Don't Miss CoFF—the Confinement (Online) Film Fest!

City • Breaking News

Kid at Seattle Protest Was Allegedly Maced by Cop

by Christopher Frizzelle • Saturday at 5:38 pm

Protesters say this kid was Maced by an officer right before the video below was shot.
Protesters say this kid was Maced by an officer right before the video below was taken. Screenshot from Evan Hreha's video

Protesters allege that this kid was Maced by a police officer while protesting in the streets of downtown Seattle today.

The protesters say the officer who Maced this kid is J Campbell, according to images of his uniform provided to The Stranger. The video appears to show various people treating the girl's face.

Watch:

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News

Seattle Protests for George Floyd Shut Down I-5, Durkan Announces Curfew, Inslee Activates National Guard

by Rich Smith • Saturday at 4:54 pm

Demonstrators took the protest against police brutality to the freeway.
Demonstrators took the protest against police brutality to the freeway. CB

After hours of demonstrations and speeches calling for justice for George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis earlier in the week, on Saturday afternoon police and protestors clashed near Westlake downtown.

Police say protestors threw water bottles at officers, prompting the cops to fire flash bangs and tear gas into the crowd. "The crowd has set several patrol cars on fire in the downtown core near Westlake Center. Several arrests have been made," according to the Seattle Police Department.

Part of the crowd marched to I-5, eventually shutting down both the southbound and northbound lanes at Seneca.

At the request of Seattle, Gov. Jay Inslee "activated" the Washington National Guard. Two hundred soldiers will work "unarmed" to "help protect against property damage and manage crowds and traffic during downtown protests," according to a release.

At around 4:45 p.m. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Police Chief Carmen Best, and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins announced a 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. curfew for today and Sunday, effective 15 minutes after the order. The curfew is "voluntary" and the city "does not intend to enforce the curfew, except for violations that result in public health and safety threats including fires, extensive property damage, and violence," according to a press release.

More on the curfew:

The temporary curfew does not impact people who need to commute to work during these hours, people experiencing homelessness, people in a medical emergency or people in a dangerous situation, first responders, health care workers, and the news media. In addition, the curfew does not require businesses to close while it is in effect, and it will not alter public transit schedules.

Updates:

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Books

Take a Break and Read a Fucking Poem: "RIOT" by Gwendolyn Brooks

by Rich Smith • Friday at 6:10 pm

In the spring of 1968, James Earl Ray's assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked uprisings across the country. Protestors in Chicago, tired of putting up with racist bullshit every second of their lives, burned and looted the west side for over two days, racking up millions in property damage and leaving at least nine dead.

At that time, Haki Madhubuti, then don l. lee, was running a magazine called Black Expressions. According to D.H. Melhem's Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice, Madhubuti commissioned a poem about those uprisings from the great poet of Chicago, Gwendolyn Brooks, who turned in "RIOT: A Poem in Three Parts." You can find it in her book, Blacks, which may or may not be available in local bookstores.

A few notes on Part I of the poem:

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News • Housekeeping • Cops • Slog AM/PM • Coronavirus

Slog PM: Killer Cop Charged With Murder, Inslee Sets New Guidelines, Chase Was on KUOW

by Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 5:55 pm

Chase Burns chatting with Mohammed Kloub of Crosscut and Kevin Schofield of SCCI on KUOWs Week in Review with Bill Radke
Chase Burns chatting with Mohammed Kloub of Crosscut and Kevin Schofield of SCCI on KUOW's Week in Review with Bill Radke Screenshot by Jasmyne Keimig
Your real Slog PM daddy, Chase Burns, was on KUOW's Week in Review this afternoon: Listen here to Chase talk about crop circles and Kanopy while host Bill Radke plays a cute clip of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Trump is ending our nation's ties with World Health Organization saying China has "total control" over the specialized agency. The U.S. is the single largest contributor to WHO, giving more than $400 million to them last year.

A fifth child in Washington state is confirmed to have contracted a COVID-related inflammatory syndrome called a multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). The child is under 10 and located in Yakima, though was recently transferred to Seattle Children's Hospital for more intensive care, says KOMO. The disease can be fatal and is more proof that younger people can also experience serious complications after getting coronavirus.

