Charleytraylor

Basso links up with Riis once more

KENTUCKY: "A former Hancock County youth pastor is arrested on charges of having a sexual relationship with a 15 year-old girl during youth group meetings. Joshua Whicker is booked in the Breckinridge County Detention Center and charged with 2 counts of 3rd degree rape. Kentucky State Police arrested Whicker Monday morning following reports of his alleged relationship with the girl. Whicker is the youth pastor Mt. Eden Church in Hawesville. A former member of the Mt. Eden Church tells us, Whicker resigned as youth pastor the day before the investigation began."

MICHIGAN: "A former Grandville youth pastor facing sex charges involving a minor could wind up avoiding jail time. Jeremiah Behrens, 34, appeared in 59th District Court in Grandville Monday where he waived his right to a preliminary exam.... The victim reported that in January 2013 while she and Behrens were alone at the church, Behrens 'touched her chest just above her breast on top of the clothing.' The second incident reported is said to have happened in May of 2013 when the same victim alleges Behrens 'approached and touched her in the church’s kitchenette area and then went onto to reach under her shirt and touch her breasts.' In an email, said to have been exchanged between Behrens and the vicitm, Behrens wrote 'we had gotten too close and some inappropriate things happened.'"

INDIANA: "Former youth pastor sentenced to 15 years. Nathan Hasty admitted to setting up phony Facebook accounts to solicit nude photos from children, including ones in his own youth group, and on Wednesday a federal judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison. He had been a Campus Life Director for Youth for Christ.... [Hasty] had two accounts under which he pretended to be a 16-year-old girl. He used these accounts to message dozens of boys, most between the ages of 12 and 14. He then asked for pictures of the boys, including naked pictures. He also asked the boys for webcam sessions, claiming he didn’t have a camera and could only watch. Hasty posed as a 19-year-old boy in his third Facebook account and contacted girls and boys.... Hasty was suspended from Youth for Christ as soon as the organization learned of the FBI’s investigation."

WISCONSIN: "Sheboygan County authorities have charged a former youth church director with 15 counts of possessing child pornography. A criminal complaint says Calvin Dewayne Gideon of Plymouth was charged after authorities seized his laptops and flash drives with photos and videos of child pornography. The 53-year-old tells authorities he was a youth pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Plymouth but recently was fired because of his drinking."

All of these men were youth pastors when they committed their crimes/alleged crimes and—with the exception of Calvin Gideon—they only lost their youth pastor gigs after they were arrested or charged. But in news media reports they're all "former" youth pastors. Teachers or lawyers or bankers who are fired after being charged with crimes aren't described as "former teachers/lawyers/bankers" by news media. They're teachers and lawyers and bankers. So why do youth pastors get the "former" treatment? Because religion. This is just one small example of the media's slavish deference to churches and "people and faith." It's as if the news media is saying, "You have nothing to fear from the youth pastor at your soulless suburban megachurch. But never leave your kid alone with a former youth pastor—those guys can't be trusted."

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Nothing like a massive Tony Romo&ndashshaped speed bump on the Seahawks' Insufferable Journey to Rewinnining the Super Bowl™ to make you not want to read about the Seahawks. Yeah, I see you out there in internet land, not wanting to read the words that you're reading. Thinking about clicking away, scrolling down, avoiding the pain. That’s so like you, user of the internet.

Don’t be like you.

Click on the jump and read about the Seahawks even though they lost 30-23 to the Dallas Cowboys. Do it. Dooooo it.

The Seahawks are weird. Generally, this is good: Weird football means doing yoga and being positive and looking for undervalued diamond-in-the-rough assets and giving them a chance to become superstars. Seahawks weirdness means Pete Carroll, Richard Sherman, and Russell Wilson. But sometimes being weird isn't great. Like how our team's offense yesterday featured almost exclusively weird plays and personnel packages all game long despite having success doing normal things.

Second and 8. Tie game. Fourth quarter. Whole playbook is available. The Seahawks brought Cornell product Bryan Walters on a pre-snap motion across to the short side of the field, pumped to him once, and then threw to him five yards behind the line of scrimmage with one blocker against three potential tacklers. It went like this:

(gif via @Jose8BS)

I don’t want to engage in post-loss hyperbole, but that is the terriblest. Why not just run the ball with Marshawn Lynch, or throw to him, or do anything other than this play? This play misdirected the defense to a fifth-string receiver, and then threw the ball to him anyways. The Seahawks wasted downs on Cornell grads today like Cornell grads wasting their breath explaining that Cornell wasn’t their safety school. Look, someone had to go to Cornell. It’s fine, stop telling me about the merit of going to a semi-public Ivy League school. This hypothetical conversation sucks as much as a triple-option pass to Bryan Walters on 2nd and 8.

Other thoughts from an annoying week of weird football:

• What if there were no holding? I mean, the rules to football, like all games, are just made up. So why have holding? Let people hold! More holding! Two men grappling with one another in manly combat should be legal. Am I saying this because the Seahawks offensive line could use every advantage it can get, and the Seahawks pass rush can't get to the passer anyway? Stop asking me questions, and start questioning the notion of holding. It's a weird penalty if you choose to not take it as a given!

• Very stupid football thought of the week: Tony Romo reminds me of Tony Roma’s, which sells ribs. Ribs are delicious.

• Not-so-stupid football thought of the week: Tony Romo reminds me of Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, whose career renaissance last year looks a lot like Romo’s resurgence this year.

• Russell Wilson was terrible this week. Hopefully he won't be next week. That would be unfortunate! Fortunately, he's been very good for most of his career, so he probably will be better next week.

