Inlander 05/13/2021

DEADLY DATA SIZING UP SPOKANE POLICE PAGE 10

SURVIVAL MODE RESTAURANTS GET A MUCH NEEDED LIFELINE PAGE 27 MYLES OFF THE ROAD MYLES KENNEDY’S LOCKDOWN-BORN ALBUM PAGE 31

MAY 13-19, 2021 | SMACKING DOWN CONSPIRACY THEORIES SINCE 1993

95 REASONS TO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GET VACCINATED PAGE 12

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2 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

INSIDE

special!

TACO RANDE

VOL. 28, NO. 31 | COVER DESIGN: DEREK HARRISON

COMMENT NEWS COVER STORY CULTURE

5 10 12 24

FOOD FILM MUSIC EVENTS

27 29 31 33

I SAW YOU GREEN ZONE ADVICE GODDESS BULLETIN BOARD

35 36 38 39

EDITOR’S NOTE

I

tried everything I could think of. Threats, guilt, shame, jokes, facts, stats, personal experience, the Socratic method, offers of help, appeals to patriotic duty, anything that might convince a reluctant person to consider getting vaccinated against COVID-19. So far, I’ve failed miserably.

Thankfully this week’s cover story is giving us all new ammunition for those tough conversations: 95 REASONS TO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GET VACCINATED. Find that vital list on page 12.

Also this week: Details on the Spokane Symphony’s on-demand concert series (page 24), what the federal Restaurant Revitalization Fund means for local businesses (page 27) and what to expect on Netflix this year (page 29).

— JACOB H. FRIES, editor

SPOKANE’S NEW FLAG PAGE 10

OH, PAPA PAGE 26

HAPPENING THIS WEEK PAGE 33

SWEEPING THE NATION PAGE 36

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WHAT’S YOUR IDEA TO CONVINCE MORE PEOPLE TO GET THE COVID-19 VACCINE?

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BLAISE BARSHAW: Why bother to try? The same people who have bitched about losing their “freedom” and telling everyone what a “patriot” they are for the past year-plus won’t take 15 minutes of their precious time to get a shot to stop this—it’s unbelievable to me.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Normally, we ask our question of the week of people we randomly encounter on the street. But with the coronavirus pandemic, we instead asked our followers on social media to share their thoughts.

BRANDON HOLLEE: Tell Republicans they can’t have it and it’s only for the liberal elites. They would start vaccinating to “own the libs.”

NICOLE COLBY PAULS: I think bringing vaccines to where people already are is key. 1) Providers people already have a relationship with and are likely to listen to; 2) literally where they already go, to overcome the burden of appointments and going somewhere they don’t usually go. Think pop-ups at parks, games, casinos, malls.

KATE RAU: A year’s worth of free Chick-fil-A and a Trump 2024 hat.

ELAINE SNOUWAERT: Mobile vaccine clinics that go to them and promise to have a one-on-one conversation to answer all their questions or show them the why and how it works including how it only works if the majority participate.

HOLLY ROBERTSON: Pay them.

Mobile vaccine clinics. Go to them.

Make sure people can take paid time off to get it.

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AARON HENDRY: Remind them how many vaccines they’ve already gotten.

LORI MICHELLE: If people want to risk possible death/lifetime disability, that’s on them. A consenting adult has every right to risk their health and possibly their lives. There won’t be herd immunity, but the herd will definitely be culled.

LARRY CEBULA: Proof of vaccination needed to fly, go to indoor concerts, films, etc., to attend universities, and for any job working with the public. n

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Joe Biden is not the first president to pursue an ambitious infrastructure program in the midst of an emergency

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Crisis Meets Opportunity

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on stands june 10

ast month, President Biden unveiled his ambitious $2 trillion infrastructure plan as part of his broader promise to “Build Back Better.” Much of the plan invests in traditional forms of infrastructure. It includes money for repairing crumbling bridges and roads, investment in public transport (Biden’s beloved Amtrak) and the electrical grid, as well as 21st-century infrastructure, like electric cars and high-speed internet. Former President Trump had promised much the same thing during his 2016 campaign, but without delivering on them once he was in office.

But Biden’s plan moves beyond Trump’s broken promises by embracing a broad definition of infrastructure that includes things like support for home care for the elderly and disabled, child care, veterans’ hospitals and technological research. Democrats argue that this “human infrastructure” is an essential part of improving the

everyday lives of ordinary Americans and promoting a robust economic recovery from the pandemic.

Biden will not be the first president to pursue an ambitious infrastructure program in the midst of a crisis. Abraham Lincoln did the same thing during the Civil War. As the future of the United States hung in the balance in 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railroad Act and the Morrill Act. These three acts promised to remake the United States into a transcontinental economic powerhouse by providing a broad platform of federal support for the commercial development of the West.

The Homestead Act is arguably the most comprehensive redistribution of wealth in

American history. Embracing the Jeffersonian ideal of an expanding republic of independent small agricultural producers, the act essentially offered free land to almost anyone, including single women, free African-Americans and even unnaturalized immigrants. Between 1862 and the last homestead grant in 1988, the United States government gave away over 270 million acres of land, including homesteads in Washington and Idaho.

Lincoln recognized that distributing homesteads would not be enough to promote the economic development of the West. The Pacific Railroad Act authorized the construction of the United States’ first transcontinental railroad. If homesteaders were to succeed as commercial farmers, they would need access to markets where they could sell their produce. Completed at Promontory Point in the Utah Territory in 1869, the first transcontinental railroad provided the transportation infrastructure to move people and goods across the nation.

Public education was also a core element of Lincoln’s infrastructure plan. The Morrill Act set aside public lands to establish “land grant” colleges and universities in the West. Today, you will find land grant universities in all 50 states, D.C. and five U.S. territories, but in 1862 the Lincoln administration saw these institutions functioning as economic engines for Western commercial development. WSU was founded in 1890 as the “Agricultural College, Experiment Station and School of Science of the State of Washington.” Its mission was to engage in research and public outreach to provide homesteaders with access to cutting-edge agricultural expertise and technology.

Reliable internet access and child care are no less important to rebuilding our national economy than interstate highways and bridges.

Why would Lincoln pursue an expansive infrastructure program during America’s greatest time of trial? Lincoln was a politician. With most Southern slaveholders gone from Congress, he recognized that the time was right to deliver on the Republican Party’s commitment to “internal improvements,” as infrastructure was known in the 19th century. But these measures were more than simple political opportunism. They marked America’s commitment to the dignity of labor for all. Lincoln’s infrastructure program worked hand-in-glove with the Union Army to build an America that worked for ordinary people, not an entrenched aristocracy of slaveholders.

Biden’s plan needs to embrace this same ethic in imagining the future of infrastructure in this country. The pandemic crisis has revealed many of the weaknesses of our society and economy.

Some Americans have access to high-speed internet for Zoom meetings and online learning. Many do not. Some Americans were lucky enough to have a support structure to manage their work lives while homeschooling their children. Many do not.

Reliable internet access and child care are no less important to rebuilding our national economy than interstate highways and bridges.

But there are also lessons that Biden can learn from the Lincoln administration about what not to do. The millions of acres of land that the United States distributed to homesteaders was taken from Native homelands, acquired by treaty and coercion. The laborers who built the transcontinental railroad were often poor, marginalized immigrants from China and Ireland. It is heartening that Biden’s program includes labor protections, because we must make sure that by building back better, America looks out for everyone. n Lawrence B. A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.

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LEVI HANSON: I still don’t understand what everyone is upset about.

LARS HUSCHKE: Exactly!!! It’s less money than renovating Albi, and it’ll be a revenue generator. I’m also clueless to the fight against this.

DAVE THORP: Maybe the fact that it went to a vote, the people said no, then they said, “Ah f--- it, we’ll just do it anyway”? I mean, I’m all for it.

But certainly you have to understand why folks would be upset.

RYAN WEAVER: This proposal is completely different than the original one. No additional city costs, funding from USL, better location, parking included, cost of parking management included, etc.

RICK REID: Downtown and North Bank will be a total mess anytime two events happen at the same time.

healthy kids together

This printed material is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $250,000. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CMS, HHS or the U.S. Government.

8 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

Readers respond to last week’s news that Spokane Public Schools approved a proposal to build its stadium downtown instead of the Joe Albi site:

FELICIA DIAMOND: So if it’s completely different, maybe we should vote again.

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The United Soccer League committed to bring a pro team to Spokane if the stadium is built downtown.

TIFFANY SAUNDERS: I will vote no on any school bond or levy in the future.

PHIL LARKIN: That’ll teach ’em! n Find more news about the stadium decision on page 10.

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BRIEFS

The Deadliest Numbers How SPD compares to other departments; plus, Spokane’s new flag and a forthcoming stadium

BY INLANDER STAFF SPD Chief Craig Meidl says activists are intentionally misreading stats to hurt this department. Others say he’s the one not understanding the data about police violence. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

F

or nearly a year, local police-reform activists have been citing stats from Mapping Police Violence — a database of police killings started by prominent Black Lives Matter protesters — showing how the SPOKANE POLICE DEPARTMENT compared with other cities.

“We used to be fifth-deadliest, but that number has been adjusted,” activist Anwar Peace told KREM last month. “Now we’re the third-deadliest police force in the nation.”

Police Chief Craig Meidl responded with a Facebook video on Friday, arguing those statistics were part of an “inflammatory,” “damaging and dangerous narrative.”

“We do not need the community being concerned about the police department,” Meidl said. “We want them and need them to trust us.”

The Mapping Police Violence website does come with caveats: First, the database misses an estimated 8 percent of police killings. Second, the stats look at the per-capita rate of people killed by each police department from 2013 through 2020, not raw totals.

Third, it’s only looking at the 100 largest cities. So Spokane, the 99th largest city in the country, is being compared to Boise, Seattle, Chicago and St. Louis in their rankings, but not to Tacoma or Coeur d’Alene.

So while the data suggest that Spokane police kill people at more than twice the rate that Chicago police do in that violent big city, Meidl prefers a less alarming sounding stat: On average 2.1 people are killed by police per year in Spokane.

Meidl suggests to the Inlander that activists were intentionally or unintentionally misreading the stats, using “shock value to drive a discussion” about police killings that “we were already willing to have.”

An Inlander records request, however, shows that back

10 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

in September, Police Strategies CEO Bob Scales — the consultant hired by SPD to analyze use-of-force data — encouraged the department to “acknowledge that the statistic from mappingpoliceviolence.org is correct.”

Still, Scales stressed that the “racial disparity calculations are meaningless when you have such a small sample,” and he objected to only looking at the 100 largest cities, arguing that “better analysis would be to examine death rates in Spokane compared to similarly sized cities.”

Instead, in his Facebook video, Meidl used Police Strategies data to argue that Spokane had the 39th-lowest per-capita rate of police killings when compared to every other city in Washington. Deer Park — a city of a little over 4,000 with only a single person killed by a sheriff’s deputy killing over nearly eight years — ranked seventh.

“My hope is that people would understand that there’s a lot of data and a lot of variables, and that you can manipulate data to tell the story that you want to tell,” Meidl tells the Inlander.

But that goes for police chiefs as well as activists. Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs says he discouraged Meidl from making the claims he did in the Facebook video.

“I told him that his statistics and analysis were incorrect,” Beggs says. (DANIEL WALTERS)

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Spokane is getting a NEW FLAG after residents voted for their favorite among 300 submissions that were ultimately narrowed to 12 finalists.

The winning flag was designed by Derek Landers, the art director at local apparel company The Great PNW, co-founder of Spokane Print and Publishing Cen-

ter and owner of Landers Design.

“I was actually a lot more excited than I thought I would be,” Landers says of learning his design won. “It hit me differently after I got the email and my boss — I was at work telling everyone — was like, ‘You’re gonna be in the history books, man!’”

Spokane’s new flag designed by Derek Landers.

The flag features a yellow sun in the upper left corner on a white background, recognizing the Spokane Tribe, as Spokane means “Children of the Sun” in Salish. Below that are blue flowing lines, representing the Spokane River, over a solid green base representing the land and trees, which rises diagonally from the lower left to the upper right of the flag. His design was initially created in 2019 when the Inlander asked local artists to reimagine the city’s flag.

“For something like a flag, you’re trying to generate some kind of civic identity that people can look to

and say, ‘This represents Spokane,’” Landers says. “We have the Spokane River, which is pretty iconic, and has been around a long time, and will hopefully outlast these other things that may come and go as a trend or landmark.”

Landers says that while some have already criticized his design for not including something like the Pavilion or the Clock Tower or Spokane Falls, his 24 years of design experience have taught him that simplicity is key.

“This symbolizes the whole Spokane region rather than needing the Clock Tower or the garbage goat,” Landers says. “It needs to be clean and simple and easily identifiable.”

The public was allowed to vote on the design if they were a Spokane Public Library cardholder or a Spokane Tribe member.

Ranked choice voting allowed the idea supported by the most voters to ultimately win. No one was paid for the designs.

“This was a contest; there was no compensation,” Landers says. “I did it because 1) I was proud of my design, and 2) I love this city.”

A dedication of the new flag is planned for sometime in June.

(SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

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DOWNTOWN STADIUM A GO

More than three years since the idea was born, the Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors last week agreed in a 4-1 vote to move ahead with building the district’s new HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS STADIUM downtown.

“I genuinely believe that when all is said and done, that this decision is a step in the right direction to bring Spokane to a better place,” says Jerral Haynes, school board president.

Construction on the stadium, to be located near the Spokane Arena, is expected to begin next spring with a completion date possible by fall 2022, according to information presented by the school district staff last week.