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Unstreamable

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila Is Unstreamable

by Chase Burns and Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 5:30 pm

Cheeky? Or alt-right?
Cheeky? Or alt-right? Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for MAXIM

Unstreamable is a weekly column that finds films and TV shows you can't watch on major streaming services in the United States. This week: Tila Tequila invents the intellectual dark web in A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, a wealthy man's son is kidnapped in Ransom, a helicopter almost crashes into the World Trade Center in The Hot Rock, and a woman gets the hottest phone sex call of all time in The Telephone Book.

If you're thinking: "Unstreamable? In this pandemic?" Scarecrow Video offers DVD takeout and a great rental-by-mail service so you can safely rent rare DVDs during self-isolation. Click here to learn more about their program.

A SHOT AT LOVE WITH TILA TEQUILA
United States, 2007-2008, Lots of minutes, Created by Riley McCormick, SallyAnn Salsano

A cursed object.
A cursed object. CB

How do we begin to talk about Ms. Tila Tequila? The MySpace star-cum-"bisexual" "icon"-cum-Adolf Hitler supporter is a chaotic, bad, horny memory that many millennial queers indelibly remember but would love to forget. Her bisexual dating show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which ran for two seasons on MTV, is definitely her biggest cultural offering. It managed to earn the lofty accolade of being MTV's second highest-rated series premiere of 2007, and was also, somehow, billed as pioneering representation for lesbian and bisexual women.

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Savage Love

Spanking Spouses, Creepy Creepers, Lousy Lovers — Reader Advice Roundup!

by Dan Savage • Friday at 4:35 pm

1582309877-savage-letter-of-the-day-stamp-2020.jpg

This week's Savage Love Letters of the Day: what to expect when you're expecting to run into a coworker who accidentally flashed her boobs in a Zoom meeting; at what temperature should one keep one's tits when one is crushing on someone during a pandemic; how guilty should a guy feel about getting spanked behind his husband's back; and just how annoyed is a wife allowed to feel about the "maintenance spankings" her husband needs. And, of course, this week's Savage Love and this week's Savage Lovecast.

First up, regarding SPANK...

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News • Coronavirus

Washington Re-Opens Gradually, Seattleites Can Get Haircuts

by Nathalie Graham • Friday at 4:20 pm

Haircut small talk advice: How do you feel being a frontline worker?
Haircut small talk advice: "How do you feel being a frontline worker?" ZORAN ZEREMSKI/GETTY IMAGES

Washington is done with "Stay Home, Stay Healthy." Now, we're moving into "Safe Start." That's the branding for Washington's phased re-opening. Gov. Jay Inslee described it as leaving one "lifeboat" for another. We just need to make sure it doesn't have any holes in it, he said.

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EverOut

This Week's Seattle Takeout & Delivery News: Manny’s Cans, Caffe Vita Reopens, Another Farmers Market Returns, and More

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Friday at 2:55 pm

Georgetown Brewings wildly popular Mannys Pale Ale is now available in cans! Buy a case or two at the brewery or try your luck at your local grocery store, knowing that all proceeds will be donated to relief programs for service industry workers.
Georgetown Brewing's wildly popular Manny's Pale Ale is now available in cans! Buy a case or two at the brewery or try your luck at your local grocery store, knowing that all proceeds will be donated to relief programs for service industry workers. Georgetown Brewing Company via Facebook

As far as your appetite is concerned, there's a lot to be excited about this week. We've rounded up newly reopened spots offering takeout and delivery, new specials, and other stuff you might like to know, from new omakase dinners from Sushi Kashiba to the return of the Queen Anne Farmers Market and Caffe Vita to a Sunday Funday Pop-Up at Citizen this Sunday. Read on for details, and check out our complete takeout and delivery directory and our ongoing list of to-go restaurant specials for more ideas.

REOPEN FOR TAKEOUT

Blazing Bagels
The Bellevue location of the local bagel shop is up and running again. Order stand-alone bagels, sandwiches, bagel dogs, and more for pickup through their website.

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Drag

A Drag Performer's Guide to the Creative Prompts in Lady Gaga's Chromatica

by Matt Baume • Friday at 2:00 pm


Hello, beauties. As you know, Lady Gaga has released her new album of creative prompts for your drag shows, and as we’re all cooped up indoors right now, you’re in a perfect position to begin work IMMEDIATELY on your Chromatica lip syncs. We’ll be expecting to see a high level of polish in your virtual livestreams, as well as if it’s ever safe to re-open performance venues in the US.

