MONDAY, MAY 24
Today the Seattle Mariners got a kick in the butt when the King County Council moved to ensure that the build-us-a-stadium-or-else baseball club receives no additional taxpayer money for their half-billion-dollar Safeco Field. When the county and state agreed to build the blackmailing baseball club a new stadium, the Mariners agreed to pay for all cost over-runs. With Safeco Field coming in $100 million over budget, the team now wants taxpayers to foot the bill. "No way. Not only no, but hell no," said surprisingly potty-mouthed County Councilwoman Jane Hague to The Seattle Times. Other county councilmembers were equally emphatic: "They [the Mariners] can dive up my ass and eat yesterday's lunch," said Councilwoman Sherry Lighten. Added Councilman Reggie Omar, "I'd dig up my mother and fuck her skeleton before I'd give one additional cent to those dicks."

· · · Also today: Last Days' favorite glossy pop rag Entertainment Weekly issued its list of the 100 Greatest Moments in Rock. While many of the selections were standard -- the Beatles' premiere on Ed Sullivan (#1), Dylan goes electric (#4), "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hits MTV (#8) -- others were impressively macabre: the assassination of John Lennon (#32), the nervous breakdown of Brian Wilson (#33), the electroshock therapy of Lou Reed (#36). But as with most "comprehensive" lists, the omissions were glaring. Most conspicuously absent: PJ Harvey's spooky 'n' mind-blowing To Bring You My Love cabaret, Prince getting whacked in the face by a microphone during his performance at the 1984 Grammies, and Pat Benatar teaching all those raggedy hookers how to confront their pimps through modern dance in her video "Love is a Battlefield."

TUESDAY, MAY 25
Fans of chair-tossing, hair-pulling, and bleeped expletives will soon have to look elsewhere for pleasure, as today the distributors of the Jerry Springer Show banned the program's legendary violence. "We will produce and distribute a program that we feel is responsible," said Springer distributor Studios USA in a press statement, specifying that future Springer shows will contain "no violence, physical confrontation, or profanity" (effectively omitting everything that made Springer a hit in the first place.) New Jerry Springer Show episodes will meet the no-violence standard and reruns will be edited to take out any fights (leaving... what?).

· · · Also today: Kitties! This morning, a young woman in Queen Anne experienced the miracle of birth in her very own apartment when her cat crawled into her bed and went into labor. "She was sitting on my chest and I thought she'd peed on me," said our impromptu midwife. "But it turns out it was just her water breaking." The cat was promptly placed in a cardboard box, where she stoically pumped out four kitties. Congrats!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26
The thrilling battle for justice at a Capitol Hill apartment complex continues. As astute Stranger readers already know, earlier this year the landlord of the Eileen Court Apartments gave four residents of the complex a mere 20 days notice to move out of their soon-to-be-renovated apartments (state law requires 90 days notice); when the tenants dared to question the move, the landlord responded by more than doubling the tenants' rents. Today, the City of Seattle Attorney's Office formally charged landlord Reyn Yates with four counts -- representing the four tenants -- of criminal harassment and retaliation. Yates has pleaded innocent to the charges, claiming he had gained official approval for his actions from the Seattle Department of Construction and Land Use. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for June 21; if found guilty, Yates could receive up to a $5,000 fine and one (rent-free) year in jail.

THURSDAY, MAY 27
Tonight Last Days finally ventured out to the smash cultural event that has compelled more upper-middle-class suburbanites to leave their sofas than the Seattle Home Show: Teatro Zinzanni, the Euro-style dinner theater experience housed in a gorgeous free-standing circus tent across the street from Seattle Center. For those of you who live under rocks, Zinzanni is an evening of "Love, Chaos, and Dinner," bringing together a wacky collection of characters (a Nazi magician maitre d', an aging French nymphomaniac hostess, an utterly gorgeous and beguiling contortionist in a cat suit) to present a four-course dinner of pretty good quality. And while the majority of the packed house seemed truly excited by this carefully refined "walk on the wild side," the only truly dangerous element came from the frighteningly talented Kevin Kent, who navigated the audience through the courses by transmogrifying from revivalist preacher to salsa-dancing hermaphrodite to Judy Holliday-voiced sexpot to psychotic drag queen (proving you can go home again). Along the way, Kent provided the self-proclaimed "chaotic" evening with its edgy high point, by assaulting a businessman's bald spot with his tongue.

FRIDAY, MAY 28
Today: Some guy went totally nuts in Shoreline, killing his mother and nephew and an unidentified elderly woman, breaking another elderly woman's neck, and sending four other people -- including a King County deputy (whom he shot) and a motorcyclist (whom he ran down) -- to the hospital. After a four-hour stand-off (which blocked holiday traffic on I-5 in both directions; oh the humanity), a police sniper shot and killed the 22-year-old killer.

· · · On a much, much lighter note: Tonight a bunch of strippers in Casselberry, Florida found an ingenious way to skirt their county's anti-nudity ordinance, reports UPI. Seminole County law forbids nudity, except in the case of "a bona fide theatrical production"; accordingly, strippers at Club Juana tonight presented excerpts from Macbeth and other plays -- entirely in the buff. Last Days applauds these women's resourcefulness, and looks forward to further Club Juana theatrical productions, including the mudwrestling version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Belle of Amherst, featuring Emily Dickinson shooting ping-pong balls out of her cooch.

SATURDAY, MAY 29
Tonight: an embarrassing faux pas at Seattle sex club Basic Plumbing. It was nearing midnight when our subject -- a handsome, goateed man in his mid-30s -- hooked up for some illicit wrangling with a big, hunky, bald-headed guy. After retreating together to a private stall, the Bald Hunk offered our man some yummy, brain-cell-slaughtering amyl nitrate. After accepting the small brown bottle, our butterfingered sexpot quickly dropped the cap -- forcing the pair to halt their groping and paw around on the somewhat icky floor of the darkened stall.

SUNDAY, MAY 30
As the week comes to a close, we turn once again to our favorite subject, existential consolation and final destination: death. Today the world's foremost expert on the subject (no, not Morrissey), Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, weighed in on her own impending death in an interview with ABCNEWS.com. After over 30 years spent teaching the world how to speak openly about this primary fact of life, the 73-year-old, Swiss-born psychiatrist and author of the seminal book On Death & Dying now lies in bed, weakened by six strokes, watching TV with the sound off, smoking the occasional Dunhill cigarette, and nibbling Swiss chocolate. Anyone hoping for pearls of wisdom from the soon-to-be-departing Kubler-Ross will be sorely disappointed: "The sooner the better," she says about her own death. "My problem was never with death. My problem was with living. Death was always welcome to me. Living was shitty and still is, most of the time." These are true and actual quotes, which readers can confirm by visiting abcnews.com. Make life worth living by sending me your Hot Tips. E-mail lastdays@thestranger.com or phone the Hot Tips Hotline at 323 7101 ext. 3113.