For Spokane Public Schools, the downtown stadium will replace soon-to-be-demolished Joe Albi Stadium in northwest Spokane. Voters approved $31 million to build a new 5,000LETTERS seat stadium for high school Send comments to sports in 2018 to replace Albi, editor@inlander.com. but in a nonbinding advisory vote, voters overwhelmingly said at the time that they preferred the smaller stadium to be built at the Albi site instead of downtown. Many voters at the time were concerned about parking and traffic.

But the proposal for a downtown stadium was brought back earlier this year by the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which said the parking concerns had been addressed. Additionally, the United Soccer League has promised to bring a professional soccer team to Spokane if the stadium is built downtown. The USL said it would pitch in an additional $2 million for its construction.

The Spokane Public Facilities District will operate the stadium — saving the school district millions over the term of the contract — but Spokane Public Schools will retain 100 percent ownership rights and priority for scheduling events. The PFD will also allow the Spokane Public Schools to use the Podium — the sportsplex also near the Arena — for school events such as high school graduation. As part of the agreement with the PFD, the school district will also receive a share of all revenue from non-schoolrelated events.

The school district will partner with the Civic Theatre during design and construction to mitigate noise impact. The district and Downtown Spokane Partnership will also support a capital campaign from the Civic Theatre “to fund facility improvements” preventing noise pollution.

School board member Nikki Lockwood, the lone “no” vote on the downtown stadium, said she still had questions about the impact to the Spokane Civic Theatre. And she remains skeptical that this agreement addresses the reason voters rejected the proposal in 2018.

“I do wonder if we had a better advisory vote, what that outcome would be,” Lockwood says. “Have we addressed the issues that allowed the voters to say ‘no’ initially?” (WILSON CRISCIONE) n

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MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 11

REASON #56 Take a vax selfie, rake in the Instagram likes.

12 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

95 W

e’ve spent a year trapped in a nightmare. We’ve seen a half-million people die in the U.S. We’ve watched the places we’ve loved boarded up and bankrupted. We’ve gone crazy inside — locked down, shut in and fed up.

And we’ve watched the world go crazy outside — a soaring murder rate, riots, insurrection and Instagram videos of people screaming at Walmart greeters about masks.

The good news is this is the kind of nightmare you can pinch yourself and wake up from. All we have to do is tap our heels together three times, poke your arm once or twice, and we can all go home again. The problem is that to truly banish the nightmare — to stop the deaths, free the businesses, get rid of the masks — everyone has to join in the ritual. Whether because of fear, misinformation or simple procrastination, a huge chunk of the Inland Northwest hasn’t been vaccinated.

Three weeks after vaccines opened to everyone over 16 in Spokane County, only 45 percent of those eligible have had their first shot. We’ve had over 3,400 new COVID cases since April. Last week, we almost got banished back to Phase 2. Yet open vaccination slots are abundant.

And so we’re desperate: Maybe shaming doesn’t work, but if there’s just a chance it does, we will wag our finger until we get carpal tunnel. Maybe insults are ineffective, but we’re trying everything, dumbass. If there’s even a possibility that rhyming slogans will convince you, then dammit, we’ll tell you to cross your heart, avoid the harm, stick a needle in your arm. We’ve assembled every argument we could think of — from appeals to science and emotion to celebrity and absurdity — that could move the needle to move more needles.

1

You’re either on #TeamVaccine or #TeamCOVID-19.

There’s no third party, no option C. One wins, or the other does. The question isn’t whether you’d prefer to take the vaccines, like, recreationally. It’s whether you prefer to eventually get COVID — and more importantly — whether you’d prefer to unknowingly spread it to someone else.

So who are you going to trust? The new guy who you don’t know very well but has 90 percent support? Or the serial killer who has murdered millions?

2 3 The vaccines really are that good.

COVID-19 vaccines are free.

That’s a hell of a deal.

Pfizer and Moderna prevent anywhere from 85 to 95 percent of symptomatic infections, while Johnson

REASONS TO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GET VACCINATED This list was reported and written by Daniel Walters, Wilson Criscione, Samantha Wohlfeil, Nathan Weinbender, Chey Scott, and Dan Nailen — every one of them fully or partially vaccinated.

& Johnson prevents around 72 percent. With another study showing Pfizer and Moderna were 90 percent effective against even asymptomatic infections, the chance of a vaccinated person spreading the virus is extremely low.

Where vaccines really thrive is when everyone in the room is vaccinated. Think of it this way: Condoms are 85 to 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. But if both partners are wearing condoms, pregnancy is essentially impossible.

not perfect.

4 ButWhichthey’re is even more of a reason to get them.

There are millions of people who still may not be fully protected after vaccination. The elderly. The immunocompromised. Cancer patients.

That’s the whole point of herd immunity: When enough people get vaccinated, the virus fades away, and we protect even the handful of holdouts who can’t get the shot. In other words, choosing not to get the vaccine doesn’t just put you at risk. It endangers others.

5 It’s never been easier to get vaxxed.

The days of needing to play wifi roulette to have a chance of getting a vaccine appointment are long gone.

You can call 1-800-VAX-HELP or just walk up to a clinic like Walgreens, CVS or Rite Aid. In North Idaho, the vaccines can even come to you! Panhandle Health District has started a mobile vaccine clinic that serves local businesses directly.

6

Tell the haters you’ll eat as much free Krispy Kreme as you damn well please.

When Krispy Kreme announced that it would give a free doughnut every day this year to anyone who flashed their vax card, you had plenty of wet blanket health scolds whining about how “uhhh, doughnuts are baaaad for you.”

Look lady, we’ve been through hell. We got vaccinated, but we’re not some health nut. We’re more than happy to go out in a glaze of glory.

didn’t rush COVID-19 vaccine testing — 7 Wewe folded the fabric of space-time.

Well, sorta. Even before COVID-19 showed up, scientists put in years of work on messenger RNA, creating technology that lets them essentially plug in the genetic instructions from a new virus, quickly generating a vaccine without even needing to grow proteins in a lab.

From there, the U.S. slashed red tape, allowing early stages of the clinical trials of the vaccines to unfold simultaneously. Researchers were still held to rigorous safety

standards. They just proved that they didn’t need to do the first few steps in sequence — they can multitask just like you are, reading this while using the bathroom.

8 You’re not a guinea pig. You’re a late adopter.

Bad news: Your chance to brag about how you saw Pfizer play the Kroc Center when they were still underground has long since passed. By now, the COVID vaccines have sold out to the man and gone mainstream.

The world’s already given out 1.2 billion COVID shots.

That’s enough time and a large enough sample size to catch even ridiculously rare side effects.

FDA and CDC are big wusses about side 9 The effects, so you know they treat them seriously.

After the Johnson & Johnson vaccine distribution was brought to a screeching halt because of six serious blood clots out of nearly 6 million vaccines distributed, some were furious.

“With COVID cases still rising nationwide, it’s sheer lunacy to delay millions of vaccinations and feed fears among the vax-resistant,” wrote noted J&J vaccine groupie Donald J. Trump.

But however ill-advised the delay — which was later lifted — it shows that the feds care about even rare side effects so much they’re willing to trash the reputation of an entire vaccine, throwing caution to the wind out of an abundance of caution.

10 You know what else causes blood clots?

You guessed it: birth control pills. But more relevantly: COVID-19. One study found that blood clotting risk after getting COVID was eight to 10 times higher than after getting a Pfizer or Moderna shot.

vaccine side effects 11 Short-lived are normal, but not guaranteed.

Yes, as vaccines hit your immune system, it’s not unusual to feel like Rocky just punched you in the arm. And some people have flu-like symptoms for a few hours, or a day or two. Others didn’t have any side effects at all, beyond dry mouth and sporadic bouts of nostalgia.

are stronger than the vaccine 12 You side effects. We believe in you.

OK, so maybe you think you’re healthy, and there’s no reason to be afraid of COVID-19. You mean to tell me that you are afraid of some vaccine side effects? A headache, maybe some temporary chills? As your high school gym teacher used to say, pain is just weakness leaving the body. Try+umph = Triumph! ...continued on next page

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 13

“95 REASONS,” CONTINUED...

13 Long-term side effects are unlikely.

With every single case in the past — from the polio vaccine to the yellow fever vaccine — vaccine expert Paul Offit explains, any serious vaccine side effect, including long-term side effects, have been identified within six weeks. But despite testing the vaccines for over a year, serious side effects have remained remarkably rare.

Spokane’s William and Kat 14 McGunagle both got vaccinated.

Then they won a million dollars.

Kat McGunagle, who runs an early-childhood preschool out of her home, got her first Moderna shot at the Spokane Arena back in March. William McGunagle got his Johnson & Johnson shot on April 7 at Walmart. And then, just a few weeks later, Publisher’s Clearing House’s Prize Patrol showed up with a check for $1 million.

It’s too soon to know for sure to know if these events are connected, but you can’t be too safe.

COVID-19 virus has not been 15 The officially approved by the FDA.

While some people are concerned that the COVID-19 vaccines have only been given an emergency use authorization so far, the COVID-19 virus doesn’t even have that.

16 One of the side effects of COVID-19 is death.

More than 580,000 Americans are dead. All the masks and the social distancing and the lockdowns and the handwashing almost eliminated the flu entirely — and yet COVID has already killed about as many Americans as 13 years of flu deaths.

17

The young and the reckless need the vaccines, too.

You kids these days, with your TikToks and your pogs and your Pokemons, may not think vaccines are “rad” or “to the max.” But let me drop a “truth bomb,” and give you the “411” on the “C-19.”

COVID is “hella sus,” even for “hep cats” like you.

In Spokane, 55 percent of confirmed COVID cases in the county came from those under 40. So while those in their 20s and 30s don’t die as often, they can be “superspreaders” who make the elderly “super deader.”

Still think COVID is “sick”?

PURCHASE) I tried COVID, 18 (VERIFIED and honestly, I hated it.

If I could give this virus a negative rating, I would. First off, it made my entire body hurt. Then it had the audacity to pretend to go away before the damn thing had me feeling like I was breathing through a coffee straw for six f---ing days!

I’m young, what gives?

Get the vaccine instead. My first Pfizer dose only gave me six hours (not days) of a super sore arm and a headache that went away with Tylenol. It has even offered to take me to some of my favorite concerts later this year and get back to traveling again! So far this relationship is so much healthier (literally).

— Samantha Wohlfeil, COVID Connoisseur

19 COVID can leave you broken hearted.

One study found 20 percent of recovered COVID patients — including young, healthy athletes who had no symptoms — had irreversible scarring on their heart.

20 COVID messes with your mind.

It’s called “brain fog” and it can affect memory, attention span, and… did I say memory?

14 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

REASON #14: Spokane’s William and Kat McGunagle both got vaccinated. Then they won a million dollars. COURTESY OF PUBLISHER’S CLEARING HOUSE

21 COVID can take your breath away.

Take it from a guy who was hospitalized twice for asthma as a kid: Lungs are one of the body’s most important organs. Sure, you’ve got two of them, but when COVID attacks, it can ravage your lungs far deeper than the worst cold you’ve ever experienced. You can’t breathe easy when you can’t easily breathe.

25 COVID can nibble at your toes.

Unless you’re Tinky-Winky or the Grimace, purple is not the color that you want your toes to be.

And yet, a number of COVID victims have reported their toes have turned red, then purple after contracting the virus. Sometimes there’s a buildup of pus that would gross out even Quentin Tarantino.

22 COVID can make your scent sense senseless. 26 COVID can haunt you — possibly forever.

COVID could cost you some of life’s greatest sensory pleasures: the smell of smells. A sweatshirt soaked in campfire smoke. Obsession by Calvin Klein.

Popcorn at the movies. Dry-erase markers in secondperiod math class. The smell just before it thunders and just after it rains. The musky pheromones of Channing Tatum. Napalm in the morning. Whatever the Rock is cooking.

23 COVID gives you awful taste.

Imagine biting into a strip of bacon and tasting nothing. Imagine the same with strawberry-banana yogurt, foie gras and massaman curry. Balsamic vinaigrette.

KFC’s 11 herbs and spices. Wendy’s fries dipped in a Frosty. Turkish delight. Sour Patch Kids. Even the taste of Tim’s Cascade Style Jalapeño Potato Chips turns to ashes in your mouth.

Every food you try has become — like making jokes about COVID — completely tasteless.

can cause, uh, 24 COVID *whispers* erectile dysfunction.

If there’s one thing you ask of your ’rectile, it’s to function. Yet erectile dysfunction is many times more common for those who’ve suffered COVID, particularly for men. So if your worries about the vaccine keep you up all night, feel grateful that at least something still can.

COVID symptoms usually go away within a month. For 26-year-old Starbucks barista Alli Talmage, it’s been more than nine. She still has it all: the brain fog, the high heart rate, the nausea, the headaches, the insomnia, the breathing problems. Some “long haul” COVID victims have found that vaccination helps finally exorcise COVID’s ghost, though it hasn’t for Talmage.

Better to use vaccines to stop you from being haunted to begin with.

27 COVID is a huge racist.

When COVID says “I’m not racist, but—” don’t believe it.

COVID wants you to know that it has some really “interesting thoughts” on race and IQ. COVID’s “edgy” Halloween costume got it kicked out of its sorority.

COVID posts “ironically” on 4Chan. Compared with Whites, the COVID death rate as of mid-March was 24 percent higher for Hispanics, 38 percent higher for Native Americans, and 43 percent higher for Black people.

It’s not about biology, it’s about society: These racial groups are more likely to live and work in places where they’re more likely to be exposed. ...continued on page 16

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“95 REASONS,” CONTINUED...

28 New hit COVID variants keep dropping.

As if we were getting bored with the original model, COVID keeps desperately reinventing itself to try to stay hip and relevant. Some of the nasty new variants brought to us by COVID 2: The New Batch spread faster or further, and some seem to be deadlier. So far, the vaccines seem to be holding their own. But the longer we keep infecting one another with COVID strains, the more chances the virus has to develop into something meaner, uglier and more personal.

vaccines do not 29 The have microchips in them.