• Hopefully Doug Baldwin doesn't read this, because I fear his wrath, but the Seahawks receiving corp is looking like a big question mark. Baldwin is an invaluable safety valve option, Jermaine Kearse is a solid deep threat, and the depth behind them is fine. But Percy Harvin is being used primarily as a decoy and running option and the team clearly misses Golden Tate's sure hands. The team drafted two wide receivers this year, Paul Richardson and Kevin Norwood, and neither one has featured prominently. It would be nice to see what they can do soon, because drops and a lack of separation have been killing this offense.

• In the other football, the Sounders were also terrible this weekend, so that was fun! Fortunately the LA Galaxy were no better, leaving MLS's top two teams, who happen to play their final two games against each other, locked in battle for the league's best record. Fun times ahead! (Note: Times will likely not be fun, based on the two teams' current level of play, but they will be interesting.)

• Losing to the Cowboys is stupid, but not because of their fans. Despite Dallas's run in the '90s and the whole awful America's Team shtick, the team has actually suffered through a pretty brutal two decades. What’s stupid is that we all have to suffer through a week of “the NFL is better when the Cowboys are good” columns. So stupid. So, so stupid.

The Seahawks are on the road in St. Louis next weekend, in what is suddenly looking like a must-win. Boy, it would be nice if they win, or we're all going to start being sufferable far sooner than any of us could have hoped.

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The HUMP! Jury is a diverse group of Seattle/Portland-based queers, breeders, kinksters, out-and-proud vanillas, and binary-squashing gender rebels. HUMP! Jury members take their jobs very, very seriously. We gather once a year in a darkened conference room around a table heaped with carbs. Films are limited to five minutes and it took us six hours to watch all of this year's submissions. We take notes, we debate the films, we watch some again. When the final program is determined—an utterly heartbreaking process (every year we have to cut some films we really, really love)—black smoke rises out of the chimney on top of Stranger HQ and we can hear the crowds under our window chanting "Habemus HUMPam! Habemus HUMPam!" (We have a HUMP!" We have a HUMP!")

We have a HUMP!—do we ever—but before we announce the lineup for HUMP! 2014...

OVERHEARD IN THE HUMP JURY ROOM

“Wow, that is SO anatomical.”

“It’s like Avatar meets Midsummer Night’s Dream meets Naked and Afraid.”

"Ginger pubes represent—hey, straight analingus 69! But, man, depressing apartment."

"Straight people's apartments are so depressing."

"Farm to table!"

"Bedazzled bras, big sunglasses, lots of lip gloss, no oral/genital contact—so that's how lesbians have sex."

"This is why I'm never going to eat acid ever again. This image."

"Good luck getting that out of your hair."

"I hate that dead-and-deflated-cow scrotum thing. Wait. That's a clown scrotum."

Our reactions to this year's films will make more sense when you see the films that made it into HUMP! But you're not gonna see the films that made it into HUMP!—Seattle and Portland's 10th annual amateur porn festival—if you don't get tickets! HUMP! goes down November 6th-9th & 13th-15th at On the Boards in Seattle, November 13th-16th at Cinema 21 in Portland, and November 15th at The Capitol Theater in Olympia. Twelve screenings have already sold out and tickets have only been on sale for a week. Don't miss HUMP! Order your tickets now!

And now, after the jump, the titles of the films you'll be seeing at HUMP! 2014...

No Artificial Sweeteners

Garden Party

Humparoke

Tarnish

I Am 12 And What Is This

A Day In The Wife

The World's Best Hand Job

The First Time

Sunday

Tuesday

The Sound of Porn Music

Just Fucking

A Match Made In App Heaven

Rube

The Glory Hole

Fire Escape

The Caller pt. 2

Box Conquer

The Grocer

Cinderfella

Get your tickets now!

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It's hard and heartbreaking to watch even the sweetest, most celebratory parts of Kill the Messenger.

Because, by now, we know for certain what many of the players in this true tale of mid-1990s journalism and skullduggery did not know: Namely that Gary Webb, a prize-winning reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, was dead fucking on when he nailed the CIA for doing business, back in the 1980s, with the Central American drug traffickers who helped wreck America's inner cities with crack cocaine…

KEEP READING>>

Killed by a Loophole: Why didn't background checks save this woman's life?

This Image Will Haunt Your Dreams: Have you read about the City Hall sideboob shocker yet?

Municipal Broadband: It's closer to a reality this week than it was last week.

Don't Panic: Harborview volunteered to treat ebola patients.

Marijuana Vs. God: We talked to the pot shop owner who was protested by a neighboring church.

Democrats Are Doing Elections Wrong: Here's why Hillary Clinton's inevitability is bad for progressives. Here's why Democrats are doing a terrible job of handling the midterm elections.

Not the "British Are Coming" Guy—the Musician: Nipper says hail and farewell to Paul Revere.

Boo, Football: But yay, Seahawks?

Bill the Butcher: Suddenly closed.

Gay Marriage Is the Least of Your Problems, Lady: Poor Janna Darnelle.

"Fairy is more street" This week, we interviewed twelve people at the Faerie Festival, Greg Louganis, some people at a gay bar, and a former Sugarcube.

Handle with Care: Ann Hamilton's touching new exhibit.

Gentrification Strikes Ferrari Dealership: Sean Nelson tells the shocking story. But who can even tell the difference between parody and reality anymore?

Enter the Laugh Track: Is it OK to laugh at Bruce Lee's acting?

Mind Your Bags: Charles Mudede again explains etiquette to you people. This time, he points out that humans, and not bags, should get seating preference on the light rail.

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The original Toronado is an often-standing-room-only, always-cash-only beer bar with divisively surly service that's been in San Francisco's Lower Haight for 27 years. It's a cornerstone of American craft beer, deemed worthy of esteemed anniversary brews from Lost Abbey, Russian River, and Alpine Beer Company. It's a special place, one that beer-lovers rightly freak out about.

