Krist Gets Some National Love
A nice AP story about our esteemed politics-and-music blogger Krist Novoselic found its way into both The New York Times and Seattle Times. And the story of course mentions his weekly blog on this site. The story mentions his music, his love of ranked choice voting, and his run for Wahkiakum County clerk, all of which will be well familiar to his regular readers here. So maybe now, thanks to the AP story, he'll get the national readership that he richly deserves.
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Palin Out As Alaskan Guv
The Idaho grad is resigning at the end of the month. And did you know Alaska was female? Not the governor, but the massive state itself. (Check Palin's quote in the linked ADN piece.) Me neither.
The 10 Best Names for Safeco Field's Strip Joint
With a brand new strip joint soon to open within an infield single of Safeco Field, it's important that Roger Forbes opt for a name other than Deja Vu in a good faith effort to blend into the ballpark district. There's precedent for this sort of creative nomenclature: Forbes could have called his north downtown pole emporium Deja Vu, but named it Little Darlings instead.
Hence, we took it upon ourselves to offer Forbes our list of the Top 10 names he should consider for Safeco's sexiest neighbor-to-be:
10. Caught Looking
9. The Free Swinger
8. Good Wood
7. The Hot Corner
6. Jerk One Out of the Park
Continue reading "The 10 Best Names for Safeco Field's Strip Joint"...
The Rise, and Fall, and Rise, of Frank C.
It's one thing to live to 92, which, as of his birthday last month, Frank Colacurcio Sr. has done. It's quite another thing, especially when charged with lowdown federal crimes, to remain upstanding in the community, and it seems he has done that, too. "Colacurcio Sr. regularly engages in sex acts with the dancers from the strip clubs," notes his latest indictment, "and allowed dancers who engaged in prostitution at the strip clubs to remain working at the clubs, sometimes in exchange for committing sex acts with him." 
The secret to Colacurcio's legendary libido and staying power seems to be practice, practice, practice. His run-ins with females and the law start with, at age 25, a carnal-knowledge conviction of a girl, 16, and range to a probation violation at age 80 for grabbing, kissing, and propositioning a teenager he was interviewing for a topless job. By age 86, about the time Strippergate was unfolding, he got six months probation for grabbing a waitress's breast and offering her money for sex. In court filings last year, leading up to the grand jury indictment this week, the feds quote dancers saying Frank is "always trying to get me to his house" and that "he gets laid every night."
His further nonagenarian adventures are laid out in the newest court docs, which include conversations from bugs and taps: One day last year, Colacurcio was hearing a dancer's complaint that sex was getting in and out of hand at Rick's, his family's Lake City club. Furthermore, she said, "I think a couple girls are bad...they do the real dirty stuff..." Frank interrupted her: "Where are they?" he asked. "I need one!" Of course, he was only 91 then. Who knows if he could pull it off today.
Your Arts & Patriotism Weekend Advisory
For many, the three-day weekend starts tonight. In that Fourth of July spirit, we begin our arts planner with political cartoonists at Town Hall:
In an industry substantially built on Hearst's The Yellow Kid and Little Orphan Annie, it's a cruel irony that struggling newspapers are dropping cartoon strips left and right to cut their costs. Also being axed are the children of Thomas Nast—editorial cartoonists like the P-I.com's Pulitzer-winning David Horsey. He and his brethren, including Ted Rall (of the Village Voice) and Mark Fiore, appear tonight at Cartoonapalooza, a public sidebar to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention being held in Seattle this week. They'll show slides of their work, discuss their satiric inspirations, and perhaps analyze why Bush's ears were fair for exaggeration, while Obama's are more problematic. A benefit auction and reception are also part of the evening, where you can purchase and have signed the cartoonists' latest collections. And that's the format—in books, not newsprint—in which their work may increasingly be found. Unless, of course, you're willing to pay by the download for your iPhone or Kindle. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 652-4255, townhallseattle.org. $25-$30. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER
Make the jump for more arts and fireworks events...
Continue reading "Your Arts & Patriotism Weekend Advisory"...
Currently on display at the Volunteer Park Conservatory: Espostoa
Brady MacDonald
Also known as the Peruvian old man cactus.
Where Do You Get Off? Used Condom Dangles on 54 Bus
Back in March, reader Tony alerted us to the presence of a Route 54 bus rider wearing a jacket covered entirely by Asian call girl ads. Today, he sends the above photograph. The woman is apparently oblivious to the prophylactic's presence.
Did Tony do the gallant thing and let the woman know there was a used condom dangling precariously above her? In a word, no.
"Every time I thought about saying something, I started laughing," he explained. "I looked around and no one was even looking at it. Or looking at me laughing. I thought, 'You people are blind. You're fucking lemmings. There's a condom hanging up there and it looks very used'."