I’m not the first to point out the irony of people using their iPhone to go to Facebook and post this conspiracy they found using Google to look up a video on YouTube. If tech companies wanted to track your every move, they wouldn’t put a microchip into vaccines, they would be a tech company.

30 No,don’tthemessmRNAwithvaccines your DNA.

All that mRNA — or messenger RNA — does with a vaccine is train our immune system to recognize a tell-tale piece of the COVID virus, so we can fight against it.

Then, like a wise and mysterious sensei, it disappears, having nothing more to teach us.

And even if it could break into the place in your cells where your DNA is stored, the mRNA in the vaccines doesn’t have any of the tools necessary to mess with it.

Your application to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters will have to wait.

31 The vaccines are vegan.

Twitter user “Troll Toll 69 420” 32 is not particularly qualified to comment on epidemiological medicine.

No eggs were used in this vaccine, and no veal.

I’m sure if I keep arguing with him, I’ll change his mind, though.

33

Talk to your actual doctor.

YouTube doctors may seem smart, with their lab coats and impressive degrees in subjects like “comparative literature” and “holistic astrology.” But rather than listen to them, or even us, you should ask your real doctor about the vaccines. She helped you with your weird fungal thing — she could probably help you here, too.

34 The vaccine needles aren’t actually that big.

A lot of media outlets love to illustrate their vaccine stories with gargantuan needles like the kind that Captain Ahab would use to inoculate Moby Dick. (“From hell’s heart I jab at thee!”)

The reality: Remember when you were in sixth grade and that one kid — the one who would eat anything for a dollar — kept clicking his mechanical pencil until the point got longer and longer and then he poked you with it? It’s pretty much exactly like that.

If you’re brave for your mom 35 and you don’t throw a tantrum, maybe we can go out for Dairy Queen afterward.

That’d be fun, huh, sport?

36 The vaccines are low-calorie.

They do have a bit of salt in them though — nobody wants an underseasoned vaccine.

16 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

37 Don’t let Seattle win.

41 Stick it to the libs with the Trump Vaccine.

We get it. Spokane hates Seattle. They’re always throwing fish at people, always sticking their gum on perfectly good walls, always going on and on about the opera and dinner parties and their radio show to their brother Niles.

But here’s the thing: Seattle is kicking our unvaccinated ass. In King County, 65 percent of those eligible have had their first shot, compared with only 45 percent in Spokane.

So maybe, until we get our act together, Spokane should stop acting like “Seattle is dying” because of all the needles being used downtown and realize that Seattle isn’t dying — at least not of COVID — because of all the needles being used downtown.

The liberal media mocked President Trump and “fact”-checked him for claiming that we’d have a vaccine available for every American by April 2021. Why, that kind of operation would have to proceed at warp speed to be possible, huh?

Sure, let them make jokes about “injecting bleach,” instead of admitting he helped us get the injections that will actually save us. Let them pretend like Trump’s team preordering 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and spending $955 million on the Moderna vaccine didn’t matter to the vaccine’s quick development. You’ll be over here trolling the Dems, by pushing conservatives to take Trump’s vaccines until — like a miracle — COVID disappears.

getting vaccinated is like a 38 Not self-fulfilling conspiracy theory.

vaccines don’t have anything 42 The to do with cellphone towers.

Imagine an evil cabal that plots to contaminate the water supply in a way that poisons mostly Republican communities. Yes, they know that 10 percent of Democrats will get sick, but 40 percent of Republicans will. Many will even die. That would be one of the all-time horrifying conspiracies, right? It would make 9/11 look like a fake moon landing.

To be clear: There’s no conspiracy. But a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month showed that 40 percent of Republicans say they definitely or probably won’t get vaccinated, compared with just 10 percent of Democrats. If we don’t change that, a lot more Republicans will get sick and die. That’s pretty horrifying, too.

39 MTFU. Be a patriot

Do the patriotic thing. Protect your family. Serve your country. Now it’s time for every American to exercise their right to bare arms — and get an injection in those arms. We kicked Hitler’s ass. We defeated the metric system. Now it’s COVID’s turn.

More Americans have died of COVID than 40 every U.S. military combat death in every war for the last 150 years.

All the German machine guns and Nazi tanks and Viet Cong ambushes and insurgent IEDs combined didn’t kill as many Americans in combat as this single bug did.

The only “5G” in this vaccine is “Goo Great at Guarding Grandmas and Grandpas.” ...continued on page 18

REASON #41:

Stick it to the libs with the Trump Vaccine.

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MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 17

REASON #58: Your favorite restaurants are sick of it. (Pictured: Washington Army National Guard Spc. Wendell Tu gives the

COVID-19 vaccine to Miah Shirley during a clinic hosted by the Spokane Hospitality Coalition at David’s Pizza).

“95 REASONS,” CONTINUED...

Make Fauci obsolete.

43

Look, Dr. Anthony Fauci was cute at first, you say to yourself, but he’s really overstayed his welcome.

I don’t blame you. But if enough people get vaccinated, COVID will cease to be relevant, and so will Fauci. Like Ken Bone, Snooki and the “Gangnam Style” guy before him, Fauci will fade from your consciousness.

Someday, perhaps, Mo Rocca will do a “hey, remember that Fauci doctor guy” riff in some distant I Love the ’20s VH1 special, and you will remember. But only briefly.

anyone 44 Weif youwon’tdon’ttellwant us to.

Maybe vaccines aren’t cool in your hypermasculine world of high-octane street racers, dive-bar arm-wrestlers, or giant ox-befriending lumberjacks. That’s fine. Get vaccinated, and we won’t tell a soul. Pretend you’re going out for a smoke and duck into the vaccination clinic. Explain away the Band-Aid as a hunting accident. Hide your vaccination card in your gun safe. Nobody will know.

But whenever there’s a COVID outbreak at the Rusty Coffin Bar & Salvage Yard, you can quietly relax, knowing you’re immune.

“Yes, I think Jesus Christ would 45 advocate for people using vaccines and medicines to treat suffering and save lives.”

That’s not coming from some squishy liberal pastor who thinks that Jesus is just, like, a metaphor for mindfulness.

That’s from the right-wing Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son. Despite a lot of evangelical Christians being resistant, Graham points to the other vaccines distributed through his disaster relief agency, Samaritan’s Purse, to show how protecting others is the Christian thing to do.

18 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

were harmed in 46 Nothefetuses making of these vaccines.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

vaccines turn risky business 50 The into safer business.

Pro-lifers don’t have to worry. None of the vaccines have fetal cells in them. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were tested on cell lines that may have originally come from a single abortion — but that was way back in 1973 in the Netherlands. And considering the fact that the vaccines save lives of all ages, even Spokane’s Catholic Bishop Thomas Daly — not exactly a radical pro-choice feminist — signed onto a letter with other Washington state bishops recommending the “faithful get the COVID-19 vaccine.”

If a vaccine is 90 percent effective, that means you’re 10 times safer than you were unvaccinated. Everyone can upgrade their risk tolerance. For a square like me, I now feel safe to do laundry maskless at my mom’s house.

Imagine what it could look like for a daredevil like you, who was bar hopping before you were vaccinated.

Would you go spelunking in Wuhan bat caves? Streak through Providence’s COVID unit? Clean your ears with used COVID test swabs? Do bong hits off active ventilators?

47 Vaccines won’t cause infertility.

51 Hate masks? Vaccines can set us free!

meanwhile, might 48 COVID, kill you if you’re pregnant.

can still wear your mask if 52 You you really want to for some reason.

Clinical trials are still ongoing, but so far the pregnant women who’ve opted to get the vaccine are proving the vaccines are safe.

Among thousands of pregnant women who reported their COVID vaccine symptoms to the CDC, the rate of miscarriages or lost pregnancies was right in line with the national average of 10 to 15 percent.

A global study of 2,100 pregnant women found that those who got COVID while pregnant were 20 times more likely to die than pregnant women who didn’t get the virus. It also can add risk of preterm birth and pregnancy complications.

vaccines do not include 49 The the Mark of the Beast.

The vaccines don’t include an unholy mark branding you as a sworn servant of the Antichrist. Better luck next time, Satanists.

Yes, it doesn’t hurt to be extra cautious around super old people. And it could take awhile before stores loosen their mask policies.

But even if you’re a good, law-abiding citizen who dutifully straps on your seatbelt and bike helmet, getting a vaccine is a rare way to eliminate an annoying safety device. Picture it: the indoors, unobscured by glasses-fog.

Yes, as caseloads fall and more people get vaccinated, masks make less and less sense. But if you’ve become accustomed to your face mask, nobody’s forcing you to ditch it. Ignore the stares. If anyone asks why you still insist on the mask, just tell them to meet you under the Paris Opera House’s chandelier and you’ll explain everything.

53 The vaccines are gluten-free.

Unfortunately, as with most gluten-free things, they’re quite flavorless.

vaccinations prevent 54 Voluntary mandatory vaccinations.

You’re not an anti-vaxxer, you say. You just don’t want to mandate vaccinations, for purely philosophical reasons.

Great! Convince as many people to get vaccinated voluntarily. If we hit herd immunity, the case for enforcement becomes a lot weaker.

The sooner we’re all vaccinated, 55 the sooner our phones can recognize our smiling faces again.

Isn’t it annoying when you’re paying for your groceries with Apple Pay, and Face ID doesn’t recognize your mask so it makes you put in a passcode? Vaccines can help.

a vax selfie, 56 Take rake in the Instagram likes.

You can only announce you’ve gotten engaged so many times on social media before you start getting fewer and fewer “likes.” Social media algorithms are a fickle beast — one that loves I-just-got-vaccinated photos.

vaccines do not cause a small 57 The flower to grow from your head.

You probably need to wash your hair more often.

58

Your favorite restaurants are sick of it.

Restaurant owners and hospitality workers are done with being the mask police, getting their hours cut, getting shut down by the governor, building makeshift patios in the dead of winter, laying off their staff, rehiring their staff (only to be laid off yet again), and risking their personal health and safety day in and day out.

“We need to keep moving forward,” Spokane Hospitality Coalition co-founder and David’s Pizza owner Mark Starr said at a vaccination clinic for hospitality workers last Thursday.

The coalition, founded last year to support restaurants during the pandemic, organized the clinic with the health district in less than a week. They even threw in a free slice of pizza for those getting the shot. Follow save509.com for future similar clinics.

“I won’t rest until we get past the 6-foot social distancing,” Starr says. “I want the Arena to open, I want the Podium to be in use. I want life back.”

59

Convince all the fraidy cats to emerge from hiding.

60

You can go to Baby Bar again.

Even a lot of vaccinated people are, understandably, skittish about returning to bars and restaurants with caseloads still so high. Before our local economy can truly return, we need to get COVID cases so low that even the most nervous Nelly feels safe partying again.

It opened last week for the first time in over a year. Don’t screw it up by getting COVID.

61 You can hug your Grandma again.

Think of all the tiny, individually wrapped hard candies you’ll rake in as a result.

You can go to the gym again 62 without worrying that sweaty grunting guy at the gym will give you COVID.

For a virus, he’s the ideal host. Sweat dripping everywhere, he roars with each lift, exerting dominance over everyone with the guts to share a gym with this specimen. And with each roar, more aerosols that could infect you with COVID fill the muggy, suffocating weight room. Don’t worry. If you’re vaccinated, there’s little to fear. Unless you ask the bench-pressing man if he’s on his last set, that is.

You can attend in-person church 63 again without feeling guilty that you might infect Mrs. Flunderson.

And get back to feeling guilty about the usual stuff: lust, greed, covetousness, tax evasion, etc.

can make and then 64 You cancel plans with friends again.

As enjoyable as it is to catch up with old friends now that we can again, nothing compares to the utter ecstasy of relief that comes with making plans to meet up with them, and then canceling at the last minute.

can hear the roar of the 65 You audience at the movies again.

There are few things more gratifying than seeing a great film in a packed house, surrounded by a like-minded crowd, everyone laughing and gasping in unison.

Think of the crowd pleasers coming this summer — Fast & Furious! James Bond! Space Jam! — that would be so much more fun to see with a sold-out opening weekend audience. Herd immunity could make that a reality again.

66 Let music live again.

ready for the vaccinated-only 70 Getseating section.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has already let religious organizations and outdoor sporting facilities expand their capacity limits to include sections exclusively for fully vaccinated people. Don’t miss out on your chance to watch the Mariners lose in person.

71 COVID killed Shawn Cox’s father.

It’s a blizzard — snowing in October — when Spokane resident Shawn Cox asks the paramedics if he can say goodbye to his dad, Bill. He’d intercepted the ambulance as they returned his father to his group home for the last few days of his life.

So he stands there under a tree outside the group home, as the snow pours down, and places his hands on the blankets covering his dad. He doesn’t know if his father — master of the dad joke, jovial to the end — can hear him on the gurney, but Cox still tells him he loves him, that he was a great dad, all the things you say when you know you’ll never see someone again.

“We have this window right now, where we could put COVID in the rearview mirror,” Cox says. “It’s heartbreaking that we may miss this opportunity.”

Vanna Oh! musician Lindsay Johnston was scheduled to kick off her 30-stop blues-rock tour in April 2020. Instead, COVID pulled the plug, along with all her investment.

“There was definitely about half a year of bitterness,” Johnston says.

If vaccination rates were to magically increase overnight and restrictions were loosened, live music would be the first thing Johnston returns to.

Musicians really, really, really want to play for audiences again. Let’s bring back mosh pits, crowd surfing and merch booths. It’ll be the encore that every music fanatic has been clamoring for.