Toronado Seattle (1205 NE 65th St, 525-0654) feels like any of a number of beer-centric Seattle bars. Given that Matt Bonney, formerly of Brouwer's, Bottleworks, and the Burgundian, is in charge, this likely isn't a coincidence…

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Name: Anh

Where: Momiji

Buy Her A Shot Of: Well whiskey or Fernet. “I’m pretty easy,” Anh says. “I’m just trying to get there.”

Ask Her To Make You An: Old Fashioned. “That’s probably my favorite, but I like making whatever people like to drink,” she says.

What She’s Doing When She’s Not At The Bar: “I go out and dance. Do karaoke, that’s something I really enjoy. And contemporary dance performance; I graduated with a degree in dance, so I perform around the city and do random little side projects for people, film and video, too. I took the summer off, but I’m getting back into some stuff right now. I really enjoy just chilling at home, by myself, eating popcorn and watching football. Urban hiking. Outside hiking. I like to travel a lot with my friends, take daycations, and just get out town.”

Words To Live By: “Never off, always on till the break of dawn. It’s a Dre lyric.”

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The saga of the local butcher-shop chain known as Bill the Butcher goes back to 2010 here at The Stranger, when Matthew Richter wrote about how the business would not divulge its purportedly local/organic meat suppliers, nor label its meats by source. After the article appeared—and after Richter made 18 phone calls and every certified organic beef ranch in Washington state said they did not supply meat to Bill the Butcher—Bill the Butcher became more transparent in its labeling and suppliers, and opened more stores.

Along the way, cofounder William Von Schneidau and the C.O.O. parted ways with Bill the Butcher, filing lawsuits for breach of contract and more. Cofounder and marketing consultant J'Amy Owens runs the company now, and in summer 2012, the Madison Valley and Bellevue branches closed.

Now Eater Seattle and Wallyhood report that all six branches of Bill the Butcher are closed, with an ambiguous sign posted at each shop:

Due to circumstances beyond our control we are closed until further notice.

Thank you for your support, your patronage and welcoming us to your neighborhood. We hope to see you soon.

The Seattle Times noted the company's cash flow problems in 2011. Then last week, the Times reported that Sleep Country USA founder Sunny Kobe Cook says Bill the Butcher's J’Amy Owens owes her more than $40,000 from a personal loan, as Cook wrote in a blog post entitled "The Price of Friendship":

...the prompt of this post... is the story of J’Amy Owens. If you Google her name, you will find countless hits noting her as a “retail guru”, a “Diva of Retail” and currently a “Meat Activist” and the CEO of a publicly traded company, Bill the Butcher. She once graced the cover of Inc. Magazine under the headline “Sales Guru to the Stars”. Even such illustrious credentials does not preclude one from being a deadbeat...

My reason for sharing this is to serve as a warning to others – NEVER loan money to family or friends. You are not doing them a favor, no matter how much it seems true in the immediate.

Sage words from the mattress-store magnate. Meanwhile, William Von Schneidau—originally the Bill in Bill the Butcher—now runs BB Ranch butcher shop in the Pike Place Market; he has not yet returned a call asking for his take on the matter.

J'Amy Owens' voicemail is full.

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The year is 2044. The situation on earth is not so good. The population of the dominant animal, humans, has collapsed from around 10 billion to a mere 22 million. This dramatic decline, we are told at the beginning of the movie, is not our doing. It was pure bad luck. What happened? A gigantic solar flare erupted on the red-hot surface of the sun and scorched the surface of the green earth. Everything became a desert. And in this endless desert rose a city. And in this city emerged a corporation, ROC, that makes robots. The robots do almost everything for humans: domestic work, construction work, and even sex work. One employee of ROC is Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas). He is an insurance investigator. If you make a claim on a malfunctioning robot you bought from ROC, he is the man who determines if the problem is with the product or with you, its owner—and from Jacq's opening scene, we get the impression that the fault is almost always with the owner.

One day, a macho-looking and drug-addicted cop patrolling the dark and seedy streets of the city comes across a homeless robot that's doing something odd—it's repairing itself. Robots are not supposed to do such a thing. To repair yourself means you are conscious of yourself. How can a robot be self-aware?…

KEEP READING>>

The instigating ad was shared by Savage on Slog on Monday:

And as the Daily Banter reported yesterday, "The New “#IAmARepublican” Campaign Is Backfiring In Predictably Spectacular Fashion."

A sample of the offerings:

Find a zillion more and get in on the fun at #IAmARepublican!

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Tickets for HUMP! 2014 have been on sale for less than an hour and 1,500 tickets are already gone—before we could even post an announcement about tickets going on sale to Slog and Twitter! So, yeah, HUMP! tickets are going fast, porn fans! Don't wanna get stuck waiting for rush tickets in the rain outside On the Boards or Cinema 21 or the Capitol Theater? Order your HUMP! tickets now!

Also...

We have tons of great submissions for this year's festival—we seriously can't wait to watch them all—but the HUMP! Jury won't be able to convene until next Wednesday. So HUMP! filmmakers have an extra week to get their submissions to us. The new HUMP! deadline—the drop-dead deadline—is October 7 at 3 p.m. Everything you need to know about submitting a film to HUMP! is here. If you're a filmmaker who already submitted a film and you would like to make a few additional tweaks, e-mail us at hump@thestranger.com and let us know to look for your tweaked version. And if you were thinking about making a film and didn't get around to it... you have a week!

Any other HUMP! questions? E-mail us at hump@thestranger.com!

