never heard of him? Between the San Francisco gold

UNITED ARTISTS

DAVID HAWE

Clockwise from left: Kevin McDonald, Scott Thompson, Mark McKinney, Dave Foley, and Bruce McCulloch.

scenes (the two archetypal office workers “Kathy With a K” and “Cathy With a C”) to non sequiturs (“Thirty Helens Agree”)— their show became influential. Today, The Kids’ funniest descendants have kept the character studies while replacing the free-floating surrealism with commentary, whether racial (Key & Peele), sexual (Inside Amy Schumer), or urban-cultural (Portlandia). The

rush of 1849 and the Klondike gold rush of 1896, De Long was briefly a front-page celebrity. His expedition was bankrolled by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett to sell newspapers. (He’d had the same idea previously, sending Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone.)

New in paperback (Anchor Books, $16.95), In the Kingdom of Ice relates how the ill-prepared U.S.S. Jeannette sailed north in a bid to reach the pole some three decades before the Cook/ Peary contest—a time still gripped by notions of a Northwest Passage and a warm polar paradise at the top of the globe. By 1881, De Long and his 32-man crew were cruelly disabused of that belief. The Jeannette was crushed and sank, leaving the party to improvise sleds and haul their gear some 1,000 miles west to Siberia. Only 13 men survived. (De Long was no Shackleton.) And today, of course, Sides notes the irony that global warming has opened the Northwest Passage that beckoned so many to their deaths. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhallseattle.org. $5. 7:30 p.m.

BRIAN MILLER E

»performance

Opening Nights

PMud NEW CITY THEATER, 1406 18TH AVE., 271- 4430, NEWCITYTHEATER.ORG. $15–$20. 8 P.M. THURS.– SAT. PLUS MON., JUNE 8. ENDS JUNE 13.

CONCERTO DSCH

E W A !” “ G N I R I P S IN

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

ERIK STUHAUG

Decades ago, in addition to showy performance programs, figure skaters demonstrated their fine skills for the judges through “compulsory Jeeves Intervenes TAPROOT THEATRE, 204 N. 85TH ST., figures,” exactingly precise bladework and posi781-9707, TAPROOTTHEATRE.ORG. $20–$40. tional exercises that had to be seen at close range.

7:30 P.M. WED.–THURS., 8 P.M. FRI., Watching this captivating production of María 2 & 8 P.M. SAT. ENDS JUNE 13.

Irene Fornés’ 1983 Mud recalls those perfections attainable on a small scale, intimately observed.

The funniest joke in Taproot’s Jeeves Intervenes, Margaret Raether’s mosaic of choice bits from P.G. Only 20 lucky people get to see Mud each night, seated in an L around the small cabin set Wodehouse’s Bertie-and-Jeeves novels and short (co-designed by Nina Moser and director John stories, concerns the way one character’s name is Kazanjian) encubed in gossamer fabric. This pronounced. (I won’t spoil the surprise.) A joke so delicate shelter cocoons the play’s impoverished airy and subtle it’s not apparent on the page, only central character Mae (infinitely expressive Mary as spoken—that’s Wodehouse’s method: maxiEwald), her socially inferior ex-lover Lloyd (Tim mum comic effect with minimum visible labor.

Gouran), and her new paramour, the slightly He even instilled this attitude in his immortal odd more worldly Henry (George Catalano). In 17 couple: Bertie Wooster, the original upper-class short scenes (totaling 65 minutes), three superb twit, abhorrer of effort in any sphere, especially performers stream meticulous craft, up close and mental; and Jeeves, his gentleman’s gentleman and personal. Instead of a plot- or character-driven perennial ass-saver, paragon of decorum. story, we see an affecting, tonally wide-ranging series of tableaux vivants that chronicle the indignities and desires of people living on the edge of subsistence.

Known for her Beckett roles, Ewald played Hamlet last year to considerable acclaim. Her facial plasticity lends Mae intelligence and a comedic quality.

Even when stuck between the two male baboons in her cage (asking no one in particular, “Can’t I have a decent life?”), humor balances the not-insignificant situational pathos. Lindsay Smith’s beautiful lighting gives the tableaux a photographic quality, each scene ending with a white spotlight effect that intensifies like a memorializing flashbulb. I’d like to see Mud again to look for a strategic pattern in this luminous punctuation. Well-modHampton and Roby ulated interludes of Bach as unsuspected chamber music ennoble paramours. what could otherwise feel like spoofing of these luckless characters.

With all these models to emulate, why does the Now about those baboons. Mae may be cast—except for Chris Ensweiler’s unflappable ascending a rung on the social ladder from Lloyd Jeeves—put so much muscle and sweat into the to Henry, but both men treat her like an animal: show? Of course comedy is hard work, but should Lloyd from the get-go tries to use her for sexual we see it, especially in Wodehouse? All the strenupurposes (failing her, he enlists the household pig ousness here is on the surface: frenetic gesturing, Betsy); Henry’s courtesies meanwhile crumble mugging, and blocking, and laugh line after laugh when he gets injured in an accident. Lloyd line not trusted to land on its own, but somehow prances with schadenfreude at Henry’s and Mae’s goosed or tweaked. The cast’s unflagging energy misfortunes—a swell use of Gouran’s powerful is admirable, but a more sophisticated or stylish exuberance. Catalano persuasively sells Henry’s take on the material would make Raether’s spruce transition from beguiler to besmircher, working script truly delectable. The one scene in which his physical handicap to an equilibrium of the passion breaks through the characters’ upper-crust pitiful and the grotesque. crust, and thus where a knockabout approach This is an amazing little masterwork, rich really pays off, is (Bertie’s pal) Eustace and (Berwith acting talent and production ingenuity. Go tie’s would-be fiancée) Gertrude’s discovery of grab one of those precious 20 seats. MARGARET their mutual attraction. David Roby and Melanie Hampton let loose here and earn laughs fully FRIEDMAN E equal to their exertion. GAVIN BORCHERT stage@seattleweekly.com

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arts&culture» performance & literary Stage OPENINGS & EVENTS

BOYS’ LIFE In Howard Korder’s play, three college

friends navigate their 20s. Penthouse Theatre, N.E. 45th St. & 17th Ave. N.E., UW campus, 543-4880, drama.uw.edu. $10–$20. Previews May 27–28, opens May 29. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends June 7.

CIRQUE DU 5TH Jenifer Lewis (Ruby from Black-ish) hosts the 5th’s circus-themed fundraising gala. 5th Avenue Theatre, 260-2159, 5thavenue.org. $500 and up. 5:30 p.m. Fri., May 29.

FOUR DOGS AND A BONE John Patrick Shanley’s dark satire of the ugly business of making movies.

2125 Third Ave., 324-5801, schmeater.org. $22–$25.

Opens May 29. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. Ends June 27.

THE KIDS IN THE HALL SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 18.

STORIES FROM CHINATOWN Asian-American theater is explored through site-specific performances, a panel discussion, and more. Begins at New Hong Kong Restaurant, 900 S. Jackson St. #203, brownpapertickets. com. $20–$42. 11:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Sat., May 30.

•

CURRENT RUNS

ANGRY HOUSEWIVES Watching this revival of the

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

•

20

Author Events

• UW BANDS Music by UW composition faculty past

and present: Huck Hodge and William O. Smith.

Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington. edu. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY Mozart, and a suite by Tchaikovsky inspired by him. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org. $20–$120. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28, 8 p.m. Sat., May 30, 2 p.m. Sun., May 31.

INVERTED SPACE UW’s new-music group plays Maderna’s Lorca-based opera Don Perlimplin. Meany Studio Theater, UW campus, 543-4880, music. washington.edu. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m. Fri., May 29.

TRIO ANDROMEDA A performance by this UW student piano trio. Brechemin Auditorium, School of Music, UW campus, 685-8384, music.washington.edu. $5. 7:30 p.m. Sat., May 30.

The two • BOB SANTOS AND LARRY GOSSETT The Gang of Four:

American music. Seattle First Presbyterian Church, 1013 Eighth Ave., 800-838-3006, northwestgirlchoir.org. $10–$20. 2:30 p.m. Sat., May 30.

BAINBRIDGE SYMPHONY Strauss’ catchy Horn Concerto no. 1, plus Debussy, Gershwin, and Wagner.

Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., 8428569, bainbridgeperformingarts.org. $16–$19. 7:30 p.m.

Sat., May 30, 3 p.m. Sun., May 31.

SEATTLE PEACE CHORUS Rachmaninoff’s popular Vespers. St. Benedict Catholic Church, 1805 N. 49th St, 800-838-3006, seattlepeacechorus.org. $18–$25.

7:30 p.m. Sat., May 30, 7 p.m. Sun., May 31.

MOSTLY NORDIC Music + smorgasbord: Icelandic music for violin and guitar. Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 N.W. 67th St., 789-5707, nordicmuseum.org. $47– $55 (concert only $22–$27). 4 p.m. Sun., May 31.

UW JAZZ Standards and originals from the Studio Jazz Ensemble and Modern Band. Meany Studio Theater, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington.edu. $10– $15. 7:30 p.m. Mon., June 1.

SSO YOUNG COMPOSERS WORKSHOP Premieres of works by students of Huck Hodge. Benaroya Hall, Third Ave. & Union St., 215-4747, seattlesymphony.org.

Free. 7:30 p.m. Mon., June 1.

UW GOSPEL CHOIR 100 voices strong. Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington.edu. $10– $15. 7:30 p.m. Mon., June 1.

SALISH SEA EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL Chamber music c. 1800 for flute and strings. Christ Episcopal Church, 4548 Brooklyn Ave. N.E., 633-1611, salishsea festival.org. $15–$25. 7:30 p.m. Mon., June 1.