“When I think about what I would do if COVID was over,” Johnston says. “I would be at a sweaty punk show at Mootsy’s.”

67 Dolly Parton wants you to get vaccinated.

Singer, songwriter, actress, amusement park maven, fashion icon, philanthropist — Dolly Parton wears oh so many fabulous hats. Now she can add another feather to that bedazzled cap: scientific donor. After the country music legend provided $1 million to Vanderbilt University that helped fund testing for Moderna, Parton posted a video of herself getting a dose of her own medicine. As she sang in the clip: “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vacciiiiine / I’m begging of you, please don’t hesitate.”

68 Imagine all the vaccinated celebrities.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson got the COVID vaccine! So did Nick Offerman, Queen Elizabeth, and Mitch McConnell. Lin-Manuel Miranda is not throwing away his shot, and neither is William Daniels (the guy who played Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World!).

When governor/terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger got vaxxed, he encouraged others to do the same: “Come with me if you want to live!”

course, not every 69 Ofcelebrity got vaccinated.

Musician John Prine didn’t get the vaccine. Neither did That Thing You Do songwriter Adam Schlesinger. Herman Cain and Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally both didn’t get the vaccine.

To be fair, they probably would have been vaccinated. But COVID killed them last year, before they had a chance.

REASONS #71-72: Bill Cox, left, and John Flynn.

72 COVID killed Gail Golden’s father-in-law.

Air Force Col. John Flynn, 61, was only months away from his civilian retirement. He’d just finished his dream home. He was getting ready to move to Arizona.

He was admitted to the emergency room with COVID on Christmas Eve. He died three weeks later.

He was a patriot — the true kind, not the loud bombastic kind, says former Inlander account manager Gail Golden, Flynn’s daughter-in-law.

The vaccines, then, became something almost sacred for Golden.

“I remember getting very emotional getting my first shot,” Golden says. “I said, ‘This one’s for you, Colonel.’”

73 COVID killed Frank Newman’s brother.

Frank Newman, a Lewis and Clark high school teacher, remembers folding newspapers with his brother growing up. And he remembers the last phone call with his brother, a 59-year-old with cerebral palsy.

“He was saying, ‘I just have to beat this COVID,’” Newman says. “He sounded strong. He sounded good.

The next day I called. No answer.”

His brother had been rushed to the ER and placed in a medically induced coma.

“And he was never able to get out of that,” Newman says. “You just felt isolated and alone. It felt surreal. It didn’t feel like it was happening.” ...continued on next page

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 19

“95 REASONS,” CONTINUED... probably underestimating 74 We’re the death toll.

Last year was one of the deadliest in recent history. The total death rate of Americans last year was as high as it’s been since 1944; 16 percent more Americans died in 2020 than 2019, the biggest increase in more than a century.

You could blame it on COVID or social distancing or masks or shutdowns. It doesn’t matter. The vaccine is how we get rid of all of it.

75

Vaccinate away Gov. Jay Inslee’s pandemic powers.

Don’t want the fate of Spokane’s business openings to be at the mercy of Inslee’s gubernatorial whims? End the pandemic.

health officials have had a rough 76 Public year. Why not give them a win for once?

They always look so sad. Maybe if you got vaccinated it would cheer them up?

vaccines do not 77 The summon the Babadook.

Studies show that the Babadook-per-capita levels are more correlated with grief than vaccination.

78 Look at how great Britain is doing.

While Europe crapped the bidet over a few blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine, the British kept calm and carried on. The result? By now, in Scotland, for example, 98 percent of those over 50 are vaccinated.

Today, England and Scotland have less than a fourth of the rate of new cases than we do.

79 We could be Israel.

Not in terms of getting perpetually condemned by the United Nations.

In terms of Israel’s massive vaccination campaign. By April 3, they’d vaccinated 90 percent of Israeli citizens over 65 and 72 percent of everyone over 16. The result? COVID is nearly completely defeated, deaths are rare, cases are low, and they’re opening their economy again.

as people are unvaccinated, 80 Asyou’relongvulnerable.

Look at Ferry County.

By early April, Ferry County in northeastern Washington thought it escaped the worst of COVID-19. The virus had barely touched them, and they had barely touched the vaccine.

Then, weeks ago, two large indoor events in the town of Republic — including a membership drive and karaoke night — launched an outbreak that has infected 10 percent of Republic’s population with COVID. Local hospitals are full. At least one person has died.

Take it from Natalee Medina, the host of the karaoke superspreader event. She says she used to feel like COVID precautions were useless because there was no COVID in Ferry County. That’s changed.

“It’s not about politics guys. It’s legit, like our neighbors and our family and our friends are getting sick, and some of them are dying,” she says in a video she shared on her Facebook page.

And there are ways to change that, she says.

“One of them is getting your COVID vaccine,” she says.

had COVID? 81 Already You should still get vaccinated.

Yes, your body created some hard-won antibodies against COVID, which is great! But we don’t know yet how long that natural immunity lasts. So doctors recommend you still get vaccinated to boost that immunity and keep yourself protected. Trump did it. You should, too.

For the millionth time, 82 Robert, vaccines don’t cause autism.

Dammit, Robert, we’ve been over this. Over 100 studies have been conducted, Rob, and they all found that there’s absolutely no reason to think vaccines are remotely linked to autism.

84 Working from home sucks.

Maybe you like the monotonous days staring at a computer screen, isolated next to your kitchen trash can in your overpriced apartment, rarely speaking with your colleagues except for the awkward Zoom calls during which you half-heartedly pretend to understand one another. The rest of us? We’re happy to get back to the office. Vaccines make that safer.

85 No seriously, Zoom is Hell.

At first, it seemed like a technological miracle.

But after more than a year, we’re ready to turn Zoom off forever. It didn’t take long to realize staring into your computer camera for hours on end is only meant for the selfie-obsessed. Suddenly, people were being judged for the backgrounds of their Zoom calls or for the books (or lack thereof) on their shelves, and forced to buy special lights so you didn’t look like you’re broadcasting from the bottom of a serial killer’s well. Oh, and the camera adds 10 pounds? What great news for someone eating several loaves of sourdough each week!

Get the vax. Kill COVID. Kill Zoom.

can gossip in the hall 86 You instead of the virtual hellscape.

Love to get a good gossip session in with your co-workers during the day? This last year that probably happened over Slack or another messaging platform, which, let’s be honest, is nowhere near as satisfying as dropping your voice so you can hurriedly tell your co-worker the unbelievable thing Sasha just said about Matt.

that are not vaxxed 87 Lips shall not touch mine.

Perhaps my lips, specifically, aren’t persuasive. But what about the luscious lips of Bethany Guthwrilliger, who you had a huge crush on when you worked at Camp Spalding. Well, she just messaged you on Tinder asking you “pfizer, moderna or J&J? ;)” Be ready to tell her that you bleed Pfizer Blue and would love to swap vaccination stories without swapping pathogens.

Free up some 83 hospital unfulfilling Tinder dates can freezer space.

88 Your happen at your favorite tiny bar again.

With all of those unused vaccines taking up room, where do doctors keep their frozen pizza?

REASON #75: Vaccinate

away Gov. Jay Inslee’s pandemic powers. GAGE SKIDMORE PHOTO

Cute internet guy turns out to be a jerk who just wants to talk at you all night? If we reduce hospitalizations enough that our tiniest bars are allowed to reopen, your favorite hole-in-the-wall bartender can give you those knowing eyes and an extra strong pour to get you through the fiasco.

One less “item” to list in those 89 awkward “you may have, uh, contracted something with me when we hooked up” phone calls with your Tinder dates.

Fortunately, you do know how to solve a problem like gonorrhea.

people seem to be entirely 90 Vaccinated immune to any ill-effects from chemtrails.

Funny how the “government” never seems to mention that.

91 Make the Inlander Great Again.

What happens to a plucky little alt-weekly newspaper funded by ads for things like music venues and restaurants when suddenly all the music venues and restaurants get shut down?

This happens: Our page counts have gotten thinner.

Our staff has been on partial unemployment for months.

20 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

We’re sick of writing about COVID. Our annual Best Of section has been pushed to July.

So do us a solid. Stop the pandemic. End the Worst Of times, so we can bring back the Best Of times.

Providence 92 Sacred Heart Medical Center is literally too busy dealing with COVID patients to participate in this list.

We asked Providence if a doctor on the front lines could talk to us about why you should get a vaccine.

But the hospital has been filling up with COVID patients, and a spokeswoman says all the doctors are too busy to give us an interview.

That kind of says it all though, right?

93 Do it for them.

Look, your mother, your brother-in-law, or your son didn’t send a link to this list to you because they were certain it would convince you. They did it because they love you deeply and want you to be safe. And ultimately, that persistent love is a more powerful argument than any scientific study or anecdote we can cite. If anything can get through, that will.

94 C’mon.

Suck it up. Get it over with already.

baby, 95 Please, please.

We’re desperate, here. We’re do-something-stupid desperate. We’re grand-gesturein-a-’90s romantic comedy desperate.

We’re outside your bedroom window, holding up a boombox blasting the intro to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

We’re rushing to the airport, getting on our knees, and asking you — before you make the biggest mistake of your life by getting on that plane — please, please, would you make us the happiest newspaper on Earth by honor of getting fully vaccinated?

We’re just an alt-weekly, sitting on a coffee shop rack, telling you to go vax yourself. n

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MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 23

NOT SYMPHONY

BUSINESS AS USUAL

Facemasks and a lot of cameras helped the symphony come to life this spring.

DON HAMILTON PHOTO

The Spokane Symphony’s on-demand concert series is ambitious in its content, execution and impact

BY E.J. IANNELLI

“I

t happened again last night,” says Don Hamilton, a hint of something close to rapture in his voice. “There was a 30-piece orchestra onstage, and I was — and this is a word often abused — literally the only other person in the room. I’m all alone in the Fox Theater, a building with a capacity of 1,700, and live musicians are playing Mahler as if it’s for me.”

Hamilton’s private concert experience stems from the fact that he’s been overseeing the recording process for the Spokane Symphony’s first-ever streaming concert series, itself a product of the COVID-19 restrictions that continue to limit the size of indoor gatherings. Those same restrictions obviously affect film crews, too, which is why Hamilton has lately found himself enjoying fullblown performances for an audience of one.

The purpose of this streaming series is to entertain a far larger audience than the symphony — or indeed any other local performing arts organization — has been able to host for the past year. In making the concerts accessible to anyone with an internet connection and enough to cover the $25 price of admission, there’s even some shared hope that the series will bring the Spokane Symphony a larger audience than ever before.

That might partly explain why these concerts are so much more ambitious than just a pandemic-necessitated stopgap. Under the overarching title “Overtones: Connecting Music, Art & Science,” they’re perhaps better described as episodic topical explorations with a themed classical

24 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

setlist at their core. Think “The Unanswered Question,” Leonard Bernstein’s famous 1973 Norton Lecture on nothing less than the very essence of classical music.

“I’ve been really trying to figure out what turns this digital format to our advantage,” says Music Director James Lowe. “Filming musicians onstage with no audience always feels a little flat to me. What I realized is that there’s an opportunity to do something digitally that we just can’t do in real life.”

That’s how he struck upon the idea of augmenting the orchestra’s performance with the kind of extramusical, cross-disciplinary material that would be hard to integrate into the typical live format.

For instance, the opening concert, titled “Roots,” looks at how folk traditions have influenced classical music. Following a masked, socially distanced performance of Dvořák’s Serenade for Wind Instruments in D minor, Spokane poet laureate and symphony trumpeter Chris Cook reads a Czech folk tale about a selfish rooster.

Lowe then chats with Kristina Ploeger-Hekmatpanah of the Symphony Chorale about what distinguishes folk music from classical music, which segues into a Zoomstyle split-screen performance of the individual singers performing Vaughan Williams’ Kingsfold in unison.

And that’s only in the first half of the episode.

“In episode No. 2, we have Wes Jessup from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. He and I have this discussion about classicism in art and how that’s like

Mozart. So for people who maybe aren’t into classical music but are into art, they’ll start to see these parallels,” says Lowe.

“And there’s a very beautiful discussion in the last episode with Bill Mack from the Spokane Tribe talking about older views of heaven and earth, which fits in with Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. We’re just knitting together how all these same expressions and ideas throughout time have cropped up in different ways across different art forms and different peoples.”

A

t its heart, though, “Overtones”is about the music, and the symphony has had to overcome countless pandemic-related hurdles just to perform and present it in a format adapted to the COVID-19 era.

Lowe, for example, was only able to travel from his home in Scotland to Spokane on an exclusive visa wrangled with the help of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. He had to create an intricate Excel spreadsheet that matched orchestral works with the number of musicians allowed onstage. The musicians themselves can be seen wearing their special personal protective equipment, or PPE, that channels their breath. Out of frame are the special “puppy pads” placed on the floor for the brass players to safely drain the saliva from their instruments.

“When I was putting together this whole concept,”

Lowe explains, “I thought, well, do we lowball the complexity of the music? Do we take it a bit easy because we haven’t played together for a year? And I thought about that for all of 10 seconds before I said no. The music we’ve ended up recording is incredibly challenging, both musically and technically. I have not done the musicians any favors, and they have more than risen to the challenge.”

Hamilton has stepped up the production value to match the level of depth and musicianship. Using an elaborate multicamera setup of overhead cameras on strings, GoPros, Osmo drones, iPhones and Nikons with lenses ranging from fisheye to telephoto, he and his team have been capturing the orchestra from what Lowe describes as “every conceivable angle,” including the close-ups and sweeping pans that even front-row audiences never get to see.

As a reference point for the project, Hamilton cites The Last Waltz, the landmark music documentary that Martin Scorsese made between Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Scorsese’s film chronicles the 1976 farewell concert of The Band, which turned into a marathon all-night celebration featuring Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and other rock luminaries.

“I shared that concert with James, and I think he got it. In its day, classical music was rock music,” Hamilton says.

“For me, this is just as exciting. It’s a celebration of the musicians. You actually get to know them. With my 200-to-500 mm telephoto lens, if I’m reaching across, I can get Helen Byrne, who’s the cellist — I can get just her head filling the frame. I can get the top half of Dan [Cotter]’s clarinet so close on the fingers that you can see every valve move. It sounds like advertising copy, but it’s like I’m putting you onstage with the musicians.”

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Don Hamilton got a personal symphony show as he filmed. COURTESY PHOTO Three of the series’ five concerts have already been made available for on-demand viewing. The fourth, “Painting with Music, Words, Light,” is scheduled for release on May 14. With Haydn’s Symphony No. 6 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition as its cornerstones, the concert will consider how music, literature and art use light to create atmosphere and emotion. As part of that, Lowe will speak with Anya Rasmussen of the WSU physics department about the science of light.

“This is not business as usual at all,” says Lowe. “This project is a real innovation. The way we’re filming the orchestra, the way we’re putting these programs together, this is something that, as far as I know, is unique.”

If the on-demand series ends up resonating with viewers, he envisions that it could become a supplement to the traditional in-person live performances of the past. And if some of that audience also happens to be outside Spokane, so much the better.

“The way this looks and sounds is really outstanding,” he says. “I would love for people beyond the Inland Northwest to see this and to realize that we punch well above our weight. The Spokane Symphony are like the Zags of the symphonic world — an organization that really can stand up and be proud nationally as well as internationally.” n The Spokane Symphony’s entire streaming concert series “Overtones: Connecting Music, Art & Science”can be viewed on demand for a full year from the airing date.

Visit spokanesymphony.org to purchase individual tickets ($25) or a series pass ($100).

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MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 25

CULTURE | DIGEST

A MAGICAL BORDER Your war-torn country is divided by an evil black cloud filled with monsters known as the shadow fold, which has to be crossed at great peril to get needed supplies and goods from one side of the country to the other. Many will die crossing the fold, built by a master of the “small science,” a magical human known as a “grisha.” Some grisha can manipulate wind or fire, others can create disguises or heal wounds, but the one awaited in legend, the sun summoner, will be able to cast out the dark evils of the fold. With almost a steampunk feel from its mix of horseand-carriage time period with science and magic, Shadow and Bone on Netflix will have you binging through every episode as you watch to see if the sun summoner can meet her destiny. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

Deconstructing Hemingway

T

BY WILSON CRISCIONE

here’s one Ernest Hemingway quote — read aloud

by Jeff Daniels in the new PBS Hemingway documentary — that sums up how Ken Burns and Lynn Novick portray the mythic literary figure.

“You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful, you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way.

It is only by showing both sides, three dimensions, and if possible, four, that you can write the way I want to.”

Yet over the years, many have come to believe in Hemingway as a one-dimensional figure, a masculine writer who sips whiskey, crafts best-selling novels and then flies off to Africa for a hunt. Today, we sometimes glorify this myth of Hemingway, particularly when it comes to alcohol. You drink too much as a writer? It’s OK, we’re too often told. Hemingway did it.

THE BUZZ BIN

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST There’s noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online May 14. To wit: DAMIEN JURADO, The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania. A sparse new self-produced set by an underappreciated tunesmith.

BLACK KEYS, Delta Kream. Pandemic project achieved: A tasty set of blues covers.

ST. VINCENT, Daddy’s Home. In a world sadly lacking in genuine rock stars, St. Vincent fits the bill. Couldn’t be more stoked to hear this one. (DAN NAILEN)

26 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

Except the PBS documentary refuses to participate in the myth of Hemingway. His drinking is not some charming personality trait; it’s a destructive force. His big game hunting isn’t something men should aspire to do; it’s a perplexing window into Hemingway’s appetite for violence.

It also complicates Hemingway’s image when it comes to women. It details each of his four marriages and his continual cycle of moving on to the next wife, seemingly unbothered with how it affected the previous one. But at the same time, the three-part documentary gives credit to Hemingway for understanding women’s emotions in his writing, giving a poignant example of him doing so in his story “Up in Michigan,” which ends in a date rape.

The documentary even briefly touches on Hemingway’s experimentation with gender roles. Biographer Mary Dearborn explains how Hemingway liked to switch gender roles with his fourth wife, Mary Welsh.

“Somehow she’s satisfying that intense desire of his to play with sex roles that way,” Dearborn says in the film. “In a way, he wanted to be a woman who loved another woman.”

This is all in context of Hemingway’s brilliant, effortless prose read aloud throughout the documentary, with criticism and context offered by various authors influenced by his work. As we learn the personal triumphs and struggles of Hemingway the man, we learn how all of it influenced his writing, and why it resonated both while he was alive and now, long after his death.

It’s not the story of some unassailable legend for whom inspirational writing came easy. This is a more complicated Hemingway. An uglier Hemingway. A more vulnerable Hemingway. It’s those qualities, the documentary suggests, that made his work so legendary in the first place. To me, that’s a much more believable story. n

R.I.P. A TRUE WEIRD ONE Hip-hop’s lost a lot of its old-school voices lately, most prominently DMX, but I’m here to praise Shock G, a true legend (in some quarters) who died in late April. He was a pioneer in Oakland’s rap scene, produced Tupac’s breakthrough single “I Get Around” and is probably best known as “Humpty Hump,” one of his many stage personas that had some monster hits as part of Digital Underground. If you’ve never heard Digital Underground’s Sex Packets album, filled with Parliament-Funkadelic samples and ridiculous rhymes, fix that. And Shock G’s death inspired me to check out his 2004 solo album, Fear of a Mixed Planet, and it’s a killer, too. (DAN NAILEN)

LOCAL PROPS STCU recently got an armload of awards from the Credit Union National Association for how it’s handled the pandemic, and a big part of the recognition was the work the Spokane nonprofit did to support the Inlander’s Great Dine-Out, not only through their own sponsorship, but by rallying 13 other local credit unions and banks to co-sponsor with them. STCU helped myriad businesses, members and employees survive the past year, and we certainly recognize how important they’ve been for our continuing to serve the Inland Northwest as a newspaper. So congrats!

STEAL OF THE CENTURY Just about every Netflix documentary series is a taut, 90-minute feature taffy-pulled into an ungainly four-hour ordeal, and yet I always devour them in a single sitting.

Such was the case with This Is a Robbery, the story of a 1990 heist wherein armed robbers dressed as cops stole $500 million worth of paintings, including works by Vermeer and Rembrandt, from the Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest art heist in history and also remains unsolved, and the show digs into the ramifications of the theft, the art world’s unexpected mob connections and the unanswered questions surrounding the robbery — how does one go about selling high-profile stolen art in an open market, anyway? (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

Owners Kori Henderson and Paul Blackete at Whim Wine Bar.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

COVID-19

A Long-Sought Lifeline The federal Restaurant Revitalization Fund is a vital safety net for some local restaurant and bar owners

BY CHEY SCOTT

W

hen Kori Henderson and Paul Blacketer opened Whim Wine Bar in late summer 2019, they never expected their long-dreamed-of venture would soon be closed for more than a year while waiting out the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Well past the initial 2020 shutdown’s one-year anniversary, the couple is still waiting to reopen inside River Park Square, opting for now to see if the two-week pause on rolling Spokane County from Phase 3 back to 2 will last. Opening for two weeks and shutting down again — 25 percent capacity is not sustainable for the small bar, says Henderson, plus there’s the cost of supplies and other expenses to reopen — could tank the business for good. If there is no rollback, though, Whim is set to reopen May 20.

Over the past year, the couple also hasn’t been able to secure any state or federal aid to help cover pandemiccaused losses. This is mainly due to the fact that Whim was “too new” when COVID-19 hit, meaning the bar didn’t qualify for the first round of Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, loans.

“Almost all of the loans or grants that became available we didn’t qualify for because for a lot of them, the eligibility rules were that you had to be open at least a year,” Henderson says. “We pretty much opened a bar at the worst possible time in the last century that you could open a bar. If we had opened six months earlier, we would have qualified for stuff.”

Now, however, Whim does qualify for the latest

round of federal aid for food service businesses through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund, or RRF. Applications opened May 3, with priority attention to women-, veteran- and minorityowned (classified by the SBA as socially or economically disadvantaged businesses) during the first 21 days of the application cycle. Applications will be taken until the funds are exhausted.

Henderson says if Whim is awarded funding, it’ll “solve all our problems.”

While Whim has received some rent relief from River Park Square, the couple had to move in with family last year, and both have been on unemployment since temporarily closing.

“We don’t even need that much, even just a small amount would help,” she continues. “Something that to a big business is pocket change would completely change our business.”

According to calculations on the fund application, Whim could get up to $380,000. Money from the fund can be spent by recipients through March 2023. The primary calculation compares gross revenues from 2019 to 2020, minus any PPP receipts, to determine how much a restaurant qualifies for.

“It can be used for anything associated with running a restaurant and supplies,” says Joel Nania, manager of Spokane’s office of the Small Business Administration.

The local office oversees 20 counties of Eastern Washington and North Idaho’s 10 counties.

“You can even use it for construction of outdoor seating. They haven’t really left anything out,” Nania adds.

The $28.5 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund was created by President Joe Biden on March 11 as part of the American Rescue Plan. In the first two days, the SBA received more than 186,000 applications from around the U.S. More than half of those came from restaurants and bars in the priority categories, and more than a third of all applicants had a pre-pandemic annual revenue of under $500,000.

While food service businesses owned by women, veterans, and socially or economically disadvantaged individuals are prioritized during the first 21 days of the application process, all restaurants can apply at this stage, and will be considered after that period on a first-come, first-served basis.

For that reason, Nania says it’s in restaurant owners’ best interest to apply to the fund as soon as possible, regardless of having priority status or not. Processing for approved applicants is expected to be about 14 days.

“Restaurants were definitely hit hardest, and they’re still being hit over and over again, unfortunately,” he says. “I would say that there is probably not a restaurant out there that wouldn’t consider applying.”

A

nother Spokane bar closed for more than a year is also hoping to land a funding request from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. ...continued on next page

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 27

FOOD | COVID-19

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Patty Tully, co-owner of Baby Bar and Neato Burrito, was in the same boat as Whim’s owners last week, waiting for the state’s Tuesday decision on a potential phase rollback before reopening the two businesses last Wednesday.

While the downtown burrito counter and pocket-sized bar received some state and local funding last year — about $25,000 total — to help cover losses, Tully says the calculations on their RRF application came out to $400,000.

“Honestly, we’ve applied for everything we could,” Tully says. “Of course we would be happy with anything, and we would be happy if all the funds went to other places. We got some grants and a low-interest loan to keep up the lease and insurance in the meantime.”

Tully is hopeful that the worst impacts of the pandemic are behind us.

Being closed for so long was difficult for her and partner Tim Lannigan and their staff (all but one of their employees have returned to work), but Tully says the sacrifice was necessary.

“Our struggle has been if we could all just follow the rules, it’ll be over that much faster,” she says. “Our main concern is that the hospitals have been working like crazy these last 15 months and why would you not want to be a part of giving them some reprieve from that?”

As two of the few local restaurants and bars that had, as of last week, yet to reopen since the pandemic’s onset, Whim and Baby Bar/ Neato Burrito’s owners found support, understanding and friendship among themselves over the past year.

“It was really isolating to be one of the few bars/ restaurants to be completely closed the entire time,” Henderson says. “It definitely felt like some people thought we were being lazy, even though no one said that.” n Find information about the Restaurant Revitalization Fund at sba.gov/restaurants. For assistance, applicants can call 844-279-8898.

STREAMING

To Stream or Not to Stream Netflix is releasing a new movie every week in 2021 — but will they be any good?

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

E

arlier this year, Netflix released a star-studded promotional campaign gloating about its upcoming release schedule: The streaming giant would be dropping at least one new feature film every week for the rest of 2021. Take that, movie theaters!

That’s all well and good, but Netflix has become almost notorious for its quantity-over-quality release practices. Save for a handful of Oscar-winning prestige projects, the Netflix library is starting to resemble one of those bargain DVD bins you might find in the back corner of a 7-11. For every Roma or Marriage Story, you get five Cloverfield Paradoxes or unwatchable Adam Sandler comedies.

So I want to look at the studio’s recent success rate: Is the Netflix machine producing any worthwhile art, or is it all fodder for the mill? Let’s look at five of their most recent releases.

THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES

Release date: April 30 Rotten Tomatoes score: 98% Originally planned as a theatrical release in 2020, the animated family comedy The Mitchells vs. the Machines was purchased by Netflix for a whopping $110 million and has become their latest hit. From the producing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie) and some of the minds behind the beloved animated series Gravity Falls, it’s a fast-paced adventure about a teenager named Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), who dreams of going off to film school and becoming the world’s next great director. The day she’s supposed to be getting on a plane to attend her freshman orientation, her quirky parents (Danny McBride and Maya Rudolph) announce that they’re taking the family cruiser crosscountry instead. And that’s when the new robotic personal assistants created by an Apple-like conglomerate go haywire and begin enslaving the human race, with only

the Mitchells left to save the world. With an eye-catching animation style and an excellent voice cast — this is probably the last time Olivia Colman, Chrissy Tiegen and Conan O’Brien will all appear in the same movie — this is a madcap (maybe even too madcap at times) adventure filled with blink-and-you’ll-miss-them gags.