As I’m sure you’ve all listened to the album by now, I expect that you already have numerous ideas for your upcoming drag routines. But in case you need a cheat sheet to the various prompts in each song, I’ve compiled them into a handy list. Heterosexuals, you may read this as well. We’ll let you know when our shows are ready for you.

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EverOut

The 53 Best Social Distancing-Friendly Things To Do in Seattle This Weekend: May 29-31, 2020

by Stranger EverOut Staff • Friday at 12:05 pm

Its the last weekend to stream renowned choreographer Pat Graneys Faith Triptych, three performances spanning from 1991-2001, via On the Boards.
It's the last weekend to stream renowned choreographer Pat Graney's Faith Triptych, three performances spanning from 1991-2001, via On the Boards. Tim Summers

It's a regular two-day weekend, whatever that means to you right now, and we hope you get some time away from your responsibilities to enjoy some good old-fashioned virtual entertainment. To help you decide where to tune in, we've rounded up our picks for the best social distancing-friendly events, from Last Call at Re-bar to Christopher Frizzelle's Quarantine Book Club (no prep required), and from the Fussy Cloud Puppet Slam to Project Pride, hosted by NPR's Ari Shapiro. Read on for all our top picks for the weekend, and, for even more options, check out our roundup of the best movies to stream this weekend and our complete streaming events calendar.

FRIDAY

COMEDY
Improv Happy Hour: Unexpected Experiments
If aspects of your life in quarantine are starting to feel too predictable, shake things up with an hour-long happy hour with Unexpected Productions' improv crew. The theme is "couples." The series ends tonight, so don't miss out.

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The Confinement Online Film Fest Returns This Saturday—Here's Why You Shouldn't Miss It

by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey • Friday at 10:50 am

A Covid-19 Love Story: Marc & Mary from the CoFF film fest.
A Covid-19 Love Story: Marc & Mary from the CoFF film fest.

Make no mistake: This pandemic and subsequent quarantine have messed us up more than we'd like to admit. One of humankind's greatest attributes is our ability to adapt—but there's something definitely lost when we change without stopping to think about how and the reasons why we've changed.

And that's where the entertaining, funny, and sweet Confinement (online) Film Festival (CoFF) comes in—returning this Saturday at 6 pm after last weekend's spectacular debut!

Here's how it all started: We asked local amateur filmmakers, artists, and creative people to send us short homemade movies that demonstrate how we are living, surviving (and occasionally thriving) under quarantine and social distancing orders... and oh boy! DID YOU DELIVER! We received a poop-ton of fantastic, funny, poignant, and mind-bending submissions, and narrowed it down to the 25 best of the bunch to bring you the CoFF film fest.

Here's what we didn't expect: We knew you would be creative and fun... no surprise there. But your submissions were also thoughtful, poignant, and when put together in one evening of entertainment, it opens a window into our collective experience. CoFF features personal journeys from around the world, and while many of these short, five-minute films made us laugh our asses off, and occasionally say, "Yep... that's me!", there was also an unmistakable feeling of community—that others are experiencing this same strange, sometimes heartbreaking reality, and we aren't alone.

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Film/TV • Quarantine Quickie

Collide-O-Scope, Seattle's Favorite Gawk-Fest, Streams on Monday

by Chase Burns • Friday at 9:40 am

I have a confession: I arrived late to the Collide-O-Scope party. I didn't see my first Collide-O-Scope until last year, and it's one of my top regrets of the last decade.

The once biweekly Re-bar event smashes found footage into hazy, psychedelic, mad, and gay shorts based around themes like "Hygiene Hijinks" or "Musical Extravaganzas" or "Tough Dames." It's created by Michael Anderson and Shane Wahlund, and while this is probably not news to you—we've been writing about these guys since they started this thing almost 10 years ago—their "half video art installation and half stoner gawk-fest" is one of the best things to watch while you're stoned.

Outside of the Re-Bar event, Collide-O-Scope was only viewable through the DVDs they would sell at their gigs, including their exceptional Best of the Worst DVD, which I wrote about for our Unstreamable column last year. The welcome package to Seattle should include this DVD and a pack of joints.

But Sloggers, we've got great news: Collide-O-Scope is unstreamable no more. Starting Monday, Collide-O-Scope will start streaming their expertly crafted, mind-melting, often hilarious stream of consciousness video extravaganzas every second and fourth Mondays via The Stranger, starting in June. If you're new to Collide-O-Scope, or have ever wanted to share it with people outside of Seattle, or just want to revisit it because you fucking miss going to Re-Bar and watching this signature mix of mashup madness, NOW IS THE TIME TO WATCH. And by now, I mean every second and fourth Monday.

Food & Drink • City • Coronavirus

Dan Strauss Calls for Allowing Outdoor Dining in the Middle of Ballard Ave NW

by Christopher Frizzelle • Friday at 8:50 am

Councilmember Strauss on Ballard Avenue NW, which he proposes shutting to traffic and repurposing for outdoor dining.
Councilmember Strauss is working with the city on a pilot program that would shut Ballard Avenue NW to car traffic on the weekends and turn into a "cafe street." Courtesy of Dan Strauss

Cities around the world are getting creative with zoning and letting restaurants expand into streets, because outdoor transmission is rare, and letting businesses occupy at fuller capacity—by putting a whole bunch of tables and chairs outside—will give them a better shot of surviving this crisis.

Dan Strauss says that when he read this Stranger piece yesterday, that was not the first time this idea has been floated. "This is a proposal that I've heard from the small business I've been working with," he says, adding that "small businesses on Ballard Ave NW reached out weeks ago, and we've been working with city departments to develop a pilot program that could be rolled out as King County enters Phase 2."

He stresses, "We need to be ready to use our public space and public right-of-ways in a way that promotes our small businesses, protects public health, and increases the ability for pedestrians to use our public right-of-ways. And cafe streets are absolutely one of these options."

If the phrase "cafe streets" fills your head with thoughts of Amsterdam or Paris, you are not alone.

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News

Slog AM: Hong Kong Protesters Make Good Use of Those Horrible Leaf Blowers, Protests Planned in Seattle, Trump Threatens to Shoot Looters In the Twin Cities

by Charles Mudede • Friday at 8:15 am

Moving leaves with a machine? Really? Capitalism. Capitalism.
Moving leaves with a machine? Really? Capitalism. Capitalism. AleksandarGeorgiev/gettyimages.com

UPDATE: AP reports that the fired officer whose knee cut George Floyd's life short at the neck, Derek Chauvin, is finally behind bars. He has been charged with third-degree murder, which is defined by the intention to cause physical harm, rather than death.

Leaf Blowers: We must hate them because they make too much noise and burn fossil fuel for no good reason: moving leaves from here to there. What these machines do can be done with far less noise and air pollution simply by raking. That said, people protesting China's attempt to shutdown Hong Kong's feisty democracy are using leaf blowers to disperse tear gas.
Core 77:

As the Hong Kong protests stretch into their fourth month, resisters have developed a series of clever DIY defense methods. "Demonstrators have formed special 'units' in charge of tackling tear gas who leap into action as soon as a canister is fired," the AFP reports.

This Is How You Do It: "Washington businesses face fines of $10,000 or more for not following coronavirus rules." The virus is no joke. If you endanger the public's health because you want to assert the apparently God-given right "to truck, barter, and exchange," then the state (which represents the public) is required to administer a punishment that leaves you smarting.

This Is How You Don't Do It: "Gov. Inslee eases restrictions on religious gatherings." There is absolutely no need to go all soft on the lovers of some super-ape who is storied to have created the whole universe. These people can wait for God. Their God is going nowhere soon. Trust us non-believers. We very well know that God will be around until the extinction of the clever ape on a star.

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Message to the City

A Message to the City from Timothy De Clue

by The Stranger • Friday at 8:00 am

Timothy De Clue is the owner of the Timothy De Clue Collection on First Avenue.
He is the owner of Timothy De Clue Collection on First Avenue. Courtesy of Timothy De Clue

Remember weekend shopping? Going to stores, bumping into people? We don't either.

The retail sector is being devastated by this crisis. All those shops in the downtown shopping district—what is going on with the people who own them? Are their shops along First Avenue going to survive this?

Today we check in on one, Timothy De Clue, whose store offers "specialty barware, apothecary, seasonal décor, lighting, bespoke furniture and bedding, among other fine home pieces."

In his message, he talks about an Italian company that has switched from making luxury bedding to making masks—which you can buy.

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