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Film/TV • Unstreamable

Zoo Is Unstreamable

by Chase Burns and Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 7:30 pm

Slog is never far away from Zoo.
Slog is never far away from Zoo. SEAN KIRBY, ZOO

Unstreamable is a weekly column that finds films and TV shows you can't watch on major streaming services in the United States.

ZOO
USA, 2007, 75 min, Dir. Robinson Devor

I recently learned that filth elder John Waters is a big fan of Zoo, a documentary that Stranger senior staff writer Charles Mudede helped write. I knew this dreamlike documentary about "Mr. Hands," the Enumclaw dude who died after getting fucked by a horse, had fans in strange places, but I was surprised to learn Waters was among them. I made this connection while reading Waters' recent book Carsick, which is about him hitchhiking across America. In the first chapter, Waters writes a fictional scene where he lives out a fantasy: his best possible hitchhiking experience. In this fantasy, he encounters a young art-house hunk named Harris who has a shockingly girthy knowledge of films. That's where this paragraph comes:

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Slog AM/PM

Slog PM: FDA Panel Approves Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, Macklemore Loves Polos, and a Fuck Palace on Smith Tower

by Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 5:55 pm

Yo, thats [eighty] dollars for a [polo]!
"Yo, that's [eighty] dollars for a [polo]!" Bogey Boys
Here's your daily evening round-up of the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider making a recurring contribution to The Stranger to keep it comin'!)

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is on its way, baby! An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted to approve the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. The agency is expected to formally authorize its use on Saturday, with the nation's first shipments of the virus-fighting juice heading out just days after. Washington "will likely" be allocated 60,900 doses next week. Johnson & Johnson's vaccine does not match Pfizer's or Moderna's efficacy rates, but it still works well against severe disease and hospitalizations. As Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday, you should take whatever vaccine is made available to you.

Grades 6-12 in the Lake Washington School District will not return to in-person classes this school year: 30,000 students will stay in the remote learning model throughout the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. The district explained that a shift to a hybrid model and schedule disruptions would "create more challenges and problems for secondary students than benefits."

It's Johnny Cash's birthday: I love having any excuse to look at these pictures of the Man in Black wearing thigh-high boots. (Click the pics to see the thighs.)

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Sponsored

Partnering for Success – Hollingsworth Family & Uncle Ike’s

Uncle Ike’s is proud to serve Seattle’s Central District – the city’s most diverse neighborhood and the hub, for generations, for the Black community, and home of three generations of the Hollingsworth family.

The Hollingsworth Cannabis Co. is back and has selected Uncle Ike’s to be their exclusive retailer in Seattle. Search for “Hollingsworth” on Ike's menu to purchase their product and read more about their amazing family legacy here.

Food & Drink • EverOut

This Week in Seattle Food News: Three New Japanese Restaurants Have Opened, By Tae Leaves Chophouse Row, and Dick's Is Coming To Bellevue

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Friday at 5:00 pm

Capitol Hills new Japanese barbecue spot Ishoni Yakiniku serves comfort food like kimchi udon noodles with pork belly.
Capitol Hill's new Japanese barbecue spot Ishoni Yakiniku serves comfort food like kimchi udon noodles with pork belly. Ishoni Yakiniku

EverOut is The Stranger's new website devoted to things to do in Seattle and across the Pacific Northwest. It has all the same things you're used to seeing from Stranger EverOut and Stranger Things To Do, just in a new spot!
Seattle now has three new Japanese restaurants, including the creative izakaya Itsumono, the Japanese barbecue destination Ishoni Yakiniku, and the sushi bar Kamakura Japanese Cuisine Fremont. Plus, By Tae has exited its Chophouse Row home, and several new exciting restaurant openings are on the horizon, including a Dick's Drive-In in Bellevue and a Cycle Dogs restaurant in Ballard. Read on for that and more food-world updates. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.

NEW OPENINGS AND RETURNS
Dough Zone Dumpling House
The rapidly expanding dumpling chain has expanded with a new location in the former space of Swiftwater Cellars in downtown Bellevue, serving its signature juicy xiao long bao (soup dumplings), q-bao (fat, fluffy-crisp pork buns seared in a pan), lacy pot stickers, and other Chinese dishes. The chain has also closed its original Bellevue location inside Crossroads.
Bellevue
Pickup, delivery, or limited indoor dining

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Transportation

Boeing Should Sell Its Renton and Everett Plants to China

by Charles Mudede • Friday at 4:28 pm

Window view of a Boeing 777 engine. Yes. That engine.
Window view of a Boeing 777 engine. Yes. That engine. Fabian Gysel/gettyimages.com

The headline for this post is not a joke. It's something that Boeing and civic leaders should consider, because the evidence shows us that the plane manufacturer is leaving our region and that it may be irrelevant by 2025 anyway.

The news today (another Boeing plane, this time operated Russia's Rossiya Airlines, had engine problems) is not actually that bad. The same is true for the incident that happened over Denver this weekend. As terrifying as that fiery engine looked, the situation was not at all dangerous for those in the air (the same, of course, cannot be said for those on the ground). The same is true for the incident in the Netherlands (falling bits of plane, the emergency landing, and so on), which happened on the same day as the one in Denver. These incidents can all be reduced to a public relations nightmare for Boeing, but not expanded in any meaningful way to the catastrophe of the 737 Max.

The aviation experts I communicate with regularly even point out that the maker behind the rash of bad engines, Connecticut's Pratt & Whitney, has had a long and complicated relationship with Boeing, a corporation that was once about engineering and, since 1997, has devoted every ounce of its existence to a program that in neo-classical economics is called Shareholder Value Maximization.

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Food & Drink • Politics • Housing • Neighborhoods

After Opposing an Increase in Minimum Wage, Dick's Expands to Bellevue with Jobs Starting at $17/Hour

by Matt Baume • Friday at 4:00 pm

Mock-up of the future Dick’s Drive-In
Mock-up of the future Dick’s Drive-In Dick's Drive-In

Dick's Drive-In President Jasmine Donovan spent quarantine driving all over the Eastside. “Bothell down to Issaquah, to Sammamish,” she recalls. She was on the hunt for the next Dick’s Drive-In location, and found it squeezed in between retailers and a temporarily-dark movie theater in Bellevue. The next Dick’s site will be at the Crossroads Shopping Center, a '90s-style mall in the suburbs, and is slated to open before the end of the year.

This is a weird time to open a restaurant, Jasmine acknowledges. But despite the pandemic, Dick’s has managed to reach some level of stability. That allowed them to make good on an old promise that once new locations opened north and south of the city, they’d expand eastward.

The suburban growth of the last few years has helped keep the company going as foot traffic fell at formerly-popular spots like Capitol Hill and Queen Anne.

“Broadway has been one of our hardest-hit locations,” Jasmine says, citing the drop in commuters, entertainment, and nightlife. “Broadway and Queen Anne are really not doing well, business-wise.”

That may be alarming for Dick’s fans to hear, particularly given an interview from 2019 in which Jasmine said that the company’s focus “is to move outside the city at this time.”

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EverOut

Your Guide to a Socially Distanced Weekend in Seattle: Breakfast Sandwiches, Black Businesses to Support, Beer Festivals, and More

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Friday at 1:20 pm

Get yourself a luxe breakfast sandwich from the pop-up Eggs Isle, coming to Chucks Hop Shop in the Central District this Sunday. (And while youre in the neighborhood, stop by Black-owned businesses like Cafe Selam and the Postman to cap off Black History Month.)
Get yourself a luxe breakfast sandwich from the pop-up Eggs Isle, coming to Chuck's Hop Shop in the Central District this Sunday. (And while you're in the neighborhood, stop by Black-owned businesses like Cafe Selam and the Postman to cap off Black History Month.) Eggs Isle

EverOut is The Stranger's new website devoted to things to do in Seattle and across the Pacific Northwest. It has all the same things you're used to seeing from Stranger EverOut and Stranger Things To Do, just in a new spot!
We're back with more suggestions for activities and IRL events to help you give February a proper sendoff, from Black Restaurant Week Northwest and other ways to cap off Black History Month to an early spring sale at Swanson's Nursery, and from Brouwer's Cafe's Hard Liver Barleywine Festival to a slew of last-chance gallery shows (like Natalie Krick's Repetition Suppression at Specialist). For even more options, read our guides to the best online events this week, the best movies to watch this week, and our complete, ever-evolving guide to in-person things to do in Seattle. 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Support Black-owned businesses in Seattle's historically Black neighborhoods. Especially in areas like the Central District, where Black-owned restaurants and shops like the famous Ms. Helen's Soul Food Bistro have been forced to close to make room for micro-apartment complexes and expensive grocery stores, helping to keep Black-owned businesses alive is a civic duty. As Black History Month winds down, take this weekend (and every weekend you can) to visit Black-owned restaurants in the neighborhood, like Cafe Selam, Central Cafe and Juice Bar, Communion, Fat's Chicken & Waffles, Joyce's Market and Cafe, Meskel, Taste of the Caribbean, and Ezell's Famous Chicken, as well as the Postman, a creative third-party shipping center (buy their t-shirt!). Over in South Seattle, stock up on books on the African diaspora from the newly reopened Life Enrichment Bookstore (Columbia City), which was at one time the only Black-owned bookstore in the region (now there's also Estelita's Library on Beacon Hill, whose online shop has books on ethnic studies and Black liberation movements).

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CHARITY! • Housing • Signal Boost

Seattle Needs Knitters

by Matt Baume • Friday at 1:00 pm

Yarn is my only friend now.
Yarn is my only friend now. PixelsEffect / Getty Images

If you’re still looking for a new skill to pick up in quarantine — or just some way to keep your hands busy while you anxiously fidget — consider knitting on your neighbor’s behalf. Wellspring Family Services, a Seattle nonprofit that helps families facing homelessness, is looking for volunteer knitters to hand-make hats, scarves, blankets, and more.

“We want to make sure we’re serving families with dignity,” says Karly Lee, program manager of Wellspring’s Baby Boutique. Parents frequently request “items they’ll want to give their children … a personal item, that someone made and put effort into.”

On average, the Baby Boutique works with a little over a thousand families a year, which works out to around 1,300 children. Typically, a case manager or social worker connects the family with Wellspring to set up an appointment. Then the family comes to browse items in a setting that works like a normal retail shop — except that the items are provided free of charge. (During quarantine, orders are placed over the phone and picked up outside.)

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THIS WEEKEND! Get Naked and Join the HUMP! Film Festival's ALL-NUDE Watch Party!

by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey • Friday at 10:25 am

HUMP__Tix.jpg

HEY SMUT LOVERS! There are only TWO WEEKENDS LEFT to catch the 2021 HUMP! Film Fest, and this Saturday is extra special because we're throwing an ALL-NUDE WATCH PARTY in which you can watch the show buck-nekked along with tons of other nude HUMP lovers! For this one-time only offer, we've set up a Zoom room for you to join other HUMP fans—or you can watch the show clothed and by yourself... it's your choice! If you do decide to join, you gotta be in the buff, but don't sweat it, because there are rules that will keep you and your naughty bits safe. Read about it here!

As a reminder, HUMP! is the annual film festival where sexy amateur filmmakers share their lustiest five-minute dirty movies with the world. This delightfully sex-positive fest features all sorts of horny fun, including hardcore, softcore, live action, stop action, animated, musical, kinky, vanilla, straight, gay, lez, bi, trans, and genderqueer flicks that are guaranteed to have you squirming in glee!

So feel free to watch Saturday's screening with fellow nudies (or by yourself), but don't miss out on Sunday's screening where you can watch HUMP! with a select group of the festival's directors and performers, in which you can ask questions and get a real behind-the-scenes peek at how HUMP flicks are made. SO! MUCH! FUN! And, looking into the future, here's what you can expect for the final weekend of HUMP 2021:

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News

Slog AM: SPD Will Finally Stop Arresting People Only for Drug Possession, Few Artists Make Good Money on Spotify, Inslee Demands End of Racist Insurance Practice

by Charles Mudede • Friday at 8:43 am

Police Officer no give me producer...
"Police Officer no give me producer..." Charles Mudede

Seattle Police Department Says: "...simple drug possession, is no longer an arrestable offense." This announcement follows "a landmark state Supreme Court" ruling that wants to bring to an end the arrest of people who unknowingly possess drugs. To protect those who don't know, we must, by default, decriminalize those who do know. That's the skinny. This (decriminalization) is, I think, a more politically viable way of reducing the power of our police forces. Defunding is fine and all, but it could really take forever to happen. But decriminalization is right there. We don't have to wait long for it to happen. Decriminalize sex work, and drugs, and jaywalking, and so on.