VERDICT: Add to queue

MONSTER

Release date: May 7 Rotten Tomatoes score: 66% Based on a young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers, music video director Anthony Mandler’s feature debut concerns a Black teenager named Steve Harmon, who’s on trial for a holdup-turned-murder. Played by rising star Kelvin Harrison Jr., Steve is adamant that he had nothing to do with the killing and is merely a victim of racial profiling, and the film intercuts his contentious court case with the lead-up to the crime. Monster boasts an amazing supporting cast — Jeffrey Wright, Jennifer Hudson, Tim Blake Nelson, John David Washington and Jharrel Jerome, as well as rappers Nas and ASAP Rocky — but it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel as far as courtroom dramas are concerned. The film played on the festival circuit three years ago and is just now getting a proper release, and in that time we’ve seen more incisive films and series (including Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us, also featuring Jharrel Jerome) tackling similar themes.

It’s well-made and well-acted enough, however, to merit a view.

VERDICT: Add to queue

STOWAWAY

Release date: April 22 Rotten Tomatoes score: 77% Despite its relatively high critical rating, the reviews for this space-set chamber piece are more divisive than its Tomatometer suggests. It’s about a three-person crew —

Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick and Daniel Dae Kim — on a two-year voyage to Mars, and they discover that their rocket took off with an engineer (Shamier Anderson) from the launch site trapped and unconscious inside the guts of the ship. After acclimating him to the daily routines, they discover they don’t have enough oxygen for them all to survive, and someone will likely have to sacrifice themselves. Putting all implausibility aside — and there’s a lot of implausibility here — the ethical pressurecooker situation at the center of the film is relatively absorbing. Problem is, it doesn’t really have a third act, and all that tension that’s been built up just sort of fizzles.

VERDICT: Give it a watch if you haven’t already seen superior space-set movies like Gravity or The Martian or Ad Astra or Moon or Interstellar or…

THINGS HEARD & SEEN

Release date: April 29 Rotten Tomatoes score: 38% A ghost story, a domestic thriller, a Talented Mr. Ripleyesque mystery — Things Heard & Seen is a lot of things.

Amanda Seyfried stars as Catherine, a former art restorer who follows her husband, George (James Norton), to his new teaching job in a sleepy rural town in upstate New York. Their quaint farmhouse has a dark past, and Catherine discovers that George is hiding more from her than his affair with a local girl. The film was based on a novel

by Elizabeth Brundage, and it feels like a complex web of buried secrets, mistaken identities and restless spirits has been crammed awkwardly into a two-hour package.

Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, best known for quirky indie comedies like American Splendor, never find a way to unite its disparate subplots, and so it ends up feeling badly confused and clumsily plotted. In fact, you’re really not sure what the movie is even about until it’s nearly over.

VERDICT: Hide it in your attic and forget about it ...continued on next page

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 29

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THUNDER FORCE

Release date: April 9 Rotten Tomatoes score: 22% Melissa McCarthy is an effortlessly hilarious comedian and an Oscar-nominated actress, and yet the comedies she makes with her husband, Ben Falcone, tend to be unbelievably terrible. Remember Tammy? Or Life of the Party? Or Superintelligence? No? Anyway, their latest, Thunder Force, continues the trend, a curiously flat superhero farce that’s about as funny as a Thanos snap. It’s set in

an alternate universe wherein genetically altered supervillains known as Miscreants are wreaking havoc in all the world’s cities, and McCarthy and Octavia Spencer are childhood friends who are injected with super-serum and become a crimefighting duo. The movie has some surreal touches (like Jason Bateman as a mutant with crab arms) that suggest a weirder, more esoteric movie, but it mostly consists of McCarthy desperately mugging and Spencer looking lost and confused.

VERDICT: Avoid it like kryptonite n

for all showings and rental inquiries.

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A college-aged musician on a semester abroad in Ireland has a meet-cute with a fresh-faced movie star, and an unlikely romance blossoms. (NW) Rated PG Shot entirely on computer screens, this film follows an investigative journalist who creates a fake social media persona to ensnare some ISIS recruiters.

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From director Taylor Sheridan, a ticking-clock thriller about a teenage murder witness running from men who want him dead, if a raging forest fire doesn’t get them all first. (NW) Rated R

Wanna head back to the danger zone?

1986’s highest grossing film zooms back onto Dolby screens in anticipation of November’s long-awaited sequel.

(NW) Rated PG A documentary that examines how students became activists in the aftermath of the 2018 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. At the Magic Lantern. (NW) Not Rated

NOW PLAYING CHAOS WALKING

Based on a series of YA sci-fi novels, two teenage misfits (Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley) find each other on a telepathic, mostly male planet on the brink of civil war. (NW) Rated PG-13

DEMON SLAYER THE MOVIE: MUGEN TRAIN

A feature-length follow-up to the popular anime series, which has already broken box-office records in its native Japan. (NW) Rated R

FATIMA

In 1917 Portugal, children who reported having visions of the Virgin Mary inspire furor and fervency in their small shepherding village. (NW) Rated PG-13

GODZILLA VS. KONG

Like Batman and Superman before them, cinema’s most famous giant ape and radioactive lizard duke it out while the world watches. Also streaming on HBO Max. (NW) Rated PG-13

HERE TODAY

Billy Crystal directs himself as a comedy veteran who strikes up an unorthodox friendship with an aspiring singer played

by Tiffany Haddish. (NW) Rated PG-13

MINARI

Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung borrows from his own life in this delicate

30 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

The new chapter in the Saw franchise stars Chris Rock as a cop investigating a series of murders that follow the same M.O. as the crafty serial killer Jigsaw.

(NW) Rated R

story of Korean immigrants who settle onto a rural Arkansas farm in the early ’80s. (NW) Rated PG-13

can see. (NW) Rated R

MORTAL KOMBAT

A charming documentary about the creation of the groundbreaking children’s TV series. At the Magic Lantern.

(NW) Rated PG

The popular video game returns to the big screen, in properly gory fashion this time, with all your favorite characters delivering one fatality after another. Also streaming on HBO Max. (NW) Rated R

NOBODY

A new riff on the Death Wish formula, starring Bob Odenkirk as a meek suburban father who goes into full-on revenge mode after his family is attacked.

(NW) Rated R

THE PAPER TIGERS

Comic kung-fu action abounds in this tale of three aging fighters who put aside their personal lives to avenge the murder of their former master. At the Magic Lantern. (NW) Rated PG-13

RAYA & THE LAST DRAGON

The latest Disney animated feature, a multicultural fable that follows a teenage warrior’s hunt for the titular creature. Also streaming on Disney+. (NW) Rated PG

SEPARATION

After the death of her mother, a little girl at the center of a custody battle is visited by ghostly figures that only she

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET

TOGETHER TOGETHER

A single man with baby fever develops an unusual friendship with the young woman who agrees to be his surrogate mother. Ed Helms and Patti Harrison star. (NW) Rated R

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS

This eccentric documentary follows a group of Italian octogenarians (and their dogs) who spend their days searching for an elusive white truffle. At the Magic Lantern. (NW) Rated PG-13

WOLFWALKERS

This Oscar-nominated animated feature is a family-friendly Irish folktale about two girls — one a hunter, the other a lycanthropic forest dweller. At the Magic Lantern. (NW) Rated PG

WRATH OF MAN

The latest thriller from Guy Ritchie stars Jason Statham as a shadowy figure who becomes the guard of an armored truck. Expect explosive action and plenty of F-bombs. (NW) Rated R n

NEW RELEASE

Still in Stride Myles Kennedy’s time in lockdown inspired a new album, The Ides of March, with an expansive view of humanity

BY DAN NAILEN

I

t takes all of about five seconds of listening to the first track on Myles Kennedy’s new album to recognize it’s going to be a significantly different listen than his 2018 solo debut, The Year of the Tiger.

While that album was a largely acoustic affair — albeit an often rocking acoustic affair — “Get Along” opens Kennedy’s new release The Ides of March with a scorching burst of lead guitar from the Spokane native probably best known for his vocal skills fronting both Alter Bridge and Slash and the Conspirators. And those fiery guitar parts rarely let up over the course of the album’s 11 songs, even as Kennedy’s writing delves into an array of genres, touching on gutbucket blues, ear candy pop-rock, even something approaching progrock in the sprawling, nearly eight-minute title track.

Making a serious guitar album was definitely on Kennedy’s mind even before he went to work on The Ides of March.

“It kind of started about three or four years ago. I rekindled my love affair with playing lead guitar,” Kennedy tells the Inlander. “I started as more of a lead player when I was younger, that was my focus. I never intended to be a singer. It’s so strange how it all played out.

“The challenge with this record is to kind

of have a bit of a balance. I didn’t want this record to be a full-on riff-rock record the entire thing. I wanted there to be some sonic hallmarks from the first solo record, and find a way to integrate that into album No. 2 and allow me the opportunity to play more lead guitar.”

T

he Ides of March, hitting stores Friday, might not even exist if it weren’t for the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kennedy was in the midst of touring for Alter Bridge’s most recent album, Walk the Sky, when the pandemic hit, forcing the band to cancel tours of Asia and South America and sending Kennedy packing for home in Spokane. ...continued on next page

Myles Kennedy spent some serious quality time in Spokane during the pandemic. CHUCK BRUECKMANN PHOTO

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 31

MUSIC | NEW RELEASE

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BREAKFAST � DINNER � HAPPY HOUR � SWEET TREATS

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“STILL IN STRIDE,” CONTINUED...

After a few days of getting his head around Take that opening song “Get Along” as a case what was happening, and with no idea just how in point. It was written in March 2020 as Kennelong the pandemic would last, Kennedy settled dy reflected on the Rodney King police brutality into a routine of waking up at the same time every case of the early 1990s, with King’s famous plea day, exercising, meditating and then picking up his for everyone to “just get along” working its way guitar. It was a rhythm to life that seemed strange into Kennedy’s chorus. Kennedy starts the song to a guy who works as hard as anyone in rock remembering “the moment the gavel brought the between his two bands and solo career, and yet it’s fires and rage” of the Los Angeles riots, when a lifestyle he says he’s “really grown to embrace.” the cops who beat King were acquitted. Just a “The year prior [to the shutdown] I had been couple of months after Kennedy wrote the song, either on the road or in the studio for over 300 the country again burst into protests after George days, so I was starting to get a little bit burnt.

Floyd’s murder by a police officer.

The schedule is just relentless,” Kennedy says.

“I remember those days well, and it really “[The break] came at an interesting time for me, did have a profound effect on me. It really broke just because I was kind of ready to power down my heart to see how that went down,” Kennedy for a little bit.” says of the King case and ensuing violence. “I While Kennedy’s songs can delve into some went back to that set of emotions and started to of humanity’s darker impulses, he’s inclined to write about that, but trying to paint with a broad look at a situation like the abrupt end of that Alenough stroke to have it be fitting for where we ter Bridge tour and are as human beings the forced stretch in this day and age. at home “from a “A cynic could positive standpoint, look at that phrase instead of the obviand be like, ‘Oh, ous negatives.” why can’t we just get That positivity along? It just seems manifested in the so simple.’ But the opportunity to huninnocent side of me ker down and work longs for that so on a ton of songs, much.” many of which “Get Along” ended up on The is far from the Ides of March, and only song on The many of them reIdes of March when flecting on this very Kennedy’s innate specific moment optimism comes the world is sharing through. The upbeat due to a mysteri“In Stride” encourous disease. When ages listeners to keep you spend so much Kennedy’s second solo album reintroduces his guitar skills to listeners. a little perspective time on tour, having during troubled months on end to times. The title track write is a blessing for someone as driven to create is an epic Zeppelin-esque tale that musically came as Kennedy. to Kennedy in a dream, and lyrically starts as “It has allowed me to do what I love really a warning of a dark future before its latter half more than anything, just write nonstop,” Kenassures listeners that “cool heads prevail in times nedy says. “At the end of the day, that’s the part of change.” Another song, “A Thousand Words,” of the process I enjoy the most. I love playing suggests that “in times like these, we must live live, don’t get me wrong—I love that rapport with and learn.” the fans and being on stage and seeing people Listening to the album as a whole, and particand hearing the songs sung back to us. But I reularly zeroing in on Kennedy’s lyrics through his ally do love that creative process.” layers of stinging guitar leads and slippery slideThe unexpected window of time let Kennedy guitar work, you get a thematically consistent set write for basically six straight months, day in and of songs that can be downright inspiring. day out, before he piled in a car with his drum“A lot of the dialogue [in the songs] is to me, mer buddy Zia Uddin and bassist Tim Tournier to remind myself a lot of times,” Kennedy says. and drove all the way to Florida to record The “I never want to come across as preachy. That’s Ides of March. always my fear as a songwriter, and I have no intention of doing that. But because of the way I’m ennedy’s Year of the Tiger wasn’t just hard-wired, and because I’ve always needed to be different from the new one in its overall reminded of certain things, I find that having the sonic approach; lyrically, that album’s opportunity to write songs is cathartic for me. It’s deeply personal look at the childhood loss of brought so much healing to my own life.”

Kennedy’s father has given way on The Ides of No doubt many of Kennedy’s fans feel the March to a series of songs with an expansive view same about his music. n of the world. Knowing most of them were written during the pandemic undoubtedly lends to Myles Kennedy’s The Ides of March is released reading those lyrics a certain way, but Kennedy’s Friday, May 14. Visit myleskennedy.com for skills as both a songwriter and lyricist assure the more information and clips of him performsongs will remain relevant beyond this particular ing some new songs solo at Spokane’s Fox moment in time.

Theater.

K ON STANDS NOW! 32 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

VISUAL ARTS FOR THE BIRDS

It’s all about birds — and the man who loved them so — in the MAC’s summer marquee exhibit on the life and work of John James Audubon. The name Audubon has long been intertwined with everything bird-related, and his seminal work The Birds of America, published as a series between 1827 and 1839, is considered one of the finest naturalist collections ever made. The anthology combined Audubon’s love of art and ornithology into a grand project to document all of the bird species in North America. Audubon discovered 25 new species along the way, and his iconic, highly detailed color paintings of birds are famously recognizable among bird, nature and art enthusiasts. For this summer exhibit on loan from the John James Audubon State Park Museum in Henderson, Kentucky, visitors can see original prints, paintings, manuscripts and personal possessions of the famous bird documentarian.

— CHEY SCOTT American Original: The Life and Work of John James Audubon • Sat, May 15 through Sun, Sept. 19; open Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm • $5-$12 • Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture • 2316 W. First Ave. • northwestmuseum.org • 456-3931

WORDS A GIRL’S WORLD

Being a girl in the modern world (or at any point in human history, for that matter), is hard. I know; I’ve been there. So have countless others, like award-winning writer and author Melissa Febos (left).

For her latest and already bestselling book Girlhood, Febos collects her own personal experiences growing up female to illuminate the myriad perceptions girls are taught to accept as simply a natural part of being born to the female sex. In Girlhood, Febos blends investigative reporting, memoir and scholarship to present a compelling “anthem for women” that examines how girls and women are molded by society to deny and ignore their own feelings and let others’ expectations confine them. During a virtual visit to Spokane to promote Girlhood, Febos discusses her writing process and the real-life inspiration for it with local author Kate Lebo (right).

— CHEY SCOTT Girlhood: Melissa Febos in Conversation with Kate Lebo • Thu, May 20 at 7 pm • Free • Online; details at auntiesbooks.com

VISUAL ARTS A GRAND REOPENING

2020 was pretty much awful for every arts organization, and Emerge gallery and learning space in Coeur d’Alene had an extra dose of terrible to contend with. Even before the pandemic came along, a fire that destroyed many of their neighbors forced Emerge from their home while staying clear, thankfully, of much of the artwork inside. Now, more than a year later, Emerge is ready to fully reopen at its new home with a celebration Friday evening. You can tour the new space, taking in studios available for artists as well as a show of ceramics and printmaking by artists Maya Rumsey and Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. There will be music and drinks, of course, and the opportunity to raise a toast to one of the Inland Northwest’s vital arts institutions. Here’s to new beginnings!

— DAN NAILEN Emerge Grand Reopening • Fri, May 14 from 5-8 pm • Free • Emerge • 119 N. Second St., Coeur d’Alene • emergecda.com

MAY 13, 2021 INLANDER 33

EVENTS | CALENDAR GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.

BENEFIT

ARMED FORCES DAY CELEBRATION The event includes live music, a cornhole tournament, food vendors, beer garden, raffles and auctions, all to benefit sending care packages. The celebration is organized by Spirit Lake Troop Support, a committee of the Roy Racy VFW Post 1473 and a nonprofit that’s been sending military care packages since 2006. May 15, 10 am-5 pm.

Free. Spirit Lake, Idaho. facebook.com/ groups/SpiritLakeTroopSupport BINGO & BURGERS Ticket includes admission and meal. Must be 18 or older to play per Idaho lottery license. May 22, 11 am & 3 pm. $15. Hayden Senior Center, 9428 N. Government Way. haydenseniorcenter.org (208-762-7052)

COMEDY MUSIC FAMILY BANDS

Spokane Public Radio has been hosting kid-friendly concerts for years, and their May concerts typically coincide with MusicFest Northwest. That isn’t happening this year, but you can still tune in over the airwaves and approximate the concert experience from the comfort of your own home. This upcoming showcase is called Sibling Revelry, and it will feature musicians who like to keep it in the family. You and your kids will be able to hear performances from a quartet of young musical relatives, including sibling pianists Sheba and Solomon Chen; pianists Sarah and Avah Girges and their sister, viola player Hannah; violinist Jessie Morozov and her trumpeter brother Sam; and the Treis family, who play the harp, cello and violin. The concert will be airing on 91.1 FM this Saturday afternoon and will then be available to stream online.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER KPBX Kids Concert: Sibling Revelry • Sat, May 15 at 1 pm • Airing on 91.1 FM • spokanepublicradio.org

FILM AT THE DRIVE-IN

Last summer, the Hub Sports Center in Liberty Lake started a pop-up drive-in theater in its parking lot, and it filled the void left by all those canceled cinematic releases in 2020. The Hub is sticking with tradition again this year, screening a string of beloved classics and blockbusters throughout the summer and into autumn, and it kicks off Friday night with the 2001 animated blockbuster Shrek. The series runs throughout the summer and will feature ’90s blockbusters like Independence Day (July 16) and Jurassic Park (Sept.

11), the Pixar classics WALL-E (July 16) and Monsters, Inc. (Oct. 16), as well as retro horror favorites as A Nightmare on Elm Street (Oct. 16), Scream (Oct. 23) and Carrie (Oct. 30), and much more. See the full film schedule at hubsportscenter.org.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Drive-In Summer Movies • Starts Fri, May 14 at 8:30 pm • $20 • The Hub Sports Center • 19619 E. Cataldo, Liberty Lake • hubsportscenter.org • 326-7447

34 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

JOHN CAPARULO Best known as the under-dressed everyman on the E! hit show, Chelsea Lately, Cap, as he’s known by his friends and fans, has also made multiple appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Comedy Central Presents, Jimmy Kimmel Live and more. May 13, 7:30 pm, May 14, 7 & 9:30 pm and May 15, 7 & 9:30 pm. $20-$33. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. (318-9998) THE SOCIAL HOUR COMEDY: TRAVIS NELSON Travis has performed across North America; you’ve heard him on Siruis XM, and he recently filmed his first special with Dry Bar Comedy.

Doors open at 6:30 pm. May 13, 7:30-9 pm. $10. Osprey Restaurant & Bar, 700 N. Division St. fb.me/e/20c94aTVx HARRY J. RILEY & RYAN MCCOMB Comedian Ryan McComb is from Spokane; you might have seen him at the Spokane Comedy Club, Uncle D’s or GameStop looking in the bargain bin. Harry J. Riley is from South Carolina now living in Spokane. He’s been a finalist of the Seattle International Comedy Competition and can be seen on the shows Z-Nation and Three Busy Debras. May 14 and 15, 8 pm. $10-$25. Honey Eatery and Social Club, 317 Sherman Ave. (208-930-1514) DON’T PANIC COMEDY SHOWCASE Local comics from the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area perform, including Charles Hall Jr., Stacy Edlund, Amy Eight, Jon Hodge, Chris Jessop, and Blade Frank with emcee Phil Hustead.

21+ May 15, 8-10 pm. Free. The Draft Zone, 4436 W. Riverbend Ave. fb.me/ e/16WUg3A8L (208-457-7917)

COMMUNITY

INLAND NORTHWEST TOY SHOW The annual toy and collectible show returns, offering buying, selling and trading of vintage, new and collectible toys. Early bird admission from 9-10 am ($10). May 15, 9 am-4 pm. $5-$10. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. spokanecounty.org (509-990-4325) DRESS CODE 103: COLLECTING THE STORY Curators Laura Thayer and Marsha Rooney discuss what the MAC Costume Collection is and how has it grown. May 16, 2 pm. $10-$15. sales. northwestmuseum.org WHAT YOUR HOME SAYS ABOUT THE WORLD Join sociologist and writer Michelle Janning to discover how home spaces and objects tell the story of what’s happening in contemporary

families. May 17, 7 pm. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. humanities.org (509-456-3931) GARLAND SUMMER MARKET The Garland District’s first annual, weekly summer market featuring local vendors of produce, art and more, with weekly entertainment. Located in a parking lot at Garland and Post. Tuesdays from 3-7 pm, May 18-Sept. 14. facebook.com/ events/507185470319792/ REPRESENTATION MATTERS: CHOOSING & READING AAPI CHILDREN’S BOOKS Dr. Melissa Bedford from EWU discusses how to choose diverse children’s books, specifically AAPI books. This is the first class in a 3-part series. Register for each class to receive an email with instructions on how to participate. May 18, 6:30-7:30 pm. Free. events.spokanelibrary.org KENDALL YARDS NIGHT MARKET The weekly urban market offers vendors of produce, prepared foods, handmade items, entertainment and more.

Wednesdays from 5-8 pm, May 19Sept. 22. kendallnightmarket.org MEDIEVAL ART & HISTORY: THE FORGOTTEN BOOK OF WOMEN Based on the 15th century title “The Book of the City of Ladies” by Christine de Pizan, Hannah Charlton’s illuminated manuscripts collection “The Forgotten Book of Women” features 24 women from myth and history. May 19, 6:30-7:30 pm.

Free. scld.orgb NORTH BANK GRAND OPENING Riverfront’s five year, five project redevelopment work is nearly complete. The Ice Age Floods playground and additional amenities open to the public on Friday, May 21 at noon. There’s also a virtual ribbon cutting at 11 am. May 21, noon.

Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. facebook.com/RiverfrontSpokane/ FREE TREE GIVEAWAY The Forest Service will be giving away hundreds of tree plugs (white pine, ponderosa pine, and tamarack) through their Forest at Home program, along with Smokey Bear bags with fire safety information and educational materials. May 22, 9 am-noon. Free. Wilson Conservation Area, 6712 E. Willow Springs Rd. dishmanhills.org HIGH TEA FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Enjoy classic high tea with three courses and champagne. The event includes inspiring speakers and performances, as well as auction items and prizes. All proceeds benefit student and community education programming at the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d’Alene. May 22, noon. $20-$60/person; tables and sponsorships available.

The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdaresort.com (208-765-4000) INTRO TO PAPER MARBLING Marbling paper is an art form of floating paint, creating a pattern and transferring it onto a sheet of paper. In this introductory class, learn how to make the floating medium, prep paper, prep paint and the basic stone, get-gel and nonpareil marbling patterns. May 22, 10 am. $40.

Spokane Print & Publishing Center, 1925 N. Ash St. facebook.com/spokaneprint/

FILM

INTERNATIONAL WILDLIFE FILM FESTIVAL This year, the festival’s 44th, has the theme “Rising from the Depths.”

IWFF runs April 17-May 15, showcasing a virtual catalog of 65 films of which most are available to an international

audience. $10-$100. wildlifefilms.org DRIVE-IN MOVIE NIGHTS: SHREK The HUB is hosting a series of outdoor movies this spring and summer. Admission is per car, and local food trucks will also be on site selling snacks and concessions. May 14, 8:30 pm. $20. HUB Sports Center, 19619 E. Cataldo Ave. hubsportscenter.org/drive-in-movies/

FOOD

VIRTUAL WINE CLASS Rocket Market hosts weekly virtual wine classes; sign up in advance for the week’s selections to bring home and enjoy during a virtual tasting session. Fridays at 7 pm.

Rocket Market, 726 E. 43rd Ave. rocketmarket.com (509-343-2253) WINE EXTRAVAGANZA Enjoy wine tastings while strolling through favorite downtown shops. Tickets include six 1-oz. wine tastings and a commemorative wine glass. Each ticket holder must be present on the day of the event to receive their wristband and tasting tickets. Tickets not be available at the door; purchase online while supplies last. May 15. $25-$50. Downtown Coeur d’Alene, Sherman. cdadowntown.org TAPHOUSE BEER DINNER FT. POST FALLS BREWING CO. Featuring five craft beer tastings and four chef-curated, paired courses in partnership with Post Falls Brewing Company. May 20, 5:30 pm. $37. Coeur d’Alene Taphouse Unchained, 210 E. Sherman Ave. cdataphouse.com (208-223-3163)

MUSIC

SPEAKEASY @ 219 LOUNGE LPO Repertory Theatre is proud to present a night of song, dance and revelry. May 13, 6:30 pm. $37.74-$63.99. 219 Lounge, 219 N. First Ave. (208-263-9934) GREEN ROOM SERIES: APPALATIN The Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center hosts this live Q&A with members of Appalatin. Appalatin’s foot-stomping, hip-swinging sounds organically unite Appalachian folk and high-energy Latin music. May 14, 6-6:30 pm. bit.ly/MWPACGreenRoom

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

RIVERFRONT MOVES: THE CORE FOUR Core 4 Collective is showcasing four of its most popular classes to strengthen your entire body through specially curated movements with a high intensity kick set to the best playlists. Registration is not required. Thursdays from 5:30-6:30 pm through May 13. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. my.spokanecity.org JUMPING JACKALOPE JAMBOREE A WATL Major Tournament with a $6,000 prize. Open to hatchet, big axe and dual team competitors. May 14-16, 11 am. $60-$80. Jumping Jackalope Axe Throwing, 226 W. Riverside Ave. jumpingjackalopeaxeco.com LILAC CENTURY & FAMILY FUN RIDE The 30th annual Lilac Century and Family Fun Ride sponsored/hosted by Spokane Aurora NW Rotary Club. New courses offer four distances to choose from: 25, 50, Metric (66), and Imperial 100. May 16, 7 am-3 pm. $50. Union Stadium, 12509 N. Market St. Lilaccentury. com (509-475-1184)

where between the Hays Park area and the dump off Sullivan, THANK YOU!! very much to whoever turned them into Planet Fitness. Jim & Lisa TO THE GREAT IDEAL OPTIONS I need to express how thankful I am every week to be seen here. The staff feels like home, and the whole experience adds some wholesome to my day. The staff here are really genuine and down to earth, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you! #Destiny

I SAW YOU CO FREDDY To all those years ago you took my breath away and you don’t even know how much I still think of you ;) I wish I had my life together to actually have a chance with you <3 truth is I’m still trying to find my grounds since my identity felt so miserably taken. I had some bumps on the road (yes, you would know), but you were there to make me smile and take my mind off things. I should have taken the chance when I had it. The truth is I wouldn’t know what to do with a guy like you, and I am a #screwup #gettingoverthatlife #2ndtime #embarassed. If you actually read this I don’t expect a response back, but I just have to put this out there. My feelings for you are never going anywhere.

CHEERS YOU MADE MY DAY I believe it was the morning of Tuesday, May 4. I was behind you in line at the North Wild coffee stand in Suncrest. I pulled up to the window and was surprised to find out you bought my coffee! You were driving a white SUV and you made my day! I sincerely appreciate your kindness, especially in the challenging year we have all had. Thank you so much!!

THANK YOU! I lost my car keys off my back bumper a few weeks ago some-

CHEERS TO THE MAGIC LANTERN THEATRE Had a wonderful evening watching “The Paper Tigers” at the Magic Lantern Theatre! We loved the movie and are so happy they have (safely) reopened.

on N. Standard, and my son dropped his billfold, and when you heard his name on the playground, you verified the ID and returned it. Thank you so very much! You are an awesome Dad setting the standard and doing the right thing. Bless you!

“

JEERS

THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT! Cheers to the young woman walking into Northtown last week who complimented me on my look and my hair. You made my day!

RAISE YOUR DALE-FACED GLASS It’s time to raise our glasses to the man that filled them and whose face graces the pint glass in your cupboard. Cheers. To Dale’s Brownes Addition, where I discovered my family, partying on a porch in the summer heat, the autumn chill, the winter cold, and the spring rain. To the Elk, El Que, la Trattoria, Pac Ave, Caffe Capri, and Brownes Tavern, which were, all at once, everything I didn’t know I needed. To the Swamp. To Dale.

For the late-night chats that ran into the morning. For the promises of a better tomorrow, and an always familiar face in the wild storm this world can bring. For Dale’s river dreams, and all those bangin’ Trump jokes. For the ones we’ve lost along the way, those that lost us, and the gems we’ve kept close. For every friendship that became the family we created for ourselves. Cheers. To Dale. For reminding us that tomorrow isn’t promised, that love, loyalty, and friendship transcend even the darkest moments.

This one is for you Dale. Cheers.

WHY NO JAVA IN DOWNTOWN BARS? Jeers to every downtown bar in Spokane not serving coffee OR lacking a working coffee pot period. Owners who are old enough remember a little show called Cheers! ?? Main man Sam Malone was a bar owner AND recovering alcoholic, always had a cup of joe in hand. I’m a light drinker often tasked with being the designated driver, and I have to say not one establishment has said yes when I ask for coffee at a bar. Seriously, nondrinking patrons should have more choices than water and Diet Coke to stay awake and sober. What will cost you less than 30 bucks at a Wal-Mart is worth investing, even less if you want to skip the hardware and just use instant coffee.

(I’m not picky!) Just saying, it used to be the norm and makes no sense now that it’s not even a choice.

SOUND OFF

u seemed pretty pleased with yourself after scaring them. You don’t own the public skatepark, everyone doesn’t have to get out of your way. I watched all the kids being respectful to each other, taking turns, and patiently waiting for a clearing to go... then there’s you acting

Seriously, nondrinking patrons should have more choices than water and Diet Coke...

JEERS TO SPOKANE PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ BOARD For choosing to build new Albi downtown against voters. Will never support school bonds again. Want to improve Spokane, bring back Nat Park.

RETURNED WALLET Cheers to you for being an honest Man and returning a billfold to its owner. We were at a park

ing me in an awful and emotional predicament, demonstrating kindness and compassion, almost a “cheers” moment as you displayed an act of pure selflessness to help a stranger out of a situation that they put themselves in. My faith in humanity was restored when you were

PREDATOR IN DISGUISE You, are a true example of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Women never owe you anything, and to take advantage of a vulnerable moment is deplorable to say the least. I hope you find the inner love and peace that keeps you from following the predators path.

For a moment, I saw a stranger help-

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

so kind to embark this selfless endeavor.

I faced the music in my embarrassment and shame, and offered any way to extend my gratitude and appreciation for your selfless act. To which you looked me dead in the eye, and without hesitation, replied, “I’m sorry to be so bold, but could I get a blowjob?” directly taking advantage of my vulnerability reminiscing a situation of “well you owe me something.” You have no idea the trauma you unlocked, by seizing a moment of vulnerability and perpetuating a culture in which debts aught to be repaid in sexual favors by women. I am a women (a stranger to you) who had nothing but gratitude in a situation you had no obligation of responding to, and you’re a predator, praying on the vulnerability of women. I don’t know how they do things where you’re from, but here, in Spokane, we are a community of friends and family, neighbors who have each other’s backs. You must not have lived here yet when several women boldly revealed their abusers, perhaps you should do some research into where you live now, we don’t take kindly to predators.

JERK AT CDA SKATEPARK To the adult skater who screamed “get off the f***ing dorito” at a bunch of young kids skating at the CDA skatepark Saturday May 1st, its people like you who ruin going to the skatepark for everyone else. I use the word “adult” loosely since the little kids you screamed and cursed at are much more mature then you. Only cowards feel good about treating kids like that, and

”

like an impatient immature donkey to a bunch of children. Grow up and skate at home if you can’t be considerate to others. Or maybe act like a man, and set a good example for young skaters around you instead.

PUBLIC SAFETY I grew up in Spokane.

I remember taking the bus all over this town at all times of day and night. From age 12 and on. I never had much of a problem with anyone harassing me. My daughter was physically grabbed by a man at the STA bus plaza tonight around 8 pm while waiting for her bus to arrive after seeing a movie (the first she has been able to see in quite a while because of COVID). It happened on STA property, where there is how many police and security guards? Luckily my daughter had mace in her purse and sprayed the POS in the face. What is this city becoming? Not safe — that’s what. n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS H A T T I P A T H O M E Y O U R E A D A R E I F I O N L Y M E N U A S M O T E S T R I N G O D E L E W E P D A R E S O R T T E S S O Y O U H A D M P I E E T C D O H T E R

I S I A H B Q E O T E R I

P A D A R I R T Y L A A D A H D A Y O D E S U A R T T S E A V I O L I N S A T C E W A V O R E

M A Y T A G

A U R O R A

E X E M P T

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T O N R A N S

L L O E A T O O S

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

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Cannabis legalization advocates demonstrate in downtown Minneapolis in 2013.

LEGALIZATION

Hot Streak Legalization is sweeping the nation

BY WILL MAUPIN

36 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

C

TONY WEBSTER/CC BY-SA 2.0 PHOTO

annabis policy in this country has been changing at a dizzying rate in the years since Washington and Colorado voted to legalize the drug back in 2012. Nearly 10 years later, the pace of change is picking up, and dramatically so.

As the dust settled after Election Day last fall, the number of legal states sat at 15. Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota joined the club — though South Dakota’s legalization efforts are currently hung up in the state’s Supreme Court. In the past month and a half, that number has grown to 18.

On March 31, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill legalizing cannabis in the Empire State.

On April 12, New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham signed a similar measure, with legalization becoming effective as of June 29. Then on April 21, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam followed suit, with legalization effective in that state as of July 1.

In less than one month, bills were signed into law in three states legalizing cannabis. A month after that frenzy, the number may be poised to rise again.

A legalization bill made it out of committee last week in Minnesota, where it heads to the floor of the state’s Legislature. With only about one week left in Minnesota’s legislative session, lawmakers will have to act quickly if they want legalization to happen as soon as possible.

That’s not to say they’re forcing the changes through, though, as Marijuana Moment reports that the bill had to pass through 12 committees before reaching this point.

Notably, these recent moves on legalization have all taken place in state legislatures. Currently, of the 18 states to have legalized cannabis, 13 have done so at the ballot box. The first nine states to legalize cannabis did so with ballot measures. Of nine that have done so since, only four have used ballot measures. Legislative action has become the more common path for states pursuing legalization efforts.

In 2021, 30 state legislatures have seen bills that would legalize recreational cannabis, three of which have become law and nine of which are still active, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. Do some quick math; take those 30 states and add the 15 to have already legalized cannabis and you’re left with just five states where recreational cannabis isn’t so much as on the legislative table in 2021: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Tennessee and Utah. n

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BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habitforming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment.

Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

RELATIONSHIPS

Advice Goddess LOOT ACTUALLY

I’m envious of a friend whose boyfriend frequently does nice things for her: bringing her soup when she’s sick and surprising her with a weekend getaway and a pricey handbag she’d been coveting. My boyfriend is a nice, reliable, loving guy. I’d considered myself lucky to have him, but now I’m worried my “good-boyfriend” standard is too low.

—Comparison Shopping

AMY ALKON

A woman feels loved when the man she’s with does those little things that say “thinking of you” — as opposed to “spent all day forgetting I had a girlfriend.”

Not surprisingly, you envy your girlfriend who gets those little (and bigger) signs.

Envy gets a bum rap as a toxic emotion. (It can have toxic effects when the envious try to even things out by sabotaging those doing better.) However, evolutionary social psychologist Bram Buunk’s research suggests envy is actually “adaptive”: functional — a sort of alarm clock for yearning and ambition, alerting us to others’ higher achievements (or groovier stuff) and motivating us to nab the same (or more) for ourselves.

Men are not cryptographers, and they are particularly bad at translating women’s nonverbal signals like pouting — if they notice them at all. Tell your boyfriend what you want — sweetly, not scoldingly — in the context of “what would make me really happy.”

Chances are you’ll need to tell him a few times to get him to come around. When he does, reinforce future come-arounds by telling him how happy he’s made you, how much it means to you. (Doing this while tearing off his clothes, if you’re so inspired, should make an even stronger impression.)

But say, even with reminders, your boyfriend drops by with soup or a latte just once and then forgets the whole deal. Sure, you could put him out with the recycling for some woman with lower “good-boyfriend standards” to pick up. However, you might reflect on ways he shows he cares: maybe giving you his coat when you’re cold or fixing your car so you won’t die in a fiery wreck. You might also consider that some men’s apparent generosity reflects not love but the sense they’re out of their league. If that’s the case with your friend’s boyfriend, the stream of soup, swag, and trips is just a campaign to delight-slash-distract her from dumping him — a la, “Never put off till tomorrow goodsand-services-izing what could be in some other dude’s arms two Thursdays from now!”

WEEKEND AT BERNIE MADOFF’S

I had a nice first-date dinner with a guy I met on a dating app. Afterward, he said he had something to show me, pulled up his pant leg, and revealed an ankle monitor! He said he hadn’t wanted to put it on his dating profile, and “It was just white-collar.” (I Googled. Embezzling money. He’s on “supervised release” -- apparently with some range beyond house arrest.) This situation bothered me, but I accepted his invitation for a second date, given our chemistry.

—Shocked

YOUR TEEN ASKS WHY

IS LEGAL FOR YOU, BUT NOT HIM. AND YOU SAY? Now that marijuana is legal for those 21 and over, it’s more important than ever to talk with your kids.

STARTTALKINGNOW.ORG 38 INLANDER MAY 13, 2021

Ideally, if a man wears “statement jewelry,” the statement it’s making isn’t: “I’m in constant communication with my parole officer.”

A guy who embezzles money — assuming there’s no “my brain tumor made me do it!” — is likely low on the personality trait of conscientiousness. Someone high in conscientiousness is disciplined, dependable, organized, and shows concern for others’ needs and feelings. In contrast, those short on conscientiousness are unreliable, careless, impulsive, and poor at delaying gratification. (They probably see little reason to do it, as they also have an “eh, whatevs!” attitude about their effect on others.)

Personality traits tend to be pretty stable over time and in various situations — though research by psychologists Nathan Hudson and R. Chris Fraley suggests people can work to change their personality by repeatedly changing their typical behavior. For example, a usually inconsiderate guy could act like a person high in conscientiousness, starting in small ways, like making the bed every morning instead of leaving it for the girlfriend-slash-housekeeper to do. That said, lasting change might not be possible without strong motivation to mend one’s ways — like feeling deep remorse at all the people one hurt. (Remorse at getting caught doesn’t count!)

This guy’s “it was just white collar!” is not exactly dripping with contrition. You could get him on the phone before your date to probe further into what he did and his current perspective on it. Is he passionate about turning over a new leaf, driven to be honest — or just to seem honest? As for your “chemistry!” argument for seeing him again, consider that you get the whole dude, not just the hot parts. Wanting to see the best in somebody doesn’t make the worst in them disappear. It just might be a while before you arrive home early and spot it — in bed with your best friend, your sister, and the UPS lady. n ©2021, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

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2. From ____ Z 3. Night that “Friends” aired: Abbr.

4. The Blue Jays, on scoreboards 5. “Er ... well ... um ...”

6. June birthstone 7. Thomas featured in the documentary “The Last Dance” 8. Course number 9. Prints, e.g.

10. Handyperson’s inits.

11. Brand with a lonely repairman 12. ____ borealis 13. Free (from) 18. Susan of “L.A. Law” 19. “Well, ____-di-dah!”

22. Online exchange, in brief 23. Some partners in lesbian couples 24. “What am ____ getting?”

25. Closing section of music

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55. ExxonMobil brand 56. Metal food containers 57. Succinct reaction when given a list of instruments to choose from?

65. “... you know the rest”: Abbr.

66. Berth place 67. Greet from a distance 68. “How could I be so silly?!”

69. Garr of “Tootsie” 70. Chocolaty Post cereal

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ACROSS 1. Metaphoric acknowledgment 7. Jobs creation 11. Astronaut Jemison 14. In 15. Dress in Delhi 16. “La Cage ____ Folles” 17. Directive to an instrument in need of cleaning?

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