UW CHOIRS The University Singers, Women’s Choir, and Men’s Glee Club. Meany Hall, UW campus, 5434880, music.washington.edu. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m. Tues., June 2.

UW CAMPUS PHILHARMONIA Tigran Arakelyan conducts Faure, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky (his Romeo and Juliet overture). Husky Union Bldg., UW campus. Free. 7:30 p.m. Tues., June 2.

longtime Seattle activists discuss Four Communities, Four Leaders, One Friendship.

Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com. 7 p.m. Wed., May 27. (Also at Third Place Books, 6:30 p.m. Sat., May 30.)

ALEKSANDAR HEMON Author of The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, The Lazarus Project, Love and Obstacles, and The Book of My Lives, he reads from The Making of Zombie Wars. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m.

Thurs., May 28.

TASO G. LAGOS The UW expert provides a look at the crisis in Greece from an insider’s perspective in 86 Days in Greece. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, bookstore.washington.edu. 6:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28.

RICHARD THALER He’s president of the American Economic Association and author of the new Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics.

Tonight he’ll chat with Nathan Myhrvold, the ex-Microsoft tycoon and co-founder of Intellectual Ventures.

Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhallseattle.org. $5. 6:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28.

STACEY WAKEFIELD AND ASH THAYER The two novelists discuss their latest works, The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory and Kill City, respectively. Left Bank Books, 92 Pike St., 622-0195, leftbankbooks. com. 7:30 p.m. Thurs., May 28.

JEROME GOLD He reads from In the Spider’s Web: a Nonfiction Novel and The Divers and Other Mysteries of Seattle. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Fri., May 29.

JAMIE TWORKOWSKI The founder of the nonprofit movement To Write Love on Her Arms discusses If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For. University Book Store, 7 p.m. Fri., May 29.

MARTHA M. ERTMAN The law professor raised her son as one of three gay parents, as related in Love’s Promises: How Formal and Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families. University Book Store, 6 p.m.

Sat., May 30.

LORI HORVITZ AND CAROL GUESS Horvitz shares from her memoir The Girls of Usually. WWU professor Guess discusses Darling Endangered and How to Feel Confident with Your Special Talents. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m.

Sat., May 30.

COLIN COTTERILL Six and a Half Deadly Sins is the tenth installment to his Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery series.

Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 3663333, thirdplacebooks.com. 7 p.m. Mon., June 1.

COLIN DUECK The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today is the latest from the George Mason University professor and foreign policy analyst. Town Hall, $5. 6:30 p.m. Mon., June 1.

BRIDGET FOLEY The Seattle screenwriter presents her debut novel, Hugo & Rose. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Mon., June 1.

ELIZABETH GEORGE The Edge of the Shadows is the third in a YA series about Becca King, a Whidbey Island teen. Third Place, 7 p.m. Tues., June 1.

JARED STONE He chronicles the experience of cooking and eating his way through an entire grassfed cow (not in one sitting) to appreciate and understand where his food comes from. The book? Year of the Cow. University Book Store, 7 p.m. Mon., June 1.

THE MOTH Tonight’s theme to this storytelling series is “Fish Out of Water,” surely a universal sensation to all people at one or more points in their lives. Exploring that notion of discomfort will be Oregon artist Cybele Abbett, Alaska writer Pam Flowers (Alone Across The Arctic: One Woman’s Epic Journey by Dog Team), the Berkeley-based Adam Mansbach (of Go the Fuck to Sleep fame), Portland stage artist Vin Shambry, and L.A.’s Cole Kazdin (a contributor to NPR and The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column). Stand-up comic Ophira Eisenberg hosts this Seattle Arts & Lectures event. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., 621-2230, lectures.org. $10-$50. 7:30 p.m. Tues., June 2.

DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ Balm is a new historical fiction novel that takes place immediately following the Civil War. Elliott Bay, 7 p.m. Tues., June 2.

LUCHA CASTRO The lawyer and activist provides a graphic narrative of Chihuahua, Mexico in La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Mexican Human Rights. Sole Repair, 1001 E. Pike St., 226-2010, solerepairshop.com. 5:30 p.m. Wed., June 3. (Also at El Centro de la Raza, 6 p.m. Thurs., June 4.)

B Y G AV I N B O R C H E R T

BY D IA NA M . LE

•

CHAMBER • SEATTLE METROPOLITAN Schubert’s zippy Third is just the kind ORCHESTRA

of symphony you’d guess an 18-year-old boy would write. Also, violinist Quinton Morris plays a Mozart concerto. Chapel Performance Space, 4149 Sunnyside Ave. N., seattlemetropolitanchamberorchestra.com. $10–$15. 8 p.m. Fri., May 29.

JEEVES INTERVENES

SEE REVIEW, PAGE 19.

• MUD SEE REVIEW, PAGE 19.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG Princess

Minerva learns how the other half lives (in a swamp, for one thing) in this fable. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 4400 86th Ave. S.E., Mercer Island, 232-4145 x109, youththeatre.org. $13–$15. 7 p.m. Fri., 2 p.m. Sat.–Sun. Ends May 31.

• TALLEY’S FOLLY

When it comes to 31-year-old WASP “spinster” Sally Talley (Rebecca Olson), 42-year-old Jewish bachelor accountant Matt Friedman (Mike Dooly) has nothing to lose. Is Matt a stalker or a romantic? Since the setting for Lanford Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning 1979 dramedy is small-town Missouri in 1944, let’s go with the latter. With Dooly going full-tilt on loopy charm, including crackerjack character imitations, the thwarting falls thanklessly to Olson during the first half of the 97-minute mating dance. (Modern women might say the Matts of this world are why the restraining order was invented.) Self-hating people like Sally instantly lose respect for anyone who likes them, so we share Matt’s frustration with her. But he has no boundaries and can’t take no for an answer, which raises the stalker-or-romantic question. When Sally’s ice finally starts to melt, it becomes fun to watch her resist her own climate change. But still the flip side of the question lingers: Are we watching love or battle fatigue? Shana Bestock directs these heartfelt hostilities. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $5–$32. 7:30 p.m.

Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. EXTENDED through June 7.

TEATRO ZINZANNI: THE HOT SPOT Frank Ferrante and Dreya Weber return for TZ’s new show, in which “love and magic in the digital age collide.” Teatro ZinZanni, 222 Mercer St., 802-0015. $99 and up. Runs Thurs.–Sun. plus some Wed.; see zinzanni.com/seattle for exact schedule. Ends June 7.

Dance

• PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 17.

• WHIM W’HIM SEE THE PICK LIST, PAGE 18.

Classical, Etc.

UW PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE With the UW Steel

Drum Ensemble too! Meany Studio Theater, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington.edu. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m. Wed., May 27.

UW CHOIRS The Chamber Singers and University Chorale perform. Meany Hall, UW campus, 543-4880, music.washington.edu. $10–$15. 7:30 p.m. Wed., May 27.

PAUL BESTOCK

long-running ’80s musical, created by A.M. Collins and Chad Henry (see our recent interview), I experienced an intense wave of Reagan-era nostalgia.

Whatever the show’s original punk-feminist spirit, today it provides simple and almost wholesome entertainment, like riding the Duck. Widowed Carol (Ann Cornelius), divorced music teacher Bev (Heather Hawkins), unhappily married Jetta (Chelsea LeValley), and single bridge operator Wendi (Janet McWilliams) decide that forming a band will be more profitable than hawking pyramid-scheme cosmetics. From there we witness how adapting punk personas creates both empowerment (for them) and disapproval (from their men). Ably directed by Shawn Belyea, the entire cast provides potent performances—including the signature tune “Eat Your Fucking Cornflakes.” Though billed as a punk-rock musical, Angry Housewives features a mostly traditional score, plus some choreography (by Troy Wageman) that wouldn’t look out of place on Broadway during the ’30s. Dennis Culpepper’s set is strewn with handbills that evoke the pre-Internet era of band promotion. Also lending to the nostalgia is the heroines’ determination to “make vinyl.” Somehow mp3s and Instagram just aren’t as punk. ALYSSA DYKSTERHOUSE ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. $17–$36.50. 7:30 p.m. Wed.– Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. EXTENDED through May 31.

CABARET Billie Wildrick brings a very British dash to her Sally Bowles, adding hints of Auntie Mame and Eliza Doolittle to her ability to play both flamboyance and anguish and to sell a song—which climaxes just where it should, in her 11 o’clock number, the title tune. Yet the rest of the cast is strong enough never to risk being drowned out. As Cliff, the writer who falls for her, Brian David Earp is impressively solid in a part that gives him little more to do than react to the madness around him. Anne Allgood is powerful, without caricature, as their landlady, Fräulein Schneider, and Peter Crook’s Herr Schultz downplays the threat of the Third Reich heartbreakingly. Matthew Smucker’s decoratively cluttered set is ingenious and eye-filling, and the pit band, under Tim Symons’ direction, is the most stirring I’ve heard at VT. All the ingredients are there, but the show nevertheless lacks atmosphere— a sense of gathering doom. This is a PG-13 show. If you’ve been looking for a Cabaret to which you can take the kids, you’re in luck. GAVIN BORCHERT Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N. (Issaquah), 425-392-2202. $35-$67. Runs through July 3; see villagetheatre.org for schedule. (Moves to Everett July 10–Aug. 2.)

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR Lillian Hellman’s period piece form the bad old days when a rumor of lesbianism could end careers and lives. The Ballard Underground, 4240 N.W. Market St., 425-298‐3852. $12–$40. 7:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. plus some Tues., Thurs., & Sun; see arouet.us for exact schedule. Ends May 31.

DON NORDO DEL MIDWEST Food is the focus of Café Nordo’s absurdist, comedic storylines. Actors and musicians interact and play among the audience.