SPD:

Effective immediately, officers will no longer detain nor arrest individuals under RCW 69.50.4013 alone.

Officers will no longer confiscate drugs from an individual based only on a violation of RCW 69.50.4013.

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Slog AM/PM

Slog PM: Equality Passes the House, We're Staying in Phase 2, What Gender Is a Potato?

by Chase Burns, Wm. Steven Humphrey and Rich Smith • Thursday at 5:30 pm

While Democrats fought to prohibit discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity, Republicans freaked out over a plastic potatoes gender.
... Ma'am? Hasbro

Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. Before we get to today's big discussion on potatoes and gender, let's check in with some news that matters...

GOOD NEWS for our* fellow LGBTs: The House of Representatives has successfully passed the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination against sexual orientation or gender identity in such areas as housing, jobs, education, public accommodations, and more! Now it goes to the Senate, where it will need at least 60 votes to avoid a filibuster—Democrats could also just nuke the filibuster off the face of the earth.


*Rich is straight.

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled RCW 69.50.4013 unconstitutional: That law made it a felony to possess drugs even when you didn't know they were in your possession, often called "simple possession." "As a result of the court’s decision, Washington joins 49 other states and the federal government in recognizing that the unknowing possession of drugs is not a crime," summarizes Mike Carter for the Seattle Times. "Attaching the harsh penalties of felony conviction, lengthy imprisonment, stigma, and the many collateral consequences that accompany every felony drug conviction to entirely innocent and passive conduct exceeds the legislature’s powers," wrote Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud, who was joined by Justices Mary Yu, Raquel Montoya-Lewis, G. Helen Whitener and Chief Justice Steven Gonzalez in building a five-member majority. Expect lots of hand-wringing on the right over this.

On to some COVID updates...

Due to dropping COVID-19 case numbers, Inslee "paused" the possibility of moving backward in phases: Before today, failure to meet three of four metrics in the state's regional reopening plan would have resulted in a region automatically returning to Phase 1 restrictions. But now, Inslee said, "they," which we assume to mean the Department of Health, have "told us we don't need this hair trigger circuit breaker any longer."

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Music

The Importance of Dr. Abe's New Book on the History of Seattle Hiphop

by Charles Mudede • Thursday at 4:45 pm

Class is now in session with Dr. Daudi Abe....
Class is now in session with Dr. Daudi Abe.... Courtesy Daudi Abe

Before MOHAI's Legacy of Seattle Hiphop exhibit opened and did its best to mock my contributions to local hiphop journalism, I worked closely with Dr. Daudi Abe, Seattle's only certified hiphop scholar (he lectures at Seattle College), and Larry Mizell, former Stranger columnist and current KEXP DJ, to build a body of knowledge that could explain and locate the emergence of Seattle hiphop in the early 1980s and to describe its path to the point at which it stood in the middle of the previous decade.

The insult of the MOHAI exhibit immediately brought an end to my work in this area. But Dr. Abe continued gathering and consolidating and refining this body of knowledge. It's now in the shape of a book that you should buy even after Black History Month is done and gone: Emerald Street: A History of Hiphop in Seattle. The book has a forward by none other than the king of the 206 himself, Sir Mix-A-Lot.

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Picture Books

This Week's Comics: Seven Fantastic Black Superhero Stories, Stray Dogs, and a Girl Haven

by Matt Baume • Thursday at 4:15 pm

stray-dogs-1_0a2e16e342.jpg
I normally enjoy snowstorms, but I am not on speaking terms with snow right now because last week’s inclement weather delayed the delivery of this week’s comic books. Had I known what the snow was withholding from us, I’d have been out on the freeways personally shoveling a path for the trucks, because oh boy is there some good stuff this week: Girl Haven is destined to become one of those dog-eared books that many people will keep on their shelves close at hand to re-read for years; Stray Dogs blends adorable talking animals with a gut-wrenching mystery; and Marvel Voices Legacy features superheroes and Black joy.

As always, thanks to Phoenix for the recommendations (support your local comic shop, plz & thx), and if someone could arrange for inclement weather not to delay great literature and art in the future that would be great.