Water Taxi Rockin', Connelly & I Squawkin'
As if the mere idea of reestablishing King County's woebegone mosquito fleet weren't brilliant enough to set such a plan in motion, the Elliott Bay Water Taxi is fucking crushing it with its ridership numbers thus far this year. Per a Ferry District press release, "The King County Water Taxi had another record month in June, with a total of 33,865 riders carried by the popular West Seattle-to-downtown passenger-only ferry. The ridership represents an increase of 12.7 percent over June 2008, in which 30,046 passengers rode the Water Taxi. The year-to-date Water Taxi ridership is 85,784, as compared with 59,386 at the end of June 2008."
"We will work to replicate the success of our West Seattle route as the King County Ferry District adds demonstration service on other routes on Puget Sound and Lake Washington," adds County Exec candidate Dow Constantine, who serves as chair of the King County Ferry District Board.
Continue reading "Water Taxi Rockin', Connelly & I Squawkin'"...
Hot Pops: In a Down Economy, More People Want to Drive Ice Cream Trucks
Driving an ice cream truck is a profession that anyone with a van, driver's license, the ability to count change, and a kind smile can usually pull off. (OK, the smile may be optional in some cases.) So it's no surprise that with unemployment at levels not seen in decades, more people are looking to get into the frozen treats industry. Trouble is, they're all battling over a shrinking pie.
Chantal Anderson Abdul Razak Falih, manager of Mel-O-Dee Ice Cream Inc. in Georgetown supplies more than 200 drivers with the goods.
At All City Ice Cream in University Place, a neighborhood near Tacoma, company owner John Gore has doubled the number of drivers he's hired this summer from 5 to 10. "Pretty much everybody that comes to drive an ice cream truck is out of work before," he says. "It's not like they start off with ice cream as their career choice."
Continue reading "Hot Pops: In a Down Economy, More People Want to Drive Ice Cream Trucks "...
We're Fatter Than CO, Drunker Than UT
We love statistics and maps, and thanks to Jezebel.com for linking up a few stat-maps. Above, shocking evidence that Coloradans are fitter than those of us in the exercise-obsessed Evergreen State. But at lest we're not so bad as those lard-asses in the Midwest and South. One reason for this, after the jump, may be connected to our beer-drinking and income levels...
Mountlake 9 Still Showing Movies, Only Drunker Now
Mountlake 9 Cinemas in Lake Forest Park were left for dead a few months back. But in actuality, they've reemerged stronger, and with booze. Now an affiliate of the national Cinebarre chain (not to be confused with the keister-expanding Cinnabon chain), the repurposed multiplex is like an affordable version of Redmond's ridiculous Gold Class cinemas. Better yet, it doesn't admit anyone under 21 without a proper fake ID, and shows first-run films like The Hangover and Public Enemies. It's about time our region saw a proliferation of brew and views; Central Cinema and the Big Picture are great, but the 'burbanites need their bourbon too.
Who Soiled My Ballot?
Tim Eyman, that's who. This morning, he turned in roughly 314,000 signatures for his Initiative 1033, more than 20,000 over what he estimated he'd need for the measure to qualify. Thus, come November, you'll have the opportunity to vote on a spending freeze measure that can ensure more people-screwing service cuts like this and this and this and this.
Further Proof that the State Legislature is Anti-Seattle
Of the 11 youngsters named to Lt. Gov. Brad "Van Halen" Owen's Legislative Youth Advisory Council, exactly zero hail from Seattle.
Barry Good
(Apologies in advance for shameless, sappy nepotism.) My uncle, Barry Fountain, is one of the people I most enjoy being around. He is extremely funny, talented, and humble — so humble that it wasn't until my cousin Jenny Rose sent me this article that I realized he was retiring from teaching at Maple Valley's Tahoma High, for real this time. Even if I weren't related to him, it's the sort of tribute to an unsung hero that would make me well up, and includes one of the most gorgeous, spot-on quotes from an educator I've ever read: "Kids don't care what you teach them until you teach them that you care." They couldn't script that any better. Edward James Olmos, eat your heart out.
The Times' Fear of Ersatz Brothels
That long harrumph! on strip clubs from the Seattle Times this week had to leave a lot of readers smiling if not laughing out loud. It was notable for being out of touch with its community and perhaps the Times itself. Under new editorial page editor Ryan Blethen, the Times' opinions have begun to voice a sugar-tit tone of correctness not evident under predecessor Jim Vesely. The "Egads!" if not "My word!" reaction was laid out in Victorian splendor to oppose a court-approved plan for a new Deja Vu strip club across from Safeco Field. The unnamed writer - who seemed to confuse Deja Vu owner Roger Forbes with Seattle's freshly re-indicted Strippergate perp Frank Colacurcio Sr. - thought that taking jobs as nude dancers was "degrading to women," that dancing clubs are "ersatz brothels" and "dingy gathering places for lonely men to sip overpriced soft drinks and ogle the female form." Lap dancing "is prostitution by another name." And the new SoDo club would be "too damn close to families and a general public that is insulted and offended by the intrusion."