During the show, dinner itself becomes a kind of character. Then there’s the play: After getting fired from an “agreeably dull” steakhouse because he tried to invigorate the menu, Don Nordo sets out to hire his own sous chef, posting an ad at the local Red Lobster.

(Nordo names the applicant Sancho, of course.)

Wearing upside-down colanders on their heads like helmets, the two set out on a series of food-inspired adventures that in the show’s first half seem designed mostly to set up jokes about our rabid foodie cul-

ture—territory that Portlandia has already thoroughly mined, and that feels somewhat trite. During these adventures, the witty, stylistic integration of the food into the performance takes it out of straightforward dinner-theater territory. Yet almost all of the nine courses of “Midwestern Tapas” are, in fact, bland.

Even as Sancho and the Don’s relationship gains heft, lifting it out of mere allusions to Don Quixote, the food disappoints. “The proof is in the pudding,” says the narrator at the end of the show. Given the state of the meal, that line becomes truly double-edged.

NICOLE SPRINKLE Nordo’s Culinarium, 109 S. Main St., cafenordo.com. $75 ($100 w/wine flight). 7:30 p.m.

Thurs. & Sun., 8 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends May 31.

FLAMINGO The Can Can’s all-new tropical themed cabaret. Can Can, Pike Place Market, 877-280-7831. $30–$85. Runs Wed.–Sun.; see thecancan.com for exact schedule. Ends Oct. 11.

14/48: MIXTAPE Favorite short plays from the instanttheater festival’s 17 years, in four batches of seven each. 12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., the1448 projects.org. $20–$25. 8 & 10:30 p.m. Fri.–Sat. Ends May 30.

HOT TIN STREETCAR Unexpected Productions’ improvised Tennessee Williams sendup.

Market Theater, 1428 Olson and Dooly Post Alley, 587-2414, in SPT’s unexpectedproducTalley’s Folly. tions.org. $10. 8:30 p.m.

Sun. Ends June 14.

NORTHWEST GIRLCHOIR Closing their season with

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Send events to stage@seattleweekly.com, dance@seattleweekly.com, or classical@seattleweekly.com

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Send events to books@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

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» visual arts Openings & Events ZHA SAI She brings scenes from nature to life through

her intricate woodcuts in Reflections. Opens Tues., June 2. Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave. S., 624-1324, davidsongalleries.com. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

Tues.-Sat. Ends June 27.

Ongoing

• CHIHO AOSHIMA This is SAAM’s second exhibit by

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EMERGE/EVOLVE 2014: RISING TALENTS IN KILNGLASS This traveling group show from Portland’s

Bullseye Glass Company gallery features about two dozen artists pushing the boundaries of their medium.

Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way N.E., 425-519-0770, bellevuearts.org. $5-$10. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Tues.-Sun. Ends June 14.

GROUP SHOW New Works in the main gallery, features art from Saundra Fleming, Karen Graber, and Joanne Bohannon. The guest gallery will host Migration, where artists ask viewers to consider the fraught topic. Columbia City Gallery, 4864 Rainier Ave. S., 760-9843, columbiacitygallery.com. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Wed.-Sun. Ends July 5.

TYSON GRUMM Twenty new works in The Nemesis of Prose combine surreal paintings and poetry. Patricia Rovzar, 1225 Second Ave., 223-0273, rovzargallery. com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sun. Ends June 1.

photographs created by compositing several found images into a new context. Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S., 624-0770, gregkucera.com. 10:30 a.m.5:30 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends June 27.

ROBERT HARDGRAVE Cullom Gallery collaborates with the host venue to present Die Kopie, a collection of large-scale collaged and toner-transfer work. Studio E Gallery, 609 S. Brandon St., 762-3322, studioegallery. org. Hours by appointment. Ends June 6.

HENRY HORNSTEIN He presents black-and-white photos taken at horse tracks around the coutry, with images dating back to the early ’70s, in Racing Days.

(NR) Photo Center NW, 900 12th Ave., 720-7222, pcnw.org. Noon-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Ends June 13.

KAC ARTISTS’ EXHIBITION Hall Spassov Gallery owners serve as jury for this year’s exhibit, which features 35 pieces from local artists. Kirkland Arts Center, 620 Market St., (425-822-7161, kirklandartscenter. org. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Fri. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Ends June 20.

SHIRLEY KLINGHOFFER The artist revisits her work dealing with a woman’s vulnerability during cancer treatment in CRT Revisited. Museum of Glass (Tacoma), 1801 Dock St., 284-2130, museumofglass. org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Noon-5 p.m. Sun. $5-$15. Ends Oct. 11.

FULGENCIO LAZO Her dreamlike paintings feature images drawn from her birthplace of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Baas Framing Studio, 2703 E. Madison St., 324-4742, baasframingstudio.com. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Ends June 20.

LENNON Nine artists (including Tim Bruckner, James Shoop, Kristine Pool, and May Pang) create celebrate the music and legacy of the legendary Beatle. Krab Jab Studio, 5628 Airport Way S., 715-8593, krabjabstudio.com. 1-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 6.

MADE PERSONAL Serrah Russell, Joe Rudko, and Colleen RJC Bratton used found materials to create and reference history. The Alice, 6007 12th Ave. S., thealicegallery.com. Noon-5 p.m. Sat. Ends June 6.

ETHAN MURROW Jurassic is a show about the overwhelming vastness of the Northwest landscape.

Winston Wächter Fine Art, 203 Dexter Ave., 6525855, seattle.winstonwatcher.com. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Mon.-Sat. Ends June 27.

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THE NEW FRONTIER: YOUNG DESIGNER-MAKERS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST This group show runs

concurrently with Jana Brevick: This Infinity Fits in My Hand, which showcases her jewelry design. Bellevue Arts Museum. Ends Aug. 16.

ERIN O’KEEFE In Natural Disasters, she presents a collection of still-life photographs. Platform Gallery, 114 Third Ave. S. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 323-2808, platformgallery.com. 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Ends June 27.

THE PORTRAIT REFRAMED This group show features portraiture by Anita Nowacka, Davis Freeman, Jay Defehr, and others. Stacya Silverman Gallery, 614 W. McGraw St., 270-9465, stacyasilverman.com. Hours by appointment. Ends June 15.

READ MY PINS: THE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT COLLECTION Over 200 pins and other jewelry items

are displayed from the collection of the former U.S. Secretary of State. Bellevue Arts Museum. Ends June 7.

WILLEM DE ROOIJ For Bouquet XI, the Dutch artist collaborated with a local florist to create works centered around Middle Eastern flowers. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E., 543-2280, henryart.org. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed., Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Aug. 16.

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT: SUSTAINABLE ART

A diverse group of artists takess throwaway items and creates recycled art. Opening reception, 5-8 p.m.

Thurs., April 23. Schack Art Center (Everett), 2921 Hoyt Ave., (425) 259-5050, schack.org. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Noon-5 p.m. Sun. Ends May 30.

STRUCTURAL REINFORCEMENT A group show featuring studio artists Caitlin Brookins, David L. Friend, Laura Craft, Dara Solliday, and Sonya Stockton.

Shoreline City Hall Art Gallery, 17500 Midvale Ave. N., shorelinearts.net. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Ends July 24.

AKIO TAKAMORI His sculptures piece together a narrative through psychological spaces in The Beginning of Everything. James Harris Gallery, 604 Second Ave., 903-6220, jamesharrisgallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. Ends June 27.

BY D IA NA M . LE

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TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAY: THE CABINET OF DR. CALGARI

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GREGORY PORTER

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KRONOS QUARTET TRADER JOE’S SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS: SILENT TREASURES SERIES Feb 29

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Dec 10 - 12

TAYLOR MAC SONGS OF THE AMERICAN RIGHT

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JERSEY BOYS Mar 18 & 19

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STAR TREK: THE ULTIMATE VOYAGE

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SOUND OPINIONS LIVE May 31 - June 12

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18TH ANNUAL DANCE THIS * BEN HUR is included within the Silent Treasures series, or can be purchased alone.

Taylor Mac, Kidd Pivot/Electric Company Theatre, and Tanya Tagaq presented in partnership with On the Boards.

Sankai Juku is presented in association with UW World Series.

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a contemporary young Japanese artist associated with Takashi Murakami. (The artist known as Mr. was the guy who recently filled a gallery with tsunami detritus.)

Aoshima is a woman, however, who ought to provide a different perspective on the oppressive sexism of most anime. In addition to 30-plus drawings and two large “dreamscapes,” her show Rebirth of the World will include new animated work, Takaamanohara (or The Plain of High Heaven), dealing with Shinto deities. In her typically colorful paintings, ethereal kawaii sprites roam in enchanted glades where the colors are anything but natural. Long, undulating hair mixes into the undgrowth and vines, suggesting deeper connections to the planet. There are cityscapes, too, as in her 2005 animation City Glow, where the towers rise like wormy, human-faced figures. The corporeal, architectural, and natural realms blur together in her work. Aoshima is a syncretist whose diverse subjects grow from the same spiritual undercurrent. BRIAN MILLER Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E. Prospect St. (Volunteer Park), 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $5-$9. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed., Fri.-Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.

Ends Oct. 4.

BFA PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION Seattle U’s graduating students present their portfolios that they’ve spent the last year compiling. Of note is Akaila Ballard’s The F-Words: Fear, Femininity, and Feminism. Vachon Gallery, Seattle University campus, seattleu.edu.

8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Ends June 14.

ILSE BING An early user of the 35mm Leica hand-held camera, the German Bing (1889-1998) is known as a pioneering woman in European interwar photography.

(She moved to New York following WWII.) Ilse Bing: Modern Photographer is a selection of her images, spanning the 1920s through 1950s. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E. (UW campus), 543-2280, henryart.org. $6-$10. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.-Fri. Ends Oct. 11.

FRED BIRCHMAN AND CAROLYN KRIEG Birchman focuses on architecture and landscape in Reclamation Projects. Krieg shows equine photographs in Horses.

Prographica Gallery, 3419 E. Denny Way, 322-3851, prographicadrawings.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 20.

CALLIGRAPHIC ABSTRACTION A collection of 35 works in calligraphy spanning from Islamic to archaic Chinese to the contemporary writing system created by artist Xu Bing. Seattle Asian Art Museum, Ends Oct. 4.

JIM CHUCHU Pagans is a photo/video series that reimagines African deities. Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, 1203 Second Ave., 467-4927, marianeibrahim.com.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. Ends June 13.

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM 17 photographs of Cornish, its students, and founder Nellie Cornish, taken in 1935 by the pioneering Northwest photographer. Cornish College of the Arts, 1000 Lenora St., 726-5151, cornish.edu. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Ends June 30.

LINDA DAVIDSON AND SAYA MORIYASU Road Trip is a collection of new paintings from Davidson; Moriyasu’s exhibit, Parlor, uses a variety of media to consider what might be called the inner life of her own ceramics studio. Opens Fri., April 24. G. Gibson Gallery, 300 S. Washington St. (Tashiro Kaplan Building), 587-4033, ggibsongallery.com. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. Ends June 6.

Vital Art Lives Here

JANE HAMMOND In The Mind’s Eye is a collection of

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arts&culture» film

Docs, Docs, Docs Notable nonfiction during SIFF’s third week.

BY BRIAN MILLER

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THE STUDIO 54 EXPERIENCE Go beyond watching a film and be part of the magic. For one night only, the Neptune Theatre becomes Club Studio 54: complete with disco atmosphere, dance lessons, classic music videos, and live performances by actorcomedian-dancer Mark Siano (“Seattle Vice,” “Modern Luv,” “The Soft Rock Kid”). This is SIFF like you’ve never experienced it before!

CENTERPIECE GALA

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MAY 30 | 5:30PM | SIFF CINEMA EGYPTIAN MAY 31 | 2:00PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN

After the 1996 publication of “Infinite Jest” journalist David Lipsky embarks on an unforgettable five-day interview with enigmatic author David Foster Wallace. Based on Lipsky’s acclaimed memoir, End Of The Tour portrays their significant encounter with humor, tenderness, and fantastic performances.

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

GALA AT DAR RAINIER CHAPTER HOUSE FOLLOWS THE 5/30 SCREENING

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MAY 30 | 6:00PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN JUNE 3 | 4:00PM | HARVARD EXIT

Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider) gives a stunning and inspirational performance as New Zealand legend Genesis Potini, a bipolar speed chess champion who helps turn around the lives of some 15,000 Maori children by teaching them the intricacies the game.

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hite suburban boys who grew up in the Nixon era, now middle-aged, testify to their love of lunchboxes and toys celebrating their hero in Being Evel (SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 6:30 p.m. Thurs.; Uptown, 2:30 p.m. Sat.). Foremost among them in this tribute to Robert “Evel” Knievel is Johnny Knoxville, the film’s producer and narrator, who reminds us how much Jackass and the X-Games market owes to the Knievel’s 1967 leap across the fountains at Caesars Palace did motorcycle daredevil (1938– not end well, but it made him famous.

2007). Muhammad Ali was Another sterling immersion doc, though it dangerous in that same period (and, well, black), ends on a much different note, is Matthew while Knievel positioned himself as a TV-ready Heineman’s Cartel Land (Uptown, 6:30 p.m. paladin in white leather—the antithesis to outlaw biker culture. There’s a wealth of clips here—the Mon.; Harvard Exit, 4 p.m. Tues.), which folcrashes still make you gasp—and testimonials lows two charismatic leaders of armed citizen from Tony Hawk, Frank Gifford, and even George militias standing up to drug gangs—one on the Hamilton! (Surely you haven’t forgotten the HamArizona border, the second 1,000 miles south ilton-starring 1971 biopic.) Knievel himself, despite on the Mexican coast. Neither man is quite Knoxville’s best spin, emerges as a mean, hardwhat he first seems; and the longer Heineman bitten SOB. The doc makes you want to learn more follows them, the more fully we appreciate the about his pioneering image-licensing, TV deals, and deep and corrupting hold the drug trade has the history of that groundbeaking show that made in Mexico. It’s a dispiriting and well-reported him famous: Wide World of Sports. doc that forgoes outside context or voices.

Somewhat dull and didactic, respectively, are And Heineman is brave enough to visit one gang, where a masked trafficker admits with a The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revoluresigned shrug, “We know the harm we cause tion (Pacific Place, 9:30 p.m. Fri. & 4 p.m. Mon.) up there . . . but we come from poverty.” They’re and Paper Tigers, the latter set in an alternative trapped in the same cycle as the militia leaders. high school in Walla Walla (Uptown, 7 p.m. Thurs.

(I could see both this film, opening in July, and & 12:30 p.m. Sat.). Bound for PBS, Black Panthers City of Gold on next year’s Oscar shortlist.) gains some currency thanks to Ferguson and BalBased on Duff McKagan’s bestselling memoir, timore. Though that radical movement collapsed owing to internal politics and the FBI’s dirty tricks, It’s So Easy and Other Lies (Egyptian, 9:30 p.m. the social conditions that spawned it are no less Thurs. & 9:30 p.m. Thurs., June 4) requires little present and disheartening today. (When one disilselling. As director Christopher Duddy recently lusioned Panther calls Huey Newton “a thug,” you related by phone, he and McKagan are neighhave to wince.) Paper Tigers is entirely more upbeat, bors in L.A.: “We met walking our daughters to showing us heroic teachers and disadvantaged school.” They filmed Duff reading, with live band, students who respond to a curriculum built around at the Moore in 2013. Here, too, Duddy interACE, or Adverse Childhood Experiences (poverty, viewed McKagan, friends, and family. “I’ve been broken families, abuse, addiction, etc.). Everyone up to Seattle three times,” he says. Mixing anechere is enormously likable and committed, but dotes and music, It’s So Easy offers “slices of his Paper Tigers gives us only positive outcomes. life” and an inspirational road back from addiction.

That same fault is the only minor complaint “It’s not a history from A to Z,” says Duddy. “Nor I have about Laura Gabbert’s delightful City of did he want it to be a Guns N’ Roses doc.” Duddy will attend the screenings, while former SW colGold (Uptown, 6:30 p.m. Sat.; Harvard Exit, 4:30 umnist McKagan is already touring elsewhere p.m. Sun.), a fond profile of Pulitzer-winning food with his second book, How to Be a Man. writer Jonathan Gold. It’s a love letter to him, journalism (yes, I’m biased), and the ethnic mosaic of L.A., where Gold has mapped out a career that Also don’t forget two recommended local films began as a music writer in the ’80s. Food docs whose directors we profiled two weeks back: the always make you hungry, but City of Gold also music-saturated summertime romance Beach makes you want to visit L.A. and drive east to the Town (Uptown, 6:30 p.m. Tues. & 4 p.m. Thurs., strip malls and humble storefronts where Gold June 4); and the Texas swamp documentary Uncermines culinary gold. It’s a rich, absorbing film with tain (Uptown, 3:30 p.m. Wed.). And one more pick happy anecdotes about grateful chefs Gold graced from Ireland: the very dry-eyed drama Glassland with his generous writing—but where’s the irate (Pacific Place, 9:30 p.m. Sat.; Uptown, 3:30 p.m. restaurant owner who received a bad review? We Mon.), with Toni Collette as an alcoholic who critics have to write those, too. (A fall release is resists her adult son’s every effort to save her. E likely from IFC Films.) bmiller@seattleweekly.com

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SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

There was a point in postwar American culture when poets really mattered. JFK quoted Robert Frost. T.S. Eliot lectured to 14,000 students in a University of Minnesota football stadium. Dozens of little magazines delivered fresh stanzas and verse. It was in this climate that timid academic John Brinnin (Elijah Wood) arranged a speaking tour for the unruly, earthy, Jones as Thomas. and near-constantly drunken Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Celyn Jones) in 1950. That much is true.

What actually happened on their Easternseaboard journey is mostly conjecture for screenwriters Jones and Andy Goddard (who also directs). Their black-and-white odyssey makes Thomas as much the innocent as Brinnin. Neither man knows the real, burger- and jukebox-fed nature of roadside America. Yet it’s Thomas, the lusty interloper, who wants to gorge on booze, food, candy, and women. (He carries a reproachful letter from his wife back home, but refuses to read it.) Brinnin, who later wrote Dylan Thomas in America, is meanwhile bow-tied, repressed, struggling to create poetry himself, a likely closet case.

The tone to this muted buddy movie—also a very short road trip to a Connecticut cabin—isn’t fully comic. Set Fire belongs to a genre that might be called Close Encounters With Greatness, which also includes Me and Orson Welles, My Week With Marilyn, and My Favorite Year. They’re not biopics, but glancing views by nobodies in a position to observe the backstage workings of genius—and, inevitably, their personal foibles and shortcomings. It’s a formula, and Set Fire never gets beyond that formula. Jones carries through the picture with a blithe, slouching charisma; his eyes snap to focus only when Thomas launches into verse. That moment of transition—from hangover and confusion—is what Brinnin marvels at. He knows he lacks such genius (“Where does it all come from?”), yet is too polite to resent Thomas for having it; and the movie never really establishes any conflict between the two poets. It’s just Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on a journey that peters out before it’s really begun.