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Guess what? The Grocery Outlet in the Central District is conveniently located on MLK and Union, just a short trip (HA!) down from the new Uncle Ike's, Seattle's second legal pot shop. Just five blocks away. This is great news, considering one of my all-time favorite Really, Really Stoned™ activities is spending 1-2 hours carefully walking through each aisle of Groc Out, examining the weird goods and singing along to the "Grocery Outlet Bargain Maaarket" jingle that plays on a cheerful loop.

To prepare for the opening of Uncle Ike's weed mart, I got stoned as fuck last night on a JuJu Joint (available at Ike's) and some other mystery pot I found in my desk, and found the best things you can buy at the Groc Out while extremely high. Good ideas, bad ideas, disgusting ideas—but don't worry, everything is pretty cheap, so if you end up with a couple Professional Cantaloupe Keepers, at least you know you got them at a deep discount. (They also make great gifts? I'm hoping?)

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NOW CLOSED: Open for many years (except when there was a fire there back in the day), MALAY SATAY HUT in the ID has finally closed forever. At the Redmond branch—which remains open—they report that the space was sold. The roti canai will be missed; fans who don’t want to go to the Eastside should try (unrelated) Satay in Wallingford or Kedai Makan on Capitol Hill. (Not the same, I know, but...)

NOW OPEN: JACK'S BBQ (3924 Airport Way S, 467-4038): A serious barbecue nerd, Jack Timmons grew up in Texas, then moved to Seattle, then went back to Texas to engage in some barbecue scholarship—including BBQ Summer Camp at the Meat Sciences department of Texas A&M and worshipping at the temples of the Central Texas style (Louis Mueller's, Snow's, Cooper's, and more). You may know his oak, mesquite, and hickory-smoked work from his roving Seattle Brisket Experience, and now you can get it all the time at his place in Sodo/Georgetown, which is a homey, glowing roadhouse with a big American flag. This all sounds very promising.

• HOMMAGE (198 Nickerson St, 283-2665): Where the elegant and extremely well-received Book Bindery used to be near SPU, and from the same owners, Hommage opens tomorrow, Wednesday, October 1 (if all goes according to plan). The chef is Nico Borzee—of Artusi, SF's Coi, and Michelin-starred places in France—which bodes very well.

• NATE'S WINGS & WAFFLES (9261 57th Ave S, 722-9464): Nate is the basketball player and Seattle native Nate Robinson; Darren McGill of Happy Grillmore is in on Nate’s in Rainier Valley, too. The chicken’s all hormone-, antibiotic-, and preservative-free, and the wings come with six choices of sauce, from classic buffalo to coconut-jalapeno-lime.

• MANAO THAI STREET EATS (1222 E Pike St, 556-2964): On 13th and Pine, Manao has a cartoonishly cute interior and a menu that, despite the name, will be familiar to anyone who's ever been to an indoor Thai restaurant before. My esteemed colleague Paul Constant says the food is serviceable but not as good as (awesome, nearby, sidewalk walk-up) Little Uncle, though he notes that Manao is open late. Manao means "lime" in Thai.

• MUAY THAI MAX (muaythaimax.com): Seattle native Max Borthwick—formerly of Thai restaurant Toi downtown (with his mother as the chef), then Suite 410 (an early adopter of the craft cocktail), and now one of the owners of Primo on First Hill—runs Muay Thai Max, offering Thai-style pizza exclusively by delivery (at least for now). Pies include the Praram Long Song with peanut sauce, mozzarella, spinach, chicken, and cilantro, and the Kaeng Panang with panang curry, mozzarella, roasted red bell pepper, onion, and basil, which sound possibly really good. Coming soon: a full menu of noodles, curries, stir-fries, etc.

• FRAN'S CHOCOLATES (5900 Airport Way S, 508-4535): Fran’s has moved its headquarters to Georgetown, and the industrial-chic shop there has a viewing area so you can watch the magic being made.

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We got a tip last week from Doug Nellis, who said he took this photo on September 25th at the Ship Canal Trail across from Fisherman's Terminal near Interbay. It shows a giant orange sign, surrounded by a fortress pylons, smack dab in the middle of the bike trail:

Nellis said the sign's placement "nicely reflects the two shits that SDOT does not give about bicycling infrastructure."

Well, Doug, not quite. We sent the picture to SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan yesterday, who promptly wrote back:

A contractor responsible for a nearby project erroneously placed the sign there. We have instructed them to move the sign to an appropriate location and they are in the process of doing so. We apologize to anyone inconvenienced by the sign.

Two hours later, by 4 p.m., Sheridan e-mailed again to say that the sign had been moved to a location allowing for "a minimum of four feet of clearance for bikes and pedestrians." Good on ya, SDOT!

Now, if we could just kickstart a Seattle-wide cultural shift so that people—delivery truckers and city contractors alike—start treating bike routes like car lanes. (Meaning, they'd think real long and hard before casually blocking them.)

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Ryan, left, (who waited in line overnight) "First time smokin' weed?! Ha! That was more like when I was 12… I'm here because this is incredible. Where I just moved from—in Florida—you go to prison for weed. Here, you just waltz right into a store? That's cool as fuck." Alex, right, "I'm just excited to smoke my first LEGAL WEED."

"Crazy Kay" [sings] "The first time, ever I saw your face! I love Roberta Flack. And yes, I DID paint my nails green for this… And everybody knows Crazy Kay in this neighborhood. Plus, today is my birthday!"

Jason, "Oh, yeah. First time. Right! I'm very excited. TICKLED PINK."

Lisa, "Uh, the "first time" was at that other shop down in Sodo, a few months back."

Josh, "I'm very, very nervous! What does weed even do to a person?"

[Photographer forgot to get this lovely lady's name—doh!] "I'm just excited this is in my neighborhood! I live just a few blocks away."

Two anonymous dudes, "Oh, shit! Don't take our picture. We work nearby and snuck over here on our lunch break."

"Strap," "First time? First time at a legal weed store... I'm from Philly. Hopefully these stores will be everywhere soon."

Elee, [laughs] "Um, you're about 20 years too late for this question!"

Justin, left, "When I walk outta this store, it'll be the first time TODAY." Michelle, right, "Well, I've already smoked today... I guess I'm ready to smoke somethin' NEW."

Moss, "I'll probably smoke at some point today. I might not even buy anything in there. I'm more interested to see the shop, and excited about the changes in the neighborhood."

Q [Uncle Ike's employee], "You're asking people if it's their FIRST time?! Ha! Whaaaaat?"

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Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello (aka the Nightwatchman) attacked Seattle establishment 5 Point Cafe on Twitter on September 26 after being denied a "special room" (a room that doesn't actually exist, fact fans) for his entourage, because the bar was at capacity. The acclaimed musician and activist had just performed a benefit concert for 15 Now with Audioslave bandmate and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell at El Corazon.

This obviously rankled 5 Point owner David Meinert, who responded on the business' Facebook page.

For the record Tom Morello - The 5 Point is totally pro-worker. We try to pay more than any other small restaurant, and on top of the higher pay, we offer health insurance, paid sick days, paid time off, retirement and profit share. Sorry if you had an issue with our staff, but typically our staff is awesome, and when they are not, it's usually a reflection of the customer. Act like a prick = get treated like a prick.
I have to say, your attacking a small business without knowing anything about it, or addressing your problem with them directly before you go on a public rant, pretty much sucks. Just lost a ton of respect for you, and I've been a fan for years, both of your work in Rage and your work for workers rights since.
PS - rock stars don't get special treatment at The 5 Point. We couldn't give less of a shit. Sorry...
PSSS - turns out he and his crew didn't get let in as the place was at capacity and there was a line. No one was being let in. According to our doorman who I totally trust, Tom and his crew were all totally rude. Quote from the door guys "I knew who he was, we had no room, his whole party was being rude. He wanted a special room in the back. Clearly had no ideas what it is like inside. I've told bigger rock stars than him no."

I asked doorman Eric Roach to describe the scene at the 5 Point when Morello and his crew rolled up. "When he showed up, I had just cleared out a bunch of people and turned away a couple of parties," Roach said in a phone interview. "It was Decibel Festival last weekend, and the 5 Point was really, really busy. I came inside to check on the bartender a couple of times and found him in the closet leaning against the wall saying, ‘Nobody should have to deal with this.’ There was only one bartender and one waitress on that night. Just before Morello shows up, both the bartender and the waitress adamantly did not want to have anybody else in the bar. I’d already gotten rid of everybody that was on the porch. We were already over-served. When Morello shows up with his group, maybe a little before 1 a.m., I had to say, ‘I’m sorry. We’re full right now. I’m not letting anybody in.’ It was at the height of our busyness.

Roach says Morello didn't seem drunk or drugged up.

"In fact, he didn’t come off as being a jerk, other than that he wouldn’t take 'no' for an answer," Roach said. "One of the first things out of his mouth is, ‘Does the owner like Rage Against the Machine?’ I said, ‘Probably, but we’re full right now.’ Normally I try to be witty with my answers, but the whole party kept trying to get in. ‘Isn’t there someplace in the back you can put us, away from everybody?’ I said, ‘No, man, it’s not that kind of place. We’re really small; I don’t have any room for you.’ They just kept asking me. I’m sure I looked irritated. The fact that he thought I was rude may be his interpretation of my irritation.

"At the point where he said, 'We’re gonna go to IHOP,’ I said, ‘Great. IHOP’s up the street. They’re a lot bigger than we are. Have a good time.’ He said, ‘I’m gonna tweet you.’ I told him, ‘My name’s Roach—R-O-A-C-H, if you’re gonna tweet about me.’ Then he actually did tweet about me. Whatever… The rudest thing he did was the tweet. Really, dude? You took time out of your day to insult me, the door guy who won’t let you into a place? I would’ve loved to have helped the guy. We’ve helped all kinds of stars. Hell, Sinbad was there a couple of weeks ago—had a great time."

Roach said the whole exchange lasted only about five minutes and then the entourage left, annoyed. "The whole time I kept thinking there was a hidden agenda; to know that he was there supporting 15 Now and how David [Meinert] was adamantly against Sawant’s approach to the minimum-wage increase. It doesn’t seem like much of a coincidence to me."

If you're wondering, yes, Roach is a Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fan. And, no, he's not going to jettison their music from his collection. He really wished he could've helped them out. "The best things about those bands are the singers, anyway," Roach concluded. "Zack de la Rocha and Chris Cornell are two of my favorite singers. If I wasn’t in the business [Roach is also a stagehand for various venues], I probably wouldn’t know who Tom Morello was." ZING.

A subsequent tweet [see below] by Morello made conciliatory gestures, but even those had conditions, and Meinert appears to have forgiven him for the negative outburst. After all, this ultimately resulted in major publicity for his eatery/bar. If this incident proves anything, though, it's that even lefty-activist musicians can act like obnoxious prima donnas with the best worst of 'em.

Check out the concert itself below.

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• What'd you think of the Juggalo-family band Twizted at El Corazon last night? You didn't go? Well, Kelly O did. At least, she talked to some people who were were standing in line. Overheard: “What up, Fam? Whoop, whoooooop!”

People came from Alaska, Spokane, and Oregon just to be there.

• But before that, yesterday was the Seattle Faerie Festival at Volunteer Park, where we met the Seattle Garden Gnome who gave us a rock that, when cracked open, revealed a tiny plastic emerald. He told us, “If you plant the emerald in your garden, magical faeries will grow there." A skeptical Marcus Wilson from Pony mumbled, "I'm not sure that's how faerie procreation works."

• On Saturday, I went to Ballard for Señor Moose brunch and rekindled my love for plantains. Unsure of what else to do in Ballard during the day (that's not eating), I walked down to the boat parking lot (dock?) to judge the boat names harshly. On the way, I peeped inside the newly renovated Sunset Tavern—they just reopened and it looks crazy different! Excited to catch a show there.

• On Saturday night, Lo-Fi hosted Bali Girls, the Gods Themselves, and the Intelligence. The Black Lodge hosted Lisa Prank, Childbirth, Deep Creep, and S. Everyone did their best to run back and forth between the venues, conveniently located next door to each other. I wasn't early enough to catch the first band of either show, but the Gods Themselves (the new project of Astra Elaine from Atomic Bride) put on a solid record-release show with much waaah waah swagger and a smoke machine—their hit "Last Chance for Love" is super B-52s with epic Shocking Blue-esque vocals (Elaine was also in a Shocking Blue cover band). The Intelligence were as sweaty and excellent as ever; same goes for the bands next door, though S, Jenn Ghetto's project, also celebrating a record release, was a different, more heartbroken kind of sweaty. Yes, actual tears were cried by adoring audience members.

• In other music news: Congrats to Dave Segal and Kyle Fleck for surviving Decibel Festival 2014—check their coverage here and here!

• Speaking of Decibel, we never got a firm answer on how all these people were able to stay awake all night.

• Hot graf tip:

• By the way, I thought you might like to know I spent most of the workday on Friday eating Brach's S'mores Candy Corn, and they were pretty good. I enjoy things that taste like marshmallows, but I think the average tastebud might say "OMG too sweet." Lots of people in the office thought that. Either way, they're a step up from regular candy corn. [Editor's note: Emily is full of shit. They're fucking disgusting. Don't listen to a word she says.] If you can't hang with the actual candy, Jo-Ann's in Ballard has $1 candy-corn earrings!

• Okay, okay, fine, you want one more faerie pic?

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Another legal weed store is (finally) about to open in Seattle. And this time, unlike SODO's Cannabis City, it's a ten minute bike ride away from The Stranger's offices! Plus, it's got everything. Uncle Ike's opens Tuesday at noon at 23rd and Union—2310 E. Union St—offering kush, edibles, cookies, trail mix, pre-rolls, two brands of vape pens, and a second storefront full of colorful pipes and bongs.

Will be there a huge line tomorrow, like on the opening day for pot stores around Washington?

"The truth is we have no idea," says owner and local business magnate Ian Karl Eisenberg. (The name Ike comes from his initials, he's a resident of the neighborhood, and he also owns the nearby building that holds The Neighbor Lady.)

Either way, he says he has enough supply to "stay open forever, I think." He wouldn't be specific about quantities for security reasons, and later clarified that he meant that among the whole product line, he expected to have at least one item in stock at any given time.

The main store is set back from street in a small building that looks like it's made from corrugated steel. Vintage posters from the 1968 film Mary Jane adorn the walls, menus flash on large monitors above the cashiers, and there's an ATM in the corner. Attention Congressman/professional concern troll Dave Reichert: Eisenberg says the state already made him set the cash machine so it doesn't work with welfare EBT cards.

Across the street at the historic barber shop Earl's Cuts and Styles, the barbers and patrons told me they welcomed the new pot shop on what some consider a "cursed" corner. "Get a little something, then get a haircut," said a barber named Stuart Reed. Three guys in Earl's said they hope, though, that Uncle Ike's hires some employees who are black and live in the Central District—and that so far, they hadn't seen any.

Uncle Ike's has about twenty employees at the moment, Eisenberg says, and he says he's hired "a couple" African-Americans.

As for the concerns from the guys down the street, Eisenberg responds with a more abstract question: Who is really local? "A lot of times, 'locals' means African American if it's a black guy saying that to you," he told me. "It depends who you're talking to... I could give the answer that everyone wants me to say, but that would be a bullshit answer. We're going to hire the best people we can hire from wherever they are."

That said, Eisenberg believes that businesses like his would generally want to hire people who live nearby because they're likely to be better employees.

"Everyone was talking about that today—does it gentrify the neighborhood? I guess any new business contributes to gentrification," he says. "Is this pushing out a local drug dealer? Well, I sure as hell hope so. That's the whole point of I-502. If that's considered gentrification, then the word's getting misused to the point of being asinine."

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Technology is supposed to be about making life easier, about giving us what we want when we want it. Of course, it doesn't work out that way; usually technology is about shifting one immediate need at the expense of another. Americans are more efficient workers than ever before, but we also basically can't take vacations anymore because we're always tethered to our jobs thanks to technology. At some point, technology stops being about making life easier for us and starts being about making life easier for technology.

And some progress just happens because progress is expected to happen. Nobody was really complaining about the oppressive thickness of the last generation of iPhones, but the newer iPhones simply had to be thinner than ever before, because that's what Apple does. The new phones are so thin that the camera lens has to protrude out in front of the device, because physics makes it impossible for a decent camera lens to be as thin as the iPhone. And a small number of users are complaining that their iPhones are so thin that they're bending under pressure in their pockets. In response, commenters made jokes about their pants being too tight, as though it's your fault that you expected your phone to work the same way cell phones have always worked. As though the technology is blameless. Vlad Savov at The Verge points out that chasing after thinness is a weird and pointless game, when most of us would happily accept a few millimeters of extra thickness in exchange for a phone with a longer battery life, or a sturdier build. But what we want doesn't matter, right? They'll tell us what we want, because that's how this game works.

Kathleen Richards wrote a great post about Ello on Slog this morning. Because I'm curious about this sort of thing, I'm on Ello, but I don't have any illusions about it being the next Facebook. What I do notice is that Facebook and Twitter users can't stop talking about Ello. It's not because Ello is so good—in terms of privacy, ease of use, and capabilities, Google Plus is worlds ahead of it, and nobody's on Google Plus. It's because Ello appears to want users, whereas Facebook and Twitter both seem to want to drive users away. Twitter is teasing a huge change to their timeline function. Facebook is at war with drag queens. Twitter and Facebook are riddled with ads. Facebook is an incomprehensible mess that everyone tolerates because everyone is on Facebook and a social network only works if everyone is on it. Facebook and Twitter don't really want to drive users away, of course, but they did stop thinking about what the user wants and they started thinking exclusively about what would make life easier for Twitter and Facebook. We all want to feel wanted, and increasingly hardware and software designers don't seem to give a good goddamn what we want. They're too busy chasing each other around the Silicon Valley barnyard in search of money, bragging rights, and their own ridiculous expectations.

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If you've ever dozed on a couch accompanied by channel 9 on a weekend afternoon, you're familiar with Caprial Pence—she's one-half of the PBS sweethearts on Caprial and John's Kitchen, aka "America's Favorite Cooking Couple."

Now Caprial—that's "ka-pree-ul," and her personality demands a first-name basis, even if you've never met her in person (which I have not)—is the brand-new executive chef at downtown Seattle's the Bookstore Bar & Cafe, attached to the posh Alexis Hotel.

It's worth noting that Pence, aside from seeming nearly excruciatingly nice, was the very first winner of the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest, back in 1990, when she was running the kitchen at Seattle's acclaimed Fuller's. She was born in Washington and raised in Portland; she and John also ran Caprial’s Bistro in Portland for almost 20 years. She’s written a ton of cookbooks; she cooked for Julia Child’s 80th birthday.

“It’s really cool that I’m back in the place where I started my career," Caprial says. "It’s my own full-circle moment. I’m in good company because many of my friends and fellow chefs have migrated back to Seattle, too." (Burn on Portland?!) At the Bookstore Bar, she's making almost everything in-house, including the the pork pastrami for the Rueben, the pancetta, the ketchup for the fries, the goat labneh cheese on the chickpea cakes, and the pasta.

After the jump, she and John school you on knife skills. Prepare yourself for an immediate "cutting edge" pun.

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[left-right] "Red Bull?" " My sex-drive!" "Jet-lag. I just flew in from New York."

Jesse [left] "The shots of Fireball I did earlier." "Mustrash" [right] "PEDs, baby! Performance-enhancing drugs. Just like an athlete."

DJ Element "I'm a DJ so I'm always up this late. These are peak DJ hours."

Elle [right] "I hear about other people taking drugs... like Molly. But I'm just high on the EDM."

[Chugging water] "The AA! Adderall and alcohol..."

Vitamin Dee, photographer [middle] "Motivation. You gotta stay ready!"

Ritesh [left] "I don't know how to turn it down." Wolfe [right] "Can I touch your boobs?" [touches photographer's boobs] "Ha! I'm always up late. I work here."

Grey [right] "We live for this shit! I mean, not "shit" but for Decibel."

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Chat plays on Saturday, September 27, at 9 pm as part of the Local Sightings festival at Northwest Film Forum.

The main and even mesmerizing achievement in Greg Lundgren's film Chat is that he matched the depthlessness of pornographic webcam interactions with the depthless beauty of the leading subject's face (Rosalie Edholm). The attractiveness of her eyes and nose, the complexion of her skin, her lips, her nipples, her body's shape are as flat as the screen on your laptop or smartphone. Hers is an eroticism that has no warmth. To touch her cheek in real life must be like touching the screen in your hand or on your desk. Despite being bright, it hardly has any heat. This is our age of sex without bodies—the beast without two backs. But Chat locks us in time (it's shot in one take) and in space (her living room, which is blandly furnished). We can't surf or open other tabs. We can only watch...

KEEP READING >>

Sasquatch! is coming up this weekend. I've been to Sasquatch!, you've probably been to Sasquatch! or another concert out at the Gorge. The Gorge seems to be in the middle of nowhere, a vast expanse of flat and rolling fields with a huge amphitheater. Sure, you can drive in to small towns nearby. But it feels like a magical nowhere field full of trucks and tents and music and beer, and that's all that you think about when you're partying your ass off at a music festival in the middle of a field.

Of course, it is not nowhere, it is in a real place and is served by public infrastructure. And a certain part of that infrastructure gets a lot of strain during big multi-day music festivals full of drunk, high concertgoers in the summer heat, according to this great KUOW story by Jessica Robinson.

Who deals with that added burden of tens of thousands of concertgoers? For starters, the nearby emergency room at a tiny rural hospital:

Quincy is about 17 miles from the Gorge, past vineyards and alfalfa fields. Its small hospital sits down the street from a plant that turns potatoes into french fries. On a typical day, maybe 10 people will come through the doors.

But during the three-day Sasquatch festival? It's more like 60 or 70 per day.

“Every room will be full," Dietsch says. "What you're seeing here is absolutely nothing compared to Sasquatch. It's surreal.”

And Sasquatch is just the beginning. Dietsch has a printout of all the Gorge summer concerts. With each new event, he’ll go online and listen to the music so he can predict what kind of crowd will be there and what kind of drugs will they use. Coming up in late June is Paradiso, a two-day electronic music festival. Then there's Watershed in August — three days of country music.

For Paradiso, Dietsch says he's expecting a lot of synthetic narcotics. For Watershed, he says, "Mostly alcohol. Alcohol and fights.”

Dietsch admits that he is forced to stereotype "more than a little bit."

"We have to have a good understanding of what these concerts draw," he says. "And what staff we have to have here.”

How much does it end up costing the little hospital in Quincy? And what's the state planning to do about it? Go read or listen to the whole thing.

P.S. The best quote in the story comes from Seattle musician Nick Emacio: “You’ll see people having beers and everybody’s having a good time in their little groups and parties and things like that... But if you go up to the $20-a-day parking, it’s like ‘Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.’ Something’s on fire. Everybody’s running around, there’s somebody on a motorcycle or something. It’s insane.”

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By now, episode 13 of Breaking Bad's fifth season has been on iTunes or Amazon or Google for at least a full day, so I'm doing some spoiler-filled gushing after the jump. If you haven't seen the last episode, "To'hajiilee," you should not click through. Everything after the video is a spoiler:

Holy. Fucking. Shit. I can't really bring myself to 'review' or do episode recaps of Breaking Bad because I'm such a gushing fanboy that I'm incapable of bringing critical thought to it. I watched the last fifteen minutes of "To'hajiilee" literally squirming in my seat, thinking that Hank was going to get capped at any moment. It was far and away the most tense I've ever been while watching a TV show. Which is kind of a shame, because it was a great ending for the Hank/Walt dynamic—it proved that Hank was just as smart as Walt, and it gave Hank the chance to take a moment and enjoy his win. (I'm convinced that in the last couple seasons, Breaking Bad has built Hank into one of the greatest detectives in television history. Even though he's boastful and coarse, he's grown into an intuitive and sly thinker. I'd watch a Hank Schrader Investigations TV show with a happy heart.) And while we didn't see Hank get killed, and while Breaking Bad has a history of taking people out into the desert to die and not quite following through with it, I have a hard time imagining how Hank gets out of this one. (Gomez is totally a goner, though. Sorry, Gomey.)

This has to be one of my favorite episodes, and if the show was a little less set on making its viewers squirm, it would've made for a great ending for the whole series with just a little bit of retooling. The fact that there are three more hours, and that we already have a taste of what's to come, fills me with equal parts of dread and giddiness. I don't want it to end and I don't want to watch it end, but I have to know how it ends. I'm never this invested in a television show, and I love it.

I have no predictions for the last three hours of the show, because every time I try to predict how the show is going, they go and make something even better than I could ever imagine. But I've read that the next episode, which is titled "Ozymandias," is Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan's favorite episode of the whole run. (Plus, it's directed by Rian Johnson, who directed Looper and a few of Breaking Bad's best episodes.) It's probably too much to hope that Bryan Cranston's great reading of the poem will make its way into the episode:

That's some chilling shit, right there.

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In the mail this morning...

I typically enjoy reading The Stranger as it represents an alternative perspective to mainstream press. That said, I am troubled to say the least at the absence of any coverage whatsoever regarding the looming Syria debacle. One would think that the prospect of yet another preemptive war with an oil state would merit some kind of comment by writers at the Stranger.

Given the typically progressive slant of your paper it begs the question, why so silent about this issue? Certainly the Syria story merits at least as much coverage as the DOJ's recent policy change regarding marijuana—which earned a multi page write up praising the President. Wouldn't you agree?

Must there be more US bombs falling in the Syria before you acknowledge our Democrat President is clamoring for more war?

Sincerely,

Brandt Dye

I've already noted why I'm not writing about Syria—my support for the Iraq war forever disqualifies me from having opinions in public about wars here, there, or anywhere (I wouldn't listen to me on the subject—why would anyone else?)—but I not sure why my colleagues, most of whom were right about Iraq, have had so little to say about Syria. Maybe they're all in the tank (still) for Obama? Maybe they're all high? Or maybe it's that they're busy putting out a weekly paper with a city focus and a quarterly arts publication? (Massive twerking fail video... which seemed appropriate to this post... via Gawker.)

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The Snoqualmie Valley Trail is one of the most incredible places in King County. This very bikeable gravel rail trail transports you through mystical forests with breathtaking bridges and, because it’s a rail trail, relatively little climbing.

My partner Kelli and I recently threw our bikes on the bus and headed to Fall City (actually, two buses: ST 554 to Issaquah and Metro 209 toward North Bend). We got off the 209 just south of Fall City and climbed the fairly steep road to the trail. I was expecting it to be beautiful, but I don’t think I was really prepared for how incredible it was:

Of course, trails do have a habit of missing section, and the Snoqualmie Valley Trail is no different. After a long, wonderful and gradual decent through the woods, we reached a missing section that required a bit of climbing to get to the road detour (which was also quite nice), then climb a steep staircase to an old rail bridge where people often jump into the river below (no way I was gonna try it, though).

And, good news: This missing section is a “proposed project” on the list after the successful passage of the King County Parks Levy earlier this month.

After crossing the bridge, it was more wonderful biking until we got to Mt. Si Golf Course and ran into this:

Bummer! But not anymore. King County has finished work on a new steel bridge to replace an aging wood bridge, and the trail has reopened for use.

So get out there an have an adventure.

More details from the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust:

To improve access to this wonderful trail, King County Parks replaced a dilapidated timber bridge with a new steel girder bridge over a wetland between downtown North Bend and the Mt. Si Golf Course.

Hikers, bicyclists, runners, equestrians, tourists and more can travel to and from the community of North Bend, as well as all the way to Rattlesnake Lake and Iron Horse State Park at the trail’s southern terminus, or the communities of Fall City, Carnation and Duvall and the Tolt Pipeline Trail to the north. (Map)

The trail runs along the former alignment of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad’s Everett Branch. Railroad builders constructed trestles to create a gentle railroad grade, but as these structures age, their maintenance presents a challenge.

More about the Snoqualmie Valley Trail: