Every week I'll ask unsuspecting, earphone-wearing metro riders the tough questions, so you don't have to.

Name: John
Age: 20s
Occupation: Bartell Drugs employee
Where and When: Metro # 66, Thursday morning

What Are You Listening To?
Green Day. I can’t remember the name of the song. Something about waiting. (“Are We The Waiting”, perhaps—ed.)

What Else?
A whole bunch of stuff. It’s a mix of Denis Leary, Incubus, Toadies and Weezer. And Journey-no music collection is complete without it.

Why Are You Listening To This?
I need something to get me going through the day.

Here’s a list of some of John’s musical choices, and the artists’ most recent albums:

Incubus: Morning View (2001)
Journey: Journey’s Greatest Hits: Best of the Best (2006)
Denis Leary: Merry F#%$n’ Christmas (2004)
Toadies: Best of Toadies: Live from Paradise (2004)
Weezer: Make Believe (2005)

MUB Gear founder/owner Kris Bjork, flocked by her embroidery machines.

Kris Bjork’s full time business is an embroidery company, Logos NW, which she runs out of her home. But in her spare time, the West Seattleite makes and sells clothes that sport a slogan spotted on pickup trucks around the city: “Man Up Bitch!”

"This all started as a joke,” said Bjork. “My boys work construction, so they’re all big, ugly, foul-mouthed, tattooed things. One night we were all drinking and it just happened.”

MUB has mostly been a guerrilla operation, with items sold out of duffel bags at pub crawls or tents at motorcycle rallies. They hit construction sites and skate parks, hence the highly visible orange shirts. MUB even sponsored the winning team in The Gay Softball World Series, the Seattle Vibe.

Bjork claims that she’s gotten an overwhelmingly positive response, even in a city with the social climate like Seattle — except from those “women’s-libbers.” According to her, they've just had to find those "open-minded" groups who can get a laugh from the slogan.

“See, ‘bitch’ is an all-inclusive term,” she explained. “Anyone can be a bitch. That’s why, for a long time, if you couldn’t understand you didn’t get an explanation. But we all work too hard not to have a good time.”

What is that?! A shot of the haunted back bar area of Kells, and a possible ghostly sighting.
Photograph by Erinn Unger

By Antonia Greco

When people say the Pike Place Market has a lot of soul, you have no idea how right they are. Day to day, amongst the hustle and bustle of the khaki-offending tourists and locals adrift, the market is abundant with the presence of restless spirits and ghosts alike.

“They’re all around us. They only make their presence known when they have something to tell us,” says Karen McAleese of Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub.

Kells, which resides at 1916 Post Alley, is the ground floor of the 5-story hulking, brick edifice formerly known as the E.R. Butterworth funeral home. 1921 First Avenue, which is the buildings main entrance, was the former chapel area of the funeral home and in more recent years, was the former location of the now closed Starlight Lounge. Kells, on the other hand, occupies the former embalming room of the funeral home, making it a haven for un-earthly like occurrences.

Paranormal activity at Kells is believed to be centered around the spirit of a three-year old girl with red hair who plays in the southern half of the bar.

Gary Busey is the poor man's Nick Nolte. Mickey Rourke is the poor man's Bruce Willis. David Morse is the poor man's Russell Crowe. Mr. Pibb is a poor man's Dr. Pepper. This list goes on and on, and it's my new favorite list. I have to take issue, however, with their assertion that Eric (Grey's Anatomy) Dane is the poor man's Leo DiCaprio. While Dane shares a physical resemblance with Leo, Emile Hirsch does too, and actually scoops up many of the roles DiCaprio passes on. Furthermor, like Leo (and unlike Dane), Hirsch struggled to vault from puberty into manhood. Only after Blood Diamond did I actually buy DiCaprio as something more than, as John McCain so eloquently put it, an androgynous wimp.

Also, they need to plug Andy Garcia in as the poor man's Al Pacino, rather than old Al Pacino is the poor man's young Al Pacino, which is still pretty funny. And if Andy Garcia's the poor man's Pacino, then Ron Silver is the homeless man's Pacino.

Another lawsuit? Oh, Lord.

It turns out that God can get out of a lawsuit. Good luck to the rest of us.
Nebraska legislator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit against the almighty, seeking a permanent injunction. God has caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants," Chambers said, according to the Associated Press. Not to mention, some say, being responsible for the creation of the mosquito and Yanni.

However, God’s address is unlisted, insisted Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk, and without access to him…her…it the case cannot move forward. Chambers replied, citing the expansive omniscience argument, "Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."

Chambers filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have equal access to the court system (or that any case, really anything, has a chance. Of course, only if it is backed by a legislator.)

Regardless, I think God shouldn’t be such a wimp. He should show up and take it like a man…woman…universal being, whatever.