The pleasures beyond Thomas’ poetry—and there’s not enough of it—lie in some too-brief female cameos. Shirley Henderson rings rueful notes as a soused suburban writer who catches Thomas’ eye, and Kelly Reilly finally appears as Thomas’ ethereal wife—or maybe just a projection of his guilty conscience. Set Fire, like Brinnin, contents itself with the small pleasure of meeting the great man, whose health we can see rolling downhill. Three years later he’ll be dead in Greenwich Village—a tragic end to the intoxicating American journey begun here.

23

arts&culture» film Local & Repertory

Ongoing

AMERICAN PSYCHO In her 2000 adaptation of Bret

• CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA Like the clouds that gar-

Easton Ellis’ controversial ultra-violent 1991 novel, Mary Harron initially emphasizes the book’s humor, as narcissistic Yuppie serial killer/cannibal/narrator Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) discourses upon ’80s cheese-rock icons like Huey Lewis, and obsesses over what facial gel he would apply for a trip to the video store. (Ellis apparently intended a satiric link between rampant, minutely-detailed materialism and inhuman violence.) As the opaque, enigmatic protagonist, Bale evokes a slick yet wooden alpha male who comes across as a hybrid of a young Al “Tron” Gore and Donald Trump (Bateman’s obsession in the book). The rest of Harron’s indie-centric cast is smartly assembled, but they’re just types—soon to be eviscerated with power tools. Yet her funny stylish efforts give way to chainsaw massacre scenes, and the blunt suggestion that Bateman’s killings were just a dream. (R) MIKE SEELY Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $7-$9. 9:30 p.m.

Sun.-Wed.

• AVANT-GARDE CINEMA FROM EX-YUGOSLAVIA Before the violent ’90s breakup of that country, filmmakers under the communist rule of Tito and Milosevic made some pretty good movies, despite obvious constraints and censorship. This survey runs from the early postwar era into the ’80s. (NR) Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 267-5380. $6-$11. Ends Sun. See nwfilmforum.org for schedule.

TOOTSIE From 1982, Sydney Pollack’s very funny and generous drag also turned out to be quite insightful, as the selfish, sexist actor Michael (Dustin Hoffman) learns what it’s like to walk in high heels and be treated as a second-class citizen. Teri Garr and Bill Murray make the most of supporting roles; and Geena Davis does more with her eyecandy role than would seem possible. Also in the sterling ensemble are Jessica Lange, Charles Durning, Dabney Coleman, and Pollack himself as Michael’s astonished agent. (PG) Central Cinema, $7-$9. 7 p.m. Sun.-Wed. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

•

land the titular valley, Olivier Assayas’ drama of three woman laboring in showbiz has an odd, evanescent quality: Now you see it, now you don’t. Film star Maria (Juliette Binoche) arrives in Zurich to pay tribute to the eminent old playwright who launched her career.

Inconveniently, he kills himself, but a rising stage director then proposes a new adaptation of that signature project. But here’s the catch: Maria originally played the pert young seductress; now she’s being offered the role of the tragic older woman. It’s a dilemma she discusses fitfully with her personal assistant, a very competent yet unformed young woman named Valentine (Kristen Stewart, excellent). Their conversations wind along Alpine roads and hiking trails, continuing through cigarette smoke and too much late-night wine. Clouds is a film about time and a woman’s passages through time—and how aging forces new roles on women, despite their wishes. (R) BRIAN MILLER Varsity FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD Thomas Vinterberg’s new version of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel collapses the action so the movie can trot in at 118 minutes. We’ve just established the impossible relationship between prideful-but-poor Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) and sensible Gabriel Oak (Belgian rising star Matthias Schoenaerts) when she inherits her uncle’s estate, flirts with neighboring landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), and falls under the spell of caddish soldier Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge). The melodrama is so rushed here that it looks faintly ridiculous. Maybe that was Vinterberg’s purpose; he was one of the Danish filmmakers whose Dogma credo was supposedly against this kind of oldfashioned material. The movie’s clumsiness is so desperate that Bathsheba is given an opening voiceover to plead ignorance about her supposedly mystifying name (no one has told her the Biblical reference?), as though preparing a 21st-century audience for something unfamiliar. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, Kirkland, Lynwood (Bainbridge), others

GOOD KILL Major Tommy Egan (Ethan Hawke) is

destroying military targets in Afghanistan from the Nevada desert, where he mans the deadliest videogame you ever saw. This veteran fighter pilot has been downsized to drone jockey, and Tommy wants nothing more than to get back into the cockpit. Yet after a day of launching missiles, Tommy drives home to his wife and kids in a cookie-cutter Las Vegas suburb. It’s commuter combat, where the boundaries between battlefield mentality and civilian life blur. Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill isn’t science fiction, but it feels like it, with its sealed, space-capsule-like remote cockpits and antiseptic disconnect from the kill zone. Even so, Good Kill isn’t prosecuting war crimes; rather, it’s about the toll taken on button-pushing soldiers fighting off-the-books wars. Hawke helps the cause with an alienated and internalized performance. (R) SEAN AXMAKER Varsity IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER André Téchiné ought to have a foolproof picture with this dramatization of a tantalizing real-life mystery, set mostly in a 1970s Riviera world of money, the Mafia, and casinos.

A directionless young woman, Agnès, returns to the south of France to claim her inheritance from her mother, the formidable casino operator Renée Le Roux (Catherine Deneuve). Madame Le Roux is trying to ease her slick lawyer, Maurice Agnelet, out of the business. He will not go away quietly, and this playboy finds Agnés a ripe target for his seductive talents. But the longer the film goes on, the less inclined Téchiné is to explain key events, or even include what would seem to be crucial plot points. The unresolved mystery seems to suit Téchiné just fine. Apparently he wants to remind us that we can’t ever know all the answers. (R) R.H. Seven Gables MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Tom Hardy takes the title role in George Miller’s much-anticipated Mad Max reboot. The equally impressive Charlize Theron plays a buzzcut-wearing, one-handed turncoat named Furiosa. Though this movie makes me feel like driving fast through the desert, there’s no way I’d stop to offer either of them a ride. Regardless how thrilling the action in this near-constant chase movie, Max and

•

Furiosa haven’t got anything interesting to say. Miller and his co-writers have some sort of dense desert mythology in mind, though the internecine conflict is hard to follow. I don’t think Miller really cares. Furiosa has liberated the five nubile wives of a masked Geezer of Oz, who with his marauders sets out in pursuit of Max and company. The 3-D Fury Road is masterfully kinetic and often downright berserk, with endless amounts of sand, car parts, spears, harpoons, grenades, chainsaws, and fists being flung in your face.

It’s a thrilling, exhausting picture. (R) B.R.M. Majestic Bay, Ark Lodge, Pacific Place, Thornton Place, Sundance, Kirkland, Bainbridge, others TOMORROWLAND In Brad Bird’s very muddled Disneyland-ride-inspired movie, we meet precocious teen Casey (Britt Robertson). She’s trying to surreptitiously save a doomed NASA project that once employed her scientist father. Then, through a bit of hocus-pocus, she’s invited to Tomorrowland, a futuristic utopia where she meets Frank (George Clooney).

Encouraged by the ageless sprite Athena (Raffey Cassidy), Frank and Casey try to save humanity from, well, “human savagery.” (This in the words of Hugh Laurie’s villain). So which side will prevail in this contest between optimism and the dark forces of poverty, climate change, and greed? Did we mention this is a Disney movie? Bird, of The Incredibles, comes from the can-do camp; while co-writer Damon Lindelof (of Lost) is a darker sort of fellow. Tomorrowland posits that the looming end of the world—caused by our cynicism and defeatist attitude—can only be averted by our equally human capacity for dreaming and imagination.

Never mind the apocalypse, in other words, it’s summer blockbuster season. (PG) DIANA M. LE Cinerama, Varsity, Majestic Bay, Kirkland, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square, Admiral, others

BY B R IA N M I LLE R

Send events to film@seattleweekly.com See seattleweekly.com for full listings = Recommended

•

“A black & white masterpiece!”

I.D. Magazine

Celyn Jones Elijah Wood

SHOWTIM ES

MAY 29 - JUNE 4

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE: LEGENDS!

FriDAY - SATURDAY @ 7:00PM & 9:30PM

TOOTSIE

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

SUN - WED @ 7PM / SAT-SUN @ 3:00PM

24

AMERICAN PSYCHO

SUNDAY - WEDNESDAY @ 9:30 PM

THE GODFATHER - THURSDAY @ 8:00PM

MAY ��–JUNE � GR ANDILLUSIONCINEMA.ORG ���� NE ��TH STREET | ���-����

“THE MUST SEE DYLAN THOMAS FILM!” –THE TIMES (LONDON)

ELIJAH WOOD

“A BEAUTIFUL SPECTACLE!” –MIAMI NEW TIMES

CELYN JONES

SET FIRE TO THE STARS STARTS FRIDAY, MAY 29

GRAND ILLUSION CINEMA 1403 NE 50th St, Seattle (206) 523-3935

4.81" X 2"

WED 5/27

» music

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

Kelly Froh is a Seattle-based comic artist and co-founder of Short Run Comix & Arts Festival.

25

arts&culture» music

JURASSIC 5

7/10

JJ GREY + MOFRO with ETHAN TUCKER BAND

5/28

WALK OFF THE EARTH

5/30

WITH SCOTT HELMAN

8PM

with CHANT + BLACK DECEMBER

7:30 PM

9PM

MISTERWIVES

BEST COAST THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS NEON TREES + THE CHURCH 8/19

8PM

with BULLY

6/4

9PM

with YES YOU ARE ALEX WINSTON

6/6

8PM

9/3

8:30 PM

SHOWBOX SODO

APOCALYPTICA with ART OF DYING

5/29

9PM

EPIK HIGH

6/2

8:30 PM

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

SHOWBOX AND KISW PRESENT

26

8/7

RISE AGAINST with KILLSWITCH ENGAGE + LETLIVE.

8:30 PM

PARAMOUNT THEATRE

8/11

Cat’s tips on making it on your own—and, an even bigger challenge, with others—in the music biz.

KMFDM H 8PM

7/18

with HOLYCHILD

How Not to Die Doing DIY

GEORGE EZRA SHOWBOXPRESENTS.COM

8 PM

aving been in the music industry for about seven years now, I am very familiar with failure. By changing my definition of the term, I’ve been able to survive and prosper in this ever-changing field. With the diversity of music that exists, in this ocean of so many different sounds and genres, it can be difficult to find your voice. However, by strategically planning my course of action as well as surveying my previous movements, I’ve been able to successfully wade through the water as a DIY artist.

For those who don’t know what DIY means, acrothe oft-used acro nym stands for “Do It Yourself.” I’m a proud supporter of this thought process,

BY STASIA IRONS AND but someCATHERINE HARRIS-WHITE times it’s hard to embody such a philosophy. How do you get gigs if you don’t know anyone? Who do you send your music to?

With all these questions and millions of varying answers floating around out there, I’ve found that a good starting point is seeking out other musicians who share a similar desire to perform or create. Experiment with these artists and find out what suits you best.

Beginning this way will connect you to their audience as well as inspire new ways to make music. This is how I began my journey after years of performing as a solo artist.

As a 17-year-old dreamer, I joined my first real band. I had been in school and church choirs, but this was very different. The band was called Sutra and consisted of a bass player, a keyboardist, and a drummer—all men in their 20s with prior experience. It was nervewracking. I had been performing since I was 10, but not for a lot of people and not with a band that I actually had to communicate with.

After a year of scattered shows and frustrating rehearsals, the band split after the individual members’ tastes changed and the band was unable to find a cohesive sound that fit.

In my sophomore year at Cornish College of the Arts, I attempted to start a girl group with two of my fellow jazz vocalists. With tensions flaring about who would be lead singer and what to name the trio, the group parted ways in under two hours.

I started realizing that working with others to make music was much harder than I thought. To manifest the songs that were in my heart and mind, I would need to find those with a similar ear. Yet those earlier experiences weren’t a waste. Each made me stronger, and I refused to stop until I found the proper collaborators.

Later that year I would find myself at the University of Washington for a weekly openmic series called Revolutionary Poets. Many of my fellow activists had been suggesting different platforms for me to perform YG my poems

LADIESFIRST

and songs, but this was the only one that stuck.

They had a live band and were open to me getting on stage and freestyling along with them and presenting new ideas. This event became my home base. A place for me to be free and experiment.

With this formation, we created a group called Question. It didn’t travel as far as we wished due to disorganization. There was also the issue of the band size—there were at least eight members, which meant eight different opinions at all times. Dynamics like this matter and are to be seriously considered when forming a group. I learned that if everyone has their own instrument or sound they are responsible for, conflict can be cut down; if not, it can be a very hectic experience.

After these early forays into collaboration, I

learned a lot about myself as a DIY artist. The music is first and foremost: If it doesn’t sound good or feel good to perform, you shouldn’t do it. There’s no need to try to force a groove.

That said, the group dynamic is very important. While collaborating with other musicians, I have to find time to be open to their ideas as well as not be afraid to express my own. If there is tension with the other artists from the first rehearsal, it’s best to break free unless they truly provide something you respect or feel that you need. Forced collaborations often sound that way—forced.

Still wanting to experiment with the group setting, I reached out to my new friend from the University of Washington. She was an English major with a chill personality; you may know her as Stas Irons or Stas THEE Boss. Before starting THEESatisfaction, we spent a lot of time actively listening to music.

We looked up what samples had been used in popular songs, shared old favorites, and explored new artists in an effort to connect. I noticed that there was a lack of contemporary music that fit my personal vision of music.

So I approached Stas about forming a group wherein we made our own beats and wrote our own lyrics expressing our stories as black queer women. She politely obliged, and here we are today six years later.

My collaboration with Stas has led to new partnerships with other artists, such as Shabazz Palaces, Erik Blood, OCnotes, and more.

Nowadays I find myself deeply immersed in collaborative creative environments that enable me to make the right connections, evolve my musical process, and realize new opportunities.

I wouldn’t have had the same good fortune had I not taken the risk to meet new artists.

My best advice to any DIY musician or artist is that you never give up. Find your truest, most comfortable everyday skill and perfect it. Make it so that you could perform that skill every day without thinking twice, so that it’s second nature. Spend time reading and researching the field you are delving into. Go to workshops and master classes. Spend your days Googling the craft. Submerse yourself into it, and don’t be afraid to try something new. E music@seattleweekly.com

2033 6th Avenue (206) 441-9729 jazzalley.com

TheWeekAhead

JAZZ ALLEY IS A SUPPER CLUB

Wednesday, May 27 Ultra-crucial UK post-punk band WIRE is back in town to titillate eyeholes and earballs. Just about everyone has cited Wire as a critical influence—most of all Elastica, who so blatantly ripped off Wire riffs that the band sued and the case was settled out of court. If you’re a fanatic of anything from R.E.M. to Fischerspooner, you need to get hip to Wire, like, yesterday. With Mild High Club and Posse. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442, neumos.com.

8 p.m. $20. 21 and over. WARREN LANGFORD

EDDIE PALMIERI LATIN JAZZ BAND WED, MAY 27 - SAT, MAY 30

Thursday, May 28

10x Grammy-winner, recipient of the Latin Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement award, an NEA Jazz Master, Palmieri is known as one of the finest Latin jazz pianists of the past 50 years.

The dependably weird Seattle label Debacle is teaming with the Northwest Film Forum to present A NIGHT OF A/V PAIRINGS: Talented local musicians will be matched with crazycool visual artists to likely blow your mind with “aural/visual delights.” The pairings: Marisa Anderson/Jodi Darby, Garek Jon Druss/Nick Bartoletti, Marc Price/Coldbrew Collective. All local, all strange, all worthy of your attention. Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 329-2629, debaclerecords.com.

7 p.m. $8–$10. All ages. DIANA M. LE Fremont arcade Add-a-Ball’s ramshackle warren of annexed rooms basically looks like The Foot Clan’s hideout from the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, making it the perfect host for LO-TEK REV1VAL. Chiptune master Fighter X will perform glitch-o-delic video-game bangers that will melt the Sega Game Gear in your fanny pack. We’re promised VHS visuals to boot. The words “radical,” “tubular,” and “bodacious” will fill your head all night long. With A_Rival and Glooms. Add-a-Ball Amusements Bar & Arcade, 315 N. 36th St., Suite 2B, 696-1613, add-a-ball. com. 8 p.m. Free. 21 and over. WL

DOCTORFUNK SUN, MAY 31

Setting the standard for new soul music in the Pacific Northwest

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE HIGH SCHOOL JAZZ BANDS MON, JUN 1 BENNY GREEN TRIO TUES, JUN 2 - WED, JUN 3

Hard-bop jazz pianist extraordinaire

SPYRO GYRA THURS, JUN 4 - SUN, JUN 7

12x Grammy-nominated American jazz fusion guru’s blending R&B, funk and pop

Friday, May 29

all ages | free parking | full schedule at jazzalley.com

A mainstay of Seattle hip-hop since the late ’90s, THE PHYSICS are highly revered by their peers (Blue Scholars, Macklemore, Jake One, Sol). Join the group to celebrate the release of Wish You Were Here, an album that uses its title statement as a springboard to explore feelings of loss and yearning from multiple perspectives.

The group’s sound transcends what you’d expect from the echo chamber that can be Seattle hip-hop, and that’s really refreshing. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9422, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $12 adv. All ages. DML

Saturday, May 30 The film Refused Are Fucking Dead documents the most depressing on-tour band breakup ever recorded. But by some dark sorcery, it reunited to play Coachella last year, and now REFUSED are apparently fucking alive.

Seriously, though, if you’ve ever heard the band’s The Shape of Punk to Come, then you knew nothing could keep these guys down for long. They don’t just have onstage chemistry, they have onstage nuclear physics. Let’s hope the Crocodile has reinforced its facilities, because the band is going to wreak some Richter-scale devastation.

With White Lung. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 4414618, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $35. All ages. WL

» CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

PIANO SHOW

YOU NAME IT WE’LL CELEBRATE IT!

ANNIVERSARY BIRTHDAY CORPORATE EVENT DIVORCE ENGAGEMENT FORECLOSURE GRADUATION HAPPY HOUR INDEPENDENCE DAY JUST BECAUSE KICKING BACK LOOKING FOR FUN MARRIAGE NIGHT ON THE TOWN

OUT OF TOWN GUESTS PARENT’S NIGHT OUT QUITTIN’ TIME REUNION ST. PATRICK’S DAY TIRED OF THE USUAL SCENE VALENTINE’S DAY WHY NOT? NAUGHTY X-RATED PARTY

(JUST KIDDING!)

DON’T WANNA MISS OUT ZANY FRIENDS

VOTED BEST PIANO BAR & BEST PLACE TO TAKE AN OUT OF TOWN GUEST

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SEATTLE, WA • 206.839.1300 WWW.ILOVE88KEYS.COM 315 2nd Ave South

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

AVI LOUD

The Physics

ROCKIN

27

tractor TIMES

a&c» music

on

DOORS 30-60

» FROM PAGE 28

OPEN

LISTED ARE

SHOW TIMES.

MIN. BEFORE.

WEDS,

MAY 27 TH 

NY SINGER/SONGWRITER

JESSE MARCHANT

FREE COMMUNITY CONCERT

FEATURING House of Tarab

HEATHER WOODS BRODERICK, GHOSTS I’VE MET 8PM - $10/$12 THURS,

MAY 28 TH 

Golden Age Egyptian Music

HOMECOMING PARTY

STAR ANNA

MAY 29 TH 

CODY BEEBE & THE CROOKS

ROBERT JON & THE WRECKS, 8PM - $10/$12 SWEETKISS MOMMA

JUNE 2 ND 

On one especially catchy chorus on RVIVR’s Bicker and Breathe EP, Erica Freas expertly screams “We don’t wanna get good at goodbyes.” Such dense and potent lyrics delivered with Freas’ gale-force eloquence will slap the apathy out of any jaded punk’s mouth. Though RVIVR has a pop-punk sound that makes little attempt to improve on the genre’s existing foundations, the band’s mastery of the form is an achievement in its own right. Narwhal, 1118 E. Pike St., 325-6492, unicorn seattle.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over. WL Years from now, people will be asking each other, “Where were you when you first heard ‘White Iverson?’”

Rapper POST MALONE took social media by storm a few months ago with the song—one of the two on his SoundCloud page. He begins the first verse with, “I got me some braids and I got me some hoes,” and that’s as much lyrical depth as you’re going to get.

But it’s so smooth and swaggin’ that you can’t even be mad. Definitely a dance floor grinder. One tweet led to another, and soon everyone was flocking his page to hear it. A random success story, for sure. Let’s see what happens. With ThraxxHouse, Keyboard Kid. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9422, neumos.com. 8 p.m. $15 adv./$40 VIP. All ages. DML

&

ALT COUNTRY ROCK

TUES,

Sunday, May 31

Including BELLY DANCING performance by

DANNY NEWCOMB & THE SUGARMAKERS, PREACHER’S WIFE 9PM - $10/$12 FRI,

Sam Ford and Nila K. Leigh began GOODBYE HEART in New York City, but found Seattle a better home for their dreamy electro-pop. Their EP Restless Nights, released last year, is warm and sweeping, and makes the perfect soundtrack to anything you may be doing (driving, crying, falling asleep, falling in love, etc.). With the Spider Ferns. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880, sunsettavern.com. 9 p.m. $8. 21 and over. DML

Bring your Family & Friends!

Drómeno

Trad’l Music from Greece and The Balkans

JOSH ROUSE

WALTER MARTIN

9PM - $20/$22

(OF THE WALKMEN)

MON,

JUNE 1 ST  UK INDIE ROCK

PALMA VIOLETS

PUBLIC ACCESS T.V., TANGERINE 9PM - $15 Up & Coming

5/30 BOB SCHNEIDER 5/31 THE SHOW PONIES 6/3 SAN JUAN 6/4 THE OWL PARLIAMENT 6/5 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER 6/6 JAMES MCMURTRY 6/7 HOWIE DAY 6/9 MANDOLIN ORANGE 6/10 THE DAMWELLS 6/11 EILEN JEWELL 6/15 RHETT MILLER 6/18 SUPERSUCKERS 5213 BALLARD AVE. NW  789-3599

www.tractortavern.com

MAY

FOLK POP

7pm

Ernestine Anderson Place 2010 S. Jackson St. SEATTLE, WA 98144

Presented by:

Monday, June 1

MORE INFO & UPDATES www.facebook.com/upbeatonjackson

Bette Midler

El Corazon E orazon www.elcorazonseattle.com

109 Eastlake Ave East • Seattle, WA 98109 Booking and Info: 206.262.0482

ERIC GALES

w/Nolan Garrett, South Jackson, Plus Guests Doors at 7:30PM / Show at 8:30 21+. $15 ADV / $20 DOS

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

WEDNESDAY MAY 27TH FUNHOUSE

28

KILLER BEE

(featuring Paul Chapman of UFO) Doors at 9:00PM / Show at 11:00 21+. FREE!

THURSDAY MAY 28TH EL CORAZON

CHUNK! NO, CAPTAIN CHUNK! with Hit The Lights, Forever Came Calling, To The Wind, In Her Own Words Doors at 6:00PM / Show at 6:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $13 ADV / $15 DOS

THURSDAY MAY 28TH FUNHOUSE MIKE THRASHER PRESENTS:

MICROWAVE

Plus Guests Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

FRIDAY MAY 29TH EL CORAZON

PRESTIGE (FINAL SHOW)

with IDOLS, Motion (7-INCH RELEASE SHOW), Groundfeeder, Confines, Umbra, Prey The Hunted Doors at 6:00PM / Show at 6:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $10 ADV / $12 DOS

FRIDAY MAY 29TH FUNHOUSE

SQUALOR w/Primordial Atrocity, This Vast Ocean, Beyond The Woods, Aberrance Doors at 8:00PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

SATURDAY MAY 30TH FUNHOUSE

LUCKY MACHETE

w/Mammoth Salmon, Disenchanter Doors at 8:30PM / Show at 9:00 21+. $5 ADV / $7 DOS

SUNDAY MAY 31ST FUNHOUSE

CHARMING LIARS

w/Night Argent, Amanda Markley, Plus Guests Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 7:30 ALL AGES/BAR W/ID. $8 ADV / $10 DOS

TUESDAY JUNE 2ND FUNHOUSE

NEGATIVE HOLE

BRIAN FOSS PRESENTS w/Vampirates (Reno, NV), OOPS I STEPPED IN SOME CHRIST, S*L*A*V*E*S (the vatican), Plus Guests

Doors at 7:00PM / Show at 8:00. 21+. $6.

JUST ANNOUNCED 6/15 FUNHOUSE - NIGHT CLUB 6/21 FUNHOUSE - SHADY ELDERS 6/23 FUNHOUSE - MERIDIAN LIGHTS 6/25 - JANTSEN & DIRT MONKEY 6/29 FUNHOUSE - FINDING COMMON GROUND 7/2 FUNHOUSE - WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS 7/12 - KALI RA / DIONVOX 7/25 FUNHOUSE - PUNK ROCK CIRCUS FEAT. THE BLOODCLOTS 8/2 FUNHOUSE - JUNKYARD AMY LEE 8/5 FUNHOUSE - FREEKBASS 8/21 FUNHOUSE - STOLAS 9/27 - GODFLESH 10/31 - AGAINST THE CURRENT UP & COMING 6/3 FUNHOUSE - BOY HITS CAR 6/4 FUNHOUSE - HUGH CORNWELL 6/5 FUNHOUSE - LEAST OF THESE 6/6 - TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET 6/7 - BLACK SKY 6/7 FUNHOUSE - EIKTHYRNIR 6/8 FUNHOUSE - SAPIENT 6/9 - CROWBAR 6/10 - TSUNAMI 6/10 FUNHOUSE - MOBINA GALORE 6/11 - MISCHIEF BREW 6/11 FUNHOUSE - THE BURNZ 6/12 FUNHOUSE - AWAKEN, ANTAGONIST 6/13 - DR. KNOW 6/13 FUNHOUSE - THE HOLLOWPOINTS

THE FUNHOUSE BAR IS OPEN FROM 3:00PM TO 2:00AM DAILY AND HAPPY HOUR IS FROM 3:00PM UNTIL 6:00PM. Tickets now available at cascadetickets.com - No per order fees for online purchases. Our on-site Box Office is open 1pm-5pm weekdays in our office and all nights we are open in the club - $2 service charge per ticket Charge by Phone at 1.800.514.3849. Online at www.cascadetickets.com - Tickets are subject to service charge

The EL CORAZON VIP PROGRAM: details at www.elcorazon.com/vip.html for an application email info@elcorazonseattle.com

VIA WIKIMEDIA

WEDNESDAY MAY 27TH EL CORAZON

I wouldn’t dare steal a single gust of wind from beneath BETTE MIDLER’s wings, but reading the recent headline “Bette Midler Sings Kim Kardashian’s Tweets” made me cringe until I was inside out. No way she needs to stoop this low to promote what is undoubtedly a tremendous tour, if you love showtunes. Or even Halloween movie tunes—she’s apparently doing numbers from Disney’s Hocus Pocus. Midler is the original witch-house artist. Key Arena, Seattle Center, keyarena.com. 8 p.m. $55–$650 and up. All ages. WL

Tuesday, June 2

Psych rock never really went anywhere, but in the early 2000s there was the perception that it came back, and, along with the revamped Flaming Lips, DEAD MEADOW were part of this wave of psych revivalists.

The band’s tunes range from accessible little treats, all warm and marmalade-covered, to treacherous, bottomless k-holes. Whatever your pleasure, this show is bound to be hypnotic, like, whoa. With Ephrata and Scott Yoder. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. 8 p.m. $13. All ages. WL

odds&ends» Check Your Privilege

I

SEATTLE WE EKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

the recent slew of well-documented abuses to understand that the color of a person’s skin can clearly change their circumstances. I’m now fully aware that blacks are more likely to be pulled over by police, stopped as pedestrians (and frisked), and “randomly” searched at airports. The national unemployment rate for African-Americans is double that of whites. Black kids, according to the Department of Education, are more likely to be punished in schools, as well as get rookie teachers, which—go figure—affects their drop-out and graduation rates. But far more problematic than these are the institutional barriers that still exist.

In Missouri, the Justice Department’s own report following the shooting of Michael Brown found that “nearly every aspect of Ferguson’s law-enforcement system” negatively affected and severely impacted African-Americans.

Nationwide, while blacks are only about 13 percent of the population, they make up 37 percent of drug-related arrests and almost half of the prison population (one million of the 2.2 million incarcerated individuals). Overall, they’re incarcerated at six times the rate of whites.