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Film/TV • EverOut

Weekend Watch List: Golden Globe Nominees, Thin Skin, and More

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Thursday at 4:00 pm

Lee Isaac Chungs sublime Minari, nominated for Best Foreign Language Picture at this weekends Golden Globes, is available to watch via the Northwest Film Forum and Grand Cinema, on VOD (starting Friday), and IRL at Bellevues Cinemark Lincoln Square.
Lee Isaac Chung's sublime Minari, nominated for Best Foreign Language Picture at this weekend's Golden Globes, is available to watch via the Northwest Film Forum and Grand Cinema, on VOD (starting Friday), and IRL at Bellevue's Cinemark Lincoln Square. Josh Ethan Johnson/A24

EverOut is The Stranger's new website devoted to things to do in Seattle and across the Pacific Northwest. It has all the same things you're used to seeing from Stranger EverOut and Stranger Things To Do, just in a new spot!
Buckle in for another COVID-era award show: The Golden Globes are streaming on NBC this Sunday (hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler). Though they're not without their share of controversy (see: Music, Emily in Paris), many of the nominees are worth watching and are currently streamable, like Nomadland and Judas and the Black Messiah, and we've rounded those up below. If you've already seen those and are looking for some fresh options, we've got picks for you, too, like a 24-hour encore of Charles Mudede's Thin Skin and Lee Daniels's The United States vs. Billie Holiday on Hulu (which is also Golden Globe-nominated). Plus, Dan Savage's porn film festival HUMP! continues this weekend—and if you get inspired to make your own movie, don't forget that its sister festival, the stoner-centric SPLIFF, is accepting submissions through March 5! 

Newly Streaming: Local Connection
Night of the Kings
A young man is sent to a prison in the middle of the Ivorian forest ruled by its inmates and, as tradition goes with the rising of the red moon, must tell a story to the other prisoners. Learning the tragic fate that awaits him if he fails to engage his audience until dawn, he settles on the mystical life of the legendary outlaw Zama King.
SIFF
Starting Friday

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Politics • Homo • Queer

Equality Act Passes House, Despite Republican Temper Tantrums

by Matt Baume • Thursday at 2:05 pm

Minnesotas Angie Craig presides over the vote with a fetching mask.
Minnesota's Angie Craig presides over the vote with a fetching mask. CSPAN

The House just voted by a slim margin to approve the Equality Act, 224 to 206. The breakdown looks pretty much exactly how you’d expect, which is that the Democrats voted for equality and the Republicans didn't.

The gist of the Equality Act is that it would add gender identity and sexual orientation to a list of already-protected classes, so you couldn’t be fired or expelled or evicted on those bases. Seems like a good idea, but of course Republicans are jumping on the opportunity to pretend they care about a Culture War skirmish, and are flagging their opposition as if this sort of thing actually matters to them. (It is darkly hilarious to see conservative members of Congress act like they have ever given a shit about the sanctity of women’s sports.)

So now the Equality Act sails along to the Senate, where it’ll hopefully squeak through. There are no guarantees, but for now it’s ok to feel cautiously optimistic about its chances.

But you may also wish to prepare yourself for a particularly relentless onslaught of homophobia and transphobia. Not because Republicans really care about the issue, but because of the photo opportunities.

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Film/TV

The Vigil's Dark, Delicate Horror Streams This Friday

by Chase Hutchinson • Thursday at 1:25 pm

Dave Davis gives a dedicated performance as Yakov, a shomer disconnected from his faith.
Dave Davis gives a dedicated performance as Yakov, a shomer disconnected from his faith. IFC/The Vigil

Honesty in horror is tricky. It's a genre premised on misdirection and subterfuge, and horror films will often point in one direction only to sneak up from an entirely different direction. To balance that act with a truthful core and compelling narrative is rare and special, but that is what The Vigil does. The film, available on-demand starting this Friday and the debute feature from director Keith Thomas, draws viewers into a well-constructed, honest house of horrors.

Taking place over one night in Brooklyn's Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood, The Vigil follows a struggling Yakov, played by a delicate yet dedicated Dave Davis. Yakov accepts a job to be an overnight shomer to watch over the body of a deceased man. He has never met the man, but he soon discovers more sinister forces threatening to consume him unless he can make peace with his past.



To be a shomer is to take part in the religious ritual of being present from the time of death until the burial. Yakov is disconnected from his faith, having left the community after a traumatic anti-Semitic attack. He insists he is only doing this for the money and even bargains up the price with his former rabbi, Reb Shulem, who begrudgingly agrees. The ever-charming Menashe Lustig plays the rabbi.

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