Instead, God is being passive aggressive, as he usually is. Instead of wiping everyone out with a giant flood, why not just tell everyone they’re sinners to their faces? And don’t get me started on his choosing of favorites…it’s like middle school dodge ball. “I’ll take that one. You? Not so much.”

Chambers, I urge you to appeal. Maybe God will show himself. At the very least we might get a cool sign, like the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, or a scourge of insects o’er the land. Either way, God, avoid the rainbows. They’ve been overdone.

You, the Living
The title is from Goethe: “Rejoice, you the living ... ere dark Lethe’s sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot.” A trolley car in the film bears that underworld river’s name for a destination, and everybody in this film by Swedish director Roy Andersson (Songs From the Second Floor) is destined to go there someday. But while they’re still alive, he treats us to vignettes of these inherently hilarious humans, most of them caught in midstare by a becalmed camera and the greenish tinge of a world’s last days. A disgruntled woman chases off her boyfriend and sits on a park bench, singing and complaining. A man recalls a nightmare in which he is condemned to fry for a tablecloth trick. My favorite vignette is one near the end, as a forlorn girl dreams of being a newlywed in her kitchen when the scenery mysteriously rolls by outside and wellwishers stop her and her guitar-playing groom for a sendoff on, as it turns out, a train. (NR) FRAKO LODEN Egyptian: 9:30 p.m. (Also: Pacific Place, 4 p.m. Fri., June 6.)

Strangers
Ladies, tell me you wouldn't sleep with Liron Levo the first time you met him. Tall, taut-bellied, with a strong nose and soulful eyes, he looks like a commando--which his character, Eyal, may be back in Israel. Rana (Lubna Azabal) meets Eyal on the subway in Berlin, where both are visiting for the 2006 World Cup. They're tourists who communicate haltingly and endearingly in English, their second (or third) language, meaning it's a lot easier to kiss than speak. Strangers is nothing if not contrived in its set-up and ensuing culture clash (Rana turns out to be a Palestinian living in Paris), and it floods the background of this hasty, star-crossed romance with TV scenes of Israel's invasion into Lebanon. Sounds overdetermined, but Strangers is so much better than that: The two leads are utterly charming as they gambol about Berlin (mostly improvising as they go), followed by Ram Shweky's excellent hand-held HD camerawork that was clearly grabbed, guerilla-style during the actual World Cup. Strangers is all about immediacy, the present moment, no matter how much the politics of the past. It also barrels along without wasting a minute, jumping from Berlin to Paris, where Rana's leftist friends provide a devastating café snapshot of European anti-Semitism. (No spoilers about who gets the last word.) Levo you may recognize from past films by Amos Gitai; Belgian actress Azabal had a small, impact role in Paradise Now. The film has a distributor and will probably play Seattle this fall. Don't wait for that. If Strangers tells us anything, it's that we should always act immediately for the sake of love. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Uptown: 6:30 p.m. (Also: 4:30 p.m. Mon., June 2.)

Saving Luna
Here's a small wonder: A clear-eyed documentary about environmentalism and government bureaucracy. (Yes, such a thing is possible.) Luna is a baby orca separated from his family who plays with boaters off the coast of Vancouver Island. As Luna becomes a tourist attraction, his safety is compromised, and action must be taken. The meat of the film deals with the selfishness of us humans--so unlike the whales!--as various groups squabble over Luna's fate. Saving Luna has terrific editing and beautiful underwater photography. On land, things are considerably uglier. (Director Suzanne Chisholm will likely attend both screenings.) A warning to parents, however: While the movie is playing in SIFF's Films4Families series, it's probably too serious, complicated, and sad for most children. (Parents who read about this recent Northwest news story will know what I'm talking about--the heartbreak that could’ve been avoided.) This is not another Free Willy. Do not bring overly sensitive kids under, say, age 12, who are prone to tears. Everyone else should get in line. (NR) FRANK PAIVA SIFF Cinema: 11 a.m. (Also: 1:30 p.m. Sun., June 8.)

Idiots and Angels
Cult animator Bill Plympton's hand-penciled expressionism is most recognizable from his shorts, likely because his deadpan, spatial-distorting sight gags often can't sustain momentum in feature form, almost by design. Yet his beautifully creepy fifth film somehow transcends this limitation and proves his most fully realized yet, a grim fairy-tale comedy about a truculent businessman who discovers angelic wings sprouting from his back. Told without a word of dialogue, the mean bastard undergoes a spiritual awakening as his new appendages thwart his every transgression, a humiliating rise-fall-and-rise tale that affects a bar owner and his salsa-dancing wife, a conniving surgeon, and a town full of arson victims. Less concerned with gags than nimble storytelling and wide-screen aesthetics (every brooding corner of the frame is blotted in monochromatic noir hues), Plympton mines elegance from the utterly gonzo. (NR) AARON HILLIS Harvard Exit: 9:30 p.m. (Also: 4 p.m. Sat., May 31.)