The ongoing police brutality against unarmed black men, women, and children has clearly triggered the anger that accompanies such injustice, resulting in ongoing protests and riots throughout the country. There’s a point at which truly marginalized groups get backed into such a corner that an equally valid option to putting up with the jerry-rigged system is raising hell and overturning the apple cart. Intellectually, I get it; I’ve reached a boiling point over slow-moving traffic and lousy bar service. But I also understand that, for true change to occur, those in power must somehow seek to share that power.

How to do we make a seismic shift happen without all hell breaking loose? I don’t know. I’m in over my head. But here’s a start: I’d like my tax dollars to be directed to communities that have been decimated by mass unemployment and social neglect. And I’d like the government to explore new efforts and ideas to aid the poor and the vulnerable—many of which may fail. And that’s OK. As a white person, I can relate to plenty of social experiments that have been colossal flops: Apple’s Newton, for example, and Microsoft’s Zune. Enron and MCI. Jazzercize. The Delorean.

Solyndra. MySpace. And the War on Drugs.

Priorities must change.

And any argument about government getting out of the way is yet another attempt to keep the status quo—and racism—alive and well.

Indifference or passive support of the current dynamic is unacceptable. If you need a more self-centered reason to change the system than the common good, consider this: We’ll be the minority soon enough. E For more Higher Ground, visit highergroundtv.com.

BRIANNA CASHIN

t’s good to be white.

For example, as a white guy, I’m statistically more likely to be selling drugs than an African-American man (I’ve always been too scared of going to jail to actually sell pot, but I’m using this to make my point.) If I were black, however, it would be three times more likely that I’d be arrested for dealing. It gets even better for whitey. Though five times as many of us use drugs, African-Americans are sent to prison 10 times as often for the same crimes. And once ya get to jail? On average, African-Americans serve as much time in prisons for drug offenses (58 months) as white folks do for violent ones (62 months).

While we may have legalized weed out West, these HIGHERGROUND stats—

BY MICHAEL A. STUSSER and the ongoing federal War on Drugs—feed into a vicious loop that gives officers the pretense of probable cause to search, detain, and arrest African-Americans in droves. It is a short line from our national drug policy to police abuses. And by now we’ve all seen the dozens of cell-phone videos illustrating exactly how this often turns out for (eventually deceased) black men and women—who are after all under the law innocent until proven guilty.

While it might be good to be white, it doesn’t exactly feel good; seems like we should be further down the line on the apparently not-so-selfevident “All Men Are Created Equal” thing.

Recently I’ve been trying to put myself in the shoes of young African-American men in Baltimore and Atlanta and Ferguson. Can I relate?

At what point have I been targeted or profiled or discriminated against?

I’m Jewish. Does that count? Over the years I’ve heard offensive stereotypes and jokes. (“Jew ‘em down” is my least favorite.) But while that’s painful, it’s simply not the same. I have no fear of being pulled over for the way I look; I don’t worry that some armed jackass playing Neighborhood Watchman will follow me for no other reason than the color of my skin. I have no problem getting my foot in the door in business meetings, obtaining loans, or hailing cabs in any city in the world. And because I don’t have those life concerns, I may not actually “get it.”

My upbringing didn’t help either. I grew up on Mercer Island, where we called the only black kid in our entire elementary school “Chocolate.” (I apologize, Hayden.) Eventually basketball icon Bill Russell and his family moved to the island, and our black population tripled. Without people of color to relate to, there was very little chance in my youth to experience diversity, much less economic or cultural differences or division.

It took a steady diet of Toni Morrison, classes at Berkeley, and

29

SPAS

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SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

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REPO REFRIGERATOR Custom deluxe 22 cu. ft. sideby-side, ice & water disp., color panels available

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was over $1200 new, now only payoff bal. of $473 or make pmts of only $15 per mo.

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Like new condition * Under Warranty * Over $1,200 new, now only $578 or make payments of $25 per month

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Appliances AMANA RANGE Deluxe 30” Glasstop Range self clean, auto clock & timer ExtraLarge oven & storage *UNDER WARRANTY* Over $800. new. Pay off balance of $193 or make payments of $14 per month. Credit Dept.

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Professional Services Music Lessons GUITAR LESSONS Exp’d, Patient Teacher. BFA/MM Brian Oates (206) 434-1942

ADULT PHONE ENTERTAINMENT Free FORUMS & CHATROOM 206-753-CHAT 253-203-1643 425-405-4388

NEW APPLIANCES UP TO 70% OFF All Manufacturer Small Ding’s, Dents, Scratches and Factory Imperfections *Under Warranty* For Inquiries, Call or Visit Appliance Distributors @ 14639 Tukwila Intl. Blvd.

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Announcements

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KENMORE REPO Heavy duty washer & dryer, deluxe, large cap. w/normal, perm-press & gentle cycles. * Under Warranty! * Balance left owing $272 or make payments of $25. Call credit dept.

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Employment General Tree Climber/Arborist Full Time- Year Round Work performing tree work! We are Licensed, Bonded & Insured.

Must have prior Tree Climbing & Trimming Exp. Company Sponsored Medical Avail.

Vehicle and DL Required.

Email work experience to recruiting@ treeservicesnw.com.

Call 1-800-684-8733 ext. 3434

Employment General Appointment Setter Help keep trees Safe and Healthy by generating Appointments for Tree & Shrub Maintenance. Set your Own Schedule. Paid orientation, marketing materials and company apparel.

-Travel allowance -Monthly Cell phone Allowance -Monthly Medical Allowance Vehicle, DL, Cell Phone & Internet Req. Email resume to recruiting@tlc4homesnw.com 855-720-3102 ext. 3304 GAMING DIRECTOR Under the direction of the Colville Tribal Gaming Commission (Commission) the Director performs all duties, exercise all powers, assume and discharge all responsibilities, and carry out and effect of all purposes of the Colville Tribal Gaming Code, Commission Rules and Regulations, and all relevant provisions of I.G.R.A. and its implementing regulations, as related to the establishment and regulation of all gaming activity under the authority of the Commission. For a complete job description, please visit our website at http://www.colvilletribes.com /jobs.php.

Employment Social Services VISITING ANGELS Certified Caregivers needed. Minimum 3 years experience.

Must live in Seattle area.

Weekend & live-in positions available. Call 206-439-2458 • 877-271-2601

Employment Computer/Technology Associate, Business Operations - Aladdin Portfolio Services - Investment Services - Shared Services - Data Integrity Group sought by BlackRock Financial Management, Inc. in Seattle, WA to support the day-to-day activities of the U.S. west coast Data Integrity Group Team & Global Data Integrity Group operations. Assist with ensuring all client service levels are met with respect to accuracy, completeness & timeliness of data reqmts. Req’s: Bachelor’s deg or equiv in Finance, Bus. Admin., Mathematics or Comp Sci & 5 yrs of exp performing data integrity, operational support & financial analysis on behalf of a global financial services institution or finance dept. Prior exp must incl: utilizing financial concepts & performing data operations support for fixed income, equity & derivative investments; supporting the maintenance of investment data; working with external & internal clients or vendors; utilizing an investment mgmt platform & data architecture; & utilizing the following technologies: Excel, Perl Script, Unix, SQL & Bloomberg.

Please apply directly through https://blackrock.taleo.net/ careersection/BR_Exec_CS/ jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job= 151279&src=cws-10680 by clicking “Apply Online”.

WARNING: @ CenturyLink Field

Housekeeping Job Fair June 2nd & 3rd from 12pm-2pm Come to the NE VIP located on the north side of the stadium.

All cleaning positions available Questions call 206-381-7570

Employment Computer/Technology SOFTWARE Zillow seeks a Software Development Engineer for Seattle, WA office. The Engineer will participate in the full product development cycle, which includes design discussions with UX designers and program managers, implementing each feature in the front-end and server-side code base, and ensuring proper testing coverage prior to release. Reqs. Master’s degree in Computer Science, Math or related Reply to: Job# 1210-2015-0004-V 1301 2nd Ave., Fl 31, Seattle, WA 98101 or recruiting@zillow.com Technology Help build the next generation of systems behind Facebook’s products. Facebook, Inc. currently has the following openings in Seattle, WA (various levels/types): Production Engineer (2120N) Participate in the design, implementation & ongoing management of major site applications & subsystems.

Quantitative Researcher (4226N) Develop new measurement capabilities & groundbreaking research. Engineering Manager (420N) Drive engineering effort, communicate cross-functionality, & be a subject matter expert; &/or perform technical engineering duties & oversee a team of engineers.

Mail resume to: Facebook, Inc. Attn: SB-GIM, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Must reference job title and job# shown above, when applying.

Employment Transportation/Drivers

DRIVERS Premier Transportation is seeking Tractor-Trailer Drivers for newly added dedicated runs making store deliveries MondayFriday in WA, OR, ID. MUST have a Class-A CDL and 2 years tractortrailer driving experience.

• Home on a daily basis • $.41 per mile plus stop off and unloading pay • $200/day minimum pay • Health & prescription insurance • Family dental, life, disability insurance • Company match 401K, Vacation & holiday pay • $1,000 longevity bonus after each year • Assigned trucks • Direct deposit For application information, call Paul Proctor at Premier Transportation: 866-223-8050.

Apply online at www.premiertrans portation.com “Recruiting.” EOE Do Not Pay The IRS Another Red Cent Until You Get This Free Report

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Find out about upcoming performances, exhibitions, openings and special events.

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Sign up for classes at www.bellevuecollege.edu 1273601

SEATTLE WEEKLY • MAY 27 — JU NE 2, 2015

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Join us in 2016 as we celebrate 50 years of service to the region and look forward to the great things to come in the